God's Presence

Last Thursday night I went to the most amazing concert. The performers were Addison Road, Tenth Avenue North, Hawk Nelson (my boys), Jeremy Camp, and Mercy Me. The concert was only $10! I was so excited to see so many amazing bands for such a small amount of money. I was sad that only 7 PCCers went (Tim, Jana, Lorah, Rachel, Jason, Adrian, and I). I walked into the concert looking forward to seeing Jeremy Camp. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed all of the performers. The concert was held at the Citizens Bank Arena in Ontario (the minor league hockey team plays there). With the ticket price being so low, there were so many people that came out for the show. It was an amazing 3 hours of worshiping God. All of the bands did a wonderful job of centering their music on God and not on themselves. Hawk Nelson was a lot of fun (as usual). I always enjoy seeing them perform. They have so much energy and great facial expressions. When Addison Road was performing, I text messaged my friend Pat because I knew that he was going to the concert too. I told him what section I was in and then he told me he could see me. Rachel and I waved and then Pat and his friend Jeff waved back. It was pretty cool to be able to see each other from so far away. At some points during the concert, I could see Pat jumping up and down like a crazy person (pretty normal for Pat).

I have been to many Christians concerts in my 19 years of life, but never to one that has been so powerfully Christ centered. There are only a handful of times where I have felt the presence of God so strongly, that night was one of those times. During one of Jeremy Camp’s songs, I was brought to tears thinking about the day that I will kneel at the feet of Jesus and praise him for the rest of eternity. The entire night I felt God’s presence in that arena. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed Mercy Me. There are a few songs by them that I really love, but I often get annoyed with them when I hear them on the radio. I really enjoyed all the songs that they sang that night. The lead singer has an amazing talent. It is so neat to see these bands using their talents and gifts for the glory of God.

Thankfulness

Life has been a very trying and difficult the past few weeks. I have been having a hard time trying to grasp why there is so much pain and agony in this world. As a Christian, I know that this is because of the fall of man and that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Cancer is the main thing that I can’t seem to understand. Every Christian sins and fails time and time again, but I don’t understand why so many good people are diagnosed with such a horrible disease. I have always known about how terrible cancer is and how it has affected my family in the past. Unfortunately, this year, I have had to experience watching several people suffer from it. Not only have I seen some of these people suffer, but have seen their families and friends suffer along with them. As I lay in bed every night and pray, I find myself asking God why he could allow these wonderful people to suffer like this. More often than not, I am brought to tears when thinking about it. God has been so comforting and strengthening throughout my relationship with Him. It is so hard when I doubt his power to heal. Every time I think about cancer and the negative effects that it has, I get very angry. I tend to think the worst and instead of hoping for the best. Throughout this past month, I believe that God has been working through me and in my heart to teach me that someone being diagnosed with cancer is not the end of the world.

This past weekend I took 3 friends (Lorah, Rachel, and Lynnae) to my hometown of Ripon. I had pretty low expectations for the weekend and was instead blessed tremendously by my family and friends. There were some things that I was really hoping to do while I was home and ended up getting to busy to do them. In the end it was all okay. Even with only about 60 hours actually spent in Nor Cal, I felt that I grew so much closer to my family and to my friends (from PCC and home). There are so many days that I wake up and dwell on all the heartache and pain that I am feeling. I want to so badly to be able to not do this and to, instead, concentrate on the many blessings that God has given me. This weekend really showed me how much I truly have to be thankful for. There are so many people that have played a role in helping me get to this point in my life. If I sat here and listed them all, I think that this would end up being on the longest blog entries in history. There is only one that deserves the most praise and honor for getting me here: My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

One of my favorite radio stations down here is Air 1 (the Christian alternative channel) I have signed up to be on their e-mail list and they send a daily Bible verse. Today, I was feeling pretty discouraged and this was the verse that was sent: "He will give you all you need from day to day if you live for Him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. " Matthew 6:33. (NLT)

Praise God for His almighty greatness and the grace that he provides to his people every day.

Spring Break '09

I can’t believe that Spring Break has already come and gone. It feels like not too long ago I was sitting on the couch in my family room opening my plane ticket to South Carolina that my parents bought me. I think that it was by far one of the best gifts that I have ever received. Remembering back to Christmases and birthdays that have passed, I have been given some pretty great things. None could compare to this one. This was a gift that just kept giving.

At 5am on Thursday, February 20, my friend Pat picked me up and brought me to the Ontario airport. It was a very early start to my day. My first flight to Atlanta left Ontario at 6:35. It was a good flight and I slept most of the time. Once I landed in Atlanta I had a 1 hour and 15 minute layover. I made phone calls to my mom and dad and to Pat. I ended up talking to Pat for pretty much my entire layover, which was nice. I have flown by myself before, but only from Ontario to Sacramento. I have never had to do connecting flights by myself and had to sit so long in airports by myself…so needless to say, it was nice to have someone to talk to. My flight from Atlanta to Charlotte was nice and short. When I came down the escalator and saw Aunt Kristina, Lily, Marielle, and Paisley I couldn’t help but smile. In fact, I couldn’t stop smiling for quite a while. In the car on the way to Boiling Springs, South Carolina, Lily and Marielle were quite the chatterboxes. Every few minutes it was, “Bekah, Bekah, Bekah……” It was so cute.

Friday morning Lily woke me up at 7:30am…which would be 4:30 California time. Needless to say, I was just a tad tired. Lily had preschool yesterday so she was gone for the morning. My Aunt Kristina and I got ready and got Marielle and Paisley ready. Then we went and picked up Lily from school. We decided to go to Chick Fil A (the girls say it with a southern accent. It’s pretty cute) After lunch we went to a pottery painting place which was interesting. The girls lost interest pretty fast. Last night I babysat so that Aunt Kristina could go to her MOPs dinner.

Saturday morning, Lily, Marielle, and I made monkey bread for breakfast. After we all got ready we went and got pictures taken at the mall. It went pretty well. Then we drove around Greenville and looked at all kinds of really cute houses and awesome churches.On Sunday we all slept through church on accident..woops. Instead we stayed around the house and had a pretty lazy day, which was really nice. That night at about 7, it started snowing! we got the girls in their jackets and headed outside. they were very excited about it (AND so was I). Last night we started to watch August Rush and then the power went out. It was out for about for about 5 hours. It came back on at about 2 am. I was already asleep by then.

Monday morning Lily came and woke me up so that we could go play in the snow. It was absolutely gorgeous outside. The girls had fun playing in the snow. After playing in the snow for a while we came in and had breakfast. Since the roads were all icy today we ended up not going anywhere. The people here don't really know how to drive in snow and there are lots of accidents that end up happening, so my uncle prefers that we stay here. We finished watching August Rush (which is an amazing movie!!!!).

On Tuesday, we finally got to leave the house after been cooped up for 2 days. We tried to go bowling, but the bowling alley didn’t have power, so they were closed. We just ended up going to McDonalds and hanging out there for a while. On Tuesday night, Aunt Kristina, Paisley and I went out to a movie and to dinner. It was a lot of fun to get some time to talk and hang out without children running around everywhere.

On Wednesday Lily had school again, so we had another semi quiet morning. After picking her up we went and got some lunch and then went to Wal Mart. While we were there I bought the girls each a stuffed animal. They had a lot of fun with them and pretended that they were cars.

Thursday morning we all got up and got ready to go away for the weekend. We drove about 3 hours to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It was a nice, interesting drive there. We went through a couple very interesting little towns. One had the county jail smack dab in the middle of town. Once we got to Pigeon Forge we settled into our hotel and took a while just to relax. We decided to go drive around and explore the outlet malls and get some dinner.

On Friday, we did a lot more shopping and took the girls to a mini amusement park and they got to ride the train and the carousel. The girls had a ton of fun with it and didn’t want to leave.

Saturday, Paul came and met us to spend the rest of the weekend there. Before Paul got there, Aunt Kristina, the girls, and I walked around the town of Gatlinburg. Later on in the day we went to Ripley’s aquarium. It was a lot of fun to see the girls’ reactions to all the different kinds of fish.

On Sunday we packed up and headed back for South Carolina. We drove through the Great Smokey Mountains and made a stop in Cherokee.

Monday was my last day and we spent it just hanging around the house and relaxing. It was a nice time just hanging out with the girls and talking with Kristina. My flights home went well and I ended up sitting my some pretty interesting people, which made the flight seem shorter.

Being back at school is nice, but things are starting to pick up and become really busy. Only 49 days left of the semester!

More Pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=18069&id=1051860014&l=92fe2

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=18293&id=1051860014&l=1f905

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=18614&id=1051860014&l=ee715