Changes

Life is full of them . . . can I get an AMEN!!

Good, bad, lateral, good that turn to bad later, and horrible that turn out better than you could ever have dreamed.

Regardless they're everywhere and sometimes even come in multiples.

That's the case with me presently. Changes in multiples.

Let me start at the very beginning. . .it's a very good place to start after all ;-) (it's so good to be back to writing!!)

I have been a member of my church - Grand Parkway since I was in middle school - for those of you doing the math - that's three years of middle school, four years of high school, and I've been graduated for about eleven years!! All in all about 18 years. That's madness people. That means I've been going to Grand Parkway longer than I haven't.

Grand Parkway is my home. Filled with people who love me and know me and visa versa. People who will call me on my crap in love (Marcie - I love you for that and will forever be grateful.)

You know - that deserves a paragraph of it's own . . this is MY blog after all.

One of the most amazing women I have ever had the honor and privilege to know and be able to call friend is Marcie. Truly she is a woman after God's own heart, and she is one of the role models in my life for what a woman of God, and Godly mother should look like. The love she has for her children is physically visible when they enter the room - her eyes light up and fill with love. The love she has for the people around her is obvious in the way she doesn't shy away from those that others might. Her love of the Word of God is obvious every time she speaks. It was after going through a bible study with her, and then that fateful night at coffee where she kicked my tush in love and I have never forgotten it, that my life changed. I love that fact that she loved me enough to bruise me to keep me from bleeding. I love that she spoke refreshing truth into my life and told me to GET UP. Talitha Koum. It was from then that I started the journey of living out what that means.

Getting up and not waiting on someone to come along and pick me up. Me getting up and following where God leads, not along with someone else. . . but me.

I could tell you countless stories of other amazing people I have gotten to know at my church, people with a passion for missions, a passion for God's word, sweet sweet people with a heart to let girls know that they are beautiful just the way they are and that their weight or what they do or don't put in their mouth doesn't make them beautiful. (Amy!!). Amazing musicians, amazing youth, kids, "mature" adults, receptionists who I let get away with calling me BeccaDinkyDo and am sad when she doesn't because I know it's her way of showing she cares. To say I love my church is an understatement. I love their heart, their passion for the Lord, and for the Truth.

THIS is why I have been fighting God for some time now. The changes I spoke about earlier are the places God is currently leading me - or has been trying to lead me.

At Grand Parkway I'm a part of the missions team, I work in the nursery, and I help back in the sound booth as needed. Starting immediately I'm stepping down off the missions team, and then in a few months I'll step off the children's team, and then after my mission trip this summer I will officially begin looking for a new church. Not church home mind you . .. but new temporary church.

I need to be around people who are my age and are in the same place in life. People to do life with. . .and putting myself out there to find the Mr. that God has for me. I want to make this perfectly clear. . I am NOT going man hunting. . that is not why I'm leaving. I am leaving because God has told me to go, and I need to be apart of a small group with people my age. If a Mr. is part of that then AMEN but I'm not man hunting. Just had to throw that out there.

There have already been tears on the part of the two families that I babysit for. Families that BETTER keep calling me!! There have been tears on my part . . I don't do alone so well or new so well. This is a step of faith and a change that I'm most definitely ends up better than I could have ever imagined.

Here's to Change.