Worthy.

I've surpassed the 6 month mark (almost 7 months now) of being in Romania, which brings my total time of living here (including the 6 months in 2014) to 1 year!  It's been a beautiful challenge, full of magnificent valleys and vast peaks, all shaping my identity in Christ.  

When you're surrounded by ministry daily, you can sometimes put your personal relationship with God at a lower importance than it ever should be.  I began to make this mistake.  In the beginning of 2016, I knew something needed to change in my schedule.  I didn't feel right walking away from any of the ministries I work with, so waking up early became a priority for me - Time specifically set aside to build and further my relationship with Christ.  This is imperative for me spiritually.  
About a month ago I became pretty sick, pneumonia or something of the sort, so I was (and still am) sleeping a lot more.  Physically, I almost always feel exhausted (the last couple weeks have been a little better, Praise God!).  Because of that, I haven't been waking up at 5 to have my daily time with God and I can tell spiritually it's having an impact...There's a restlessness inside of me, things distracting me that wouldn't normally distract me, and things/habits of "Becky Past" that are taunting me in the distance. Blah.  No thank you!

As I began to prepare to write this, I was reflecting on a conversation I had with someone back in April.  It was about my worth and how I see myself and most importantly, how God sees me.  I was thinking about using the conversation as a base for this blog post and over the course of the next couple weeks prior to writing this, some things transpired and I put posting this on hold...and I'm so glad I did.  
​A few weekends ago, I listened to a sermon series on Ephesians chapter 1 and it's about your identity in Christ.  I've heard sermons on this before and I even finished reading Ephesians the week before and reflected on each chapter, but something about how it focused on just chapter one and dissected it, made me question how I've been allowing(or limiting) God to work in my life.  

It talked about what/who defines us: Words spoken over us, seasons we are in or have experienced, our past, our ability in different areas of life, our things, our jobs, ect.  All these things are variables.  I need to make sure that I'm rooted in something that's not going to change...God.  When my identity or worth is found in a variable it's a very dangerous place to be; a place that I find myself in more than I care to admit.  But the beautiful thing is God gets the last word about me.  I'm His chosen daughter.  As I was listening to the poetic words, I began to realize that I can't comprehend the idea of being chosen by God if I don't see my undeniable worth in Him.  When God speaks chosen over my life it breaks any hurt, any abandonment, or any lies this world tries to sell me.  

If I can be transparent for a moment, this is extremely hard for me...especially breaking the lies that have been spoken over my life.  I'm in a season of deep healing from some thing(s) I've kept suppressed for so long and I'm finally (slowly) allowing God to break the hurt, abandonment, and lies on the deepest level.  It was during my time in Celebrate Recovery the last few years that I began my healing process, and silly me, assumed that addressing some of my issues was "good enough".  God wants to heal all of me...the deepest parts, not just the superficial parts.  He wants to take all of my brokenness and make me whole in His Son.  It's finally time for me to allow Him in and allow myself to fully trust Him.  If I can simply do that, I will see my undeniable worth in Him and truly know that I'm His chosen daughter.  

This post I decided to make more personal and less ministry based.  In a few weeks I'll do another post of The Faces of Hope so make sure you check back!  
As always, thank you for taking the time to read this, pray for me and for being a part of missions with me!  I wouldn't be able to do all of this if it wasn't for the army of support God has provided me with! I'm so grateful for each and every one of you!
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xx,
Becky

***I'd like to take this opportunity to ask my readers to pray for me.  Since listening to the sermons a few weeks ago, I've been challenged in a few different ways on all fronts; Spiritually, emotionally and physically.  I won't go into details, but among other things, I'm noticing walls I've worked so hard to tear down I have begun to build back up...Trust being a big part of that.   I see a direct correlation between God's movement in my life and the devil's distractions these last couple months.***

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