Well, I suppose it's appropriate that I waited until after Friday to continue writing, since Friday was NOT my favorite day last week. Saturday was when everything changed. After "giving" God my fear of failure, my sense of inadequacy, my belief that I earned the favor of God and others through my actions- I felt set FREE to just be myself. I stopped worrying about if I was being too "pastor-y" and started asking people more questions and caring for them as people- not because I HAD to, but simply because I felt like it would please God.

My inner theater-dork came out in FULL-FORCE as my table-group and I devised a couple of seriously stupid skits in which I played a superhero and a fish, respectively. I may or may not have run around in a cape and mask, doing barrel rolls on the ground and/or turned my hands into gills on my cheeks and flailed like a fish caught in a line. This is how one earns the nickname, "Crazy Lady." This is also how one ends up with bruised knees and a strained gluteous-maximus. Guess I'm old. But hey-it's all for Jesus.

There were a couple women from my church also attending this weekend with me, and at first I thought, "I don't want to be their pastor on this weekend. I just want to be me." But I realized on Saturday that "me" IS their pastor. And I wanted to be a part of their lives. As I tried to just follow where I felt the Holy Spirit leading me, I got to have some AMAZING conversations and times of powerful prayer with not only these women, but some others as well!

I was reminded of when I first really felt called into ministry- it was back at the end of high school. On my very last mission trip, there was a kid who was new to the church who decided to give his life to Christ at the end of the week. And somehow, I got to be a part of that conversation and prayer! I remember thinking how amazing that was and how THAT was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I know now that ministry is much more than those mountain-top moments- there's a lot of seed-planting, for which you don't always get to see the fruit. But man- it was SO GOOD for my heart to see some harvest last weekend. It made me remember why I got into this business in the first place!

By the end of the weekend, I felt extremely overjoyed for the amazing work I saw God doing in so many women's lives around me. And I was so grateful for the ways I got to participate in some of that. I felt very affirmed and confirmed in my call to ministry. My greatest joy is pointing people to Jesus and that's what I got to do all weekend, and that's essentially what I get to do everyday! With no sense of sadness or "what about me?" I really felt like I got to witness God powerfully at work in OTHER people's lives last weekend.

But after a week has passed, I am realizing more and more that God was and God IS doing some amazing things in MY life as well....

Through a series of events (and a lot of prayer), last weekend led to a conversation of reconciliation between me and one of my coworkers with whom I'd had a long-strained relationship.

On the weekend, my Crazy-Lady antics caught the attention of one of the leaders, a woman who has given much of her life to leading Young Life here in town. As we talked and got to know one another, the thought popped into my head, "What if SHE is the mentor you've been praying for?" You see, for almost a year now I have been praying that God would provide an older woman NOT from my congregation to guide and care for me; a person with whom I would not be "Pastor Becca" but just Becca; a person who loved Jesus and could help me do the same. I asked her if maybe we might go to coffee sometime and chat. And Chat we did! Yesterday we met for a coffee-date and we talked for two-and-a-half hours! She invited me to be a part of a Bible study she leads AND invited me to do coffee again in a couple weeks. I left so full of joy and excitement and hope. I don't know yet what this relationship will look like, but I am so GRATEFUL for it!

The weekend also answered an even longer-standing prayer for me. During seminary, like many others before me, I had a hard time really FEELING much passion for Jesus. The Bible was a textbook and God was a specimen under a microscope. I studied and studied and learned many important theological ideas... but I had a hard time connecting those ideas to real life. I knew I BELIEVED the Christian faith, but I couldn't wrap my heart around why it all MATTERED. What difference did all this stuff make anyhow? These questions bothered me tremendously, and yet I could not shake them, nor could I find the answers. This weekend gave me the answers. I got to see the big ideas we learned about- ideas like Justification, Sanctification, Eschatology and the Kingdom of God- lived out in people's lives. I saw people transformed and set free as they invited Jesus into their lives for the first or 50th time. I saw people commit themselves to pursuing life with Christ, not just an hour on Sunday. I saw people with real, significant burdens find hope beyond this life. And I experienced worship and self-sacrificing love in a community of people who were so different from one another, yet shared the bond of Christ. THIS is why all THAT matters.

I didn't expect all this to happen. I did not anticipate becoming one of those people who can't help but GUSH about how cool Jesus is when people ask, "Hey, how was your weekend?" I didn't expect it. But Jesus IS cool! And boy am I glad I got to see it.