"i just wanna have fun"!

Its coming up for summer and would say I’m a summer girl.

I love summer, I love the sun, I love the heat, I love going to the beach and lake with all my friends. Summer just seems such a great season of fellowship, barbeque's. Its all awesome!!

But I caught myself thinking, thinking about the definition of ‘fun’.

What is fun?

So as We are approaching the summer season our ultimate agenda of summer is FUN,

We gotta look at this from God’s perspective, biblical perspective.
Summer just seems like we end up doing anti-biblical and we pursue pleasure instead!
Anytime you pursue pleasure you are going to face trouble.

Sin is fun, if it was’t fun we wouldn't have any problems. Don’t ever let anyone say to you that sin is not fun. Don’t DE-funk sin.
We are living in a culture, in a world that has bought into a huge lie this false market of what FUN is.
Sin is fun, but sin is fun for ONLY a SEASON
For the moment….. Living for the moment.
think about it
If it’s not fun in the morning it is not fun! If I can’t laugh about it in church it is not fun! Seriously lets get real, lets get honest with ourselves about it.

Seriously what is fun? What defines fun? What does the bible say about fun? What does our culture say? What is fun?? I have a lot of questions as you can see. But we have all found ourselves asking ourselves these questions.

We gotta define the whining teenagers response and even adults
“I just wanna have fun”
Is it a momentary feeling that we have? Is it a substance that we put in our bodies That gives us this feeling.

IS THIS FUN? -






I have kids saying that its fun! pre-martial sex is fun, marijuana is fun, dirty dancing is fun you know what sin is fun, I'm not going to lie this is all fun but this kind of fun will only last for a season then you will find yourself unsatisfied, empty and confused!

Is it fun when you feel shame and guilt after?

Culture says it is fun. Culture says do it more, and you wont think about it and it will be alright and it’s a vicious cycle over and over and over and over again and it restricts you and puts you in bondage of your own pursuit of pleasure and you are NEVER satisfied!!

I hate hate hate how the enemy has tricked this world with this lie of what fun is, this reality of fun that puts your straight into bondage, that momentary of fun with the person you just slept with when drunk your now pregnant and thinking what did i get myself into? and now your restricted because your going to have a child for the rest of your life or now you have STD.
Hold up for a moment! Don’t get mad of what you just read here, understand that God can transform and restore, what I’m trying to bring us down to is what do we know is fun?

okay Bekah we get the point now, so what is fun? all my friends at school are doing it, they seem to have fun.

John 10:10 New living translation,
i
The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and
destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

THIS was a huge wake up call for me. – that Jesus, his PURPOSE is to give YOU and I a satisfying life, a full life, a life to ALL its fullness, abundantly to the MAXIMUM!
HELLO??? its says JESUS his purpose, God’s purpose coming down here to earth was to give ME life to the fullest!!

God refuses to call fun what cannot satisfy.
God says fun is fulfillment and he wants to satisfy the desires of your heart!

God says my kinda fun is fulfillment.

What does the bible define as fun? Psalms 16 :11 presence comes before pleasure. If you get God’s presence you get everything! Pleasures forevermore.

Are you having fun yet??
If your not, go back to the book and find out what fun is!!

my very first sermon

Be careful what you pray for and what you ask God to do in your life, if you pray that God will open new doors for you, be prepared because he’s going to do exactly that! Its up to you to step out of the boat.
God really loves to surprise me, stretch me, and challenge me, and open doors for me.

I got asked a couple of months ago to speak at Comox valley Christian school…. Jokingly I said yes.
So I’ve been praying these past few weeks on what God would like me to speak on, I wasn’t given a theme or a subject but was told I could speak on anything. And the plan was to speak to the high school girls.
I had something prepared and it was going to be a talk on intimidation and inadequacy. …..And girl stuff.
We have some awesome beautiful girls that attend this school and I know that God has an amazing call on each one of them so I knew that this talk would be appropriate to them, because unfortunately the enemy loves to attack us on intimidation and inadequate thoughts about ourselves.
BUT - ‘We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us’!

I spoke at the school on May 1st…….. few days before I went to finish up on preparing my talk at Zocalo’s on 5th street Courtenay…. I love this little place!
As I was finishing off my points and outline the Holy Spirit decided to surprise me by saying ‘ your not going to be talking on this’.
I thought ‘Great!’ in a bit of a sarcastic tone, truthfully I wasn’t impressed
“I just spent lots of time on this! But Okay you know better! You better give me something quick!”

I’m having a little giggle to myself right now, God is good.

2 Days before I spoke I went to the church and was informed that the speaker for the guys had cancelled… and that I was now to speak to all off them.
My heart sank and I started to feel inadequate.
BUT! – It all made sense to why I wasn’t to speak on what I had prepared days before.

The DAY BEFORE I was to speak the Holy Spirit started to speak and so off I went with a pen and paper wrote for a few hours.
I was actually pretty impressed by what the Holy Spirit was giving me.

It was about our attitudes towards worship, could we really praise and worship God under any circumstance in any situation?
I love love love the story of Paul and Silus because every time I read it, I’m convicted! I’m really challenged and I love their attitude!
It was all about their attitude and choosing to worship God sooo this is what I started to prepare to talk on.

I was also very thankful to get a phone call from 2 of my closest friends Breanne and Lexi to let me know that they were coming along with me to the school to intercede while I preached. I have amazing friends…

I really couldn’t sleep the night before, not because I was nervous but because I was soooo STOKED! The Holy Spirit was just bubbling inside of me a fire in my belly!
I eventually Feel asleep around 1am and woke up at 6am not because I chose to but because the Holy Spirit told me to! And I’m glad he did because it was an awesome morning to spend with Jesus.

Off to the school I went…. A little nervous but Stoked!
We had worship in chapel and I realized why the Holy Spirit gave me the message I prepared…
What would we do without him directing our ways???

I was really surprised at how it all went, I love it when you can walk off stage from leading worship or preaching and saying ‘ I didn’t do any of that’!
That’s EXACTLY how I felt; I didn’t have to do anything but allow the Holy Spirit to speak through me.

I also had my first sermon blooper as well, I asked the kids to picture Paul and Silus situation in the prison what they could have felt like and told them to picture them NAKED!!! – Then I quickly corrected myself!
But it was a good laugh, we all laughed!
After the chapel I took all the girls for a bible class and took them outside in the sunshine! It was awesome! We all had lots of fun, and I loved loved sharing and having fellowship with each one of them.

I’ve been completely challenged these past few weeks that I know that God has a plan for me, and the things that have been prophesied over me I just didn’t realize it would all happen so soon, but God has been stretching me, molding me constantly I’m learning to step out of my comfort zone and stepping out of the boat.
And I am BLESSED!!!

the Joy of the lord IS my strength

The joy of the lord IS my strength..

ponder that for a moment, be still.... think about it?

Im having a joyful moment, lately I've been waking up every morning completely stoked! My cup overflows!
Its quite funny how God works! I love his surprises...


I just attended a youth and young adults conference called the 'Filling Station' in Surrey BC, accompanied by two awesome men of God, who strive only to go deeper, hungry and thirsty for more of him.
The weekend I have to say was pretty awesome, I get so pumped seeing young adults, junior highs and high school student hungry! their boldness, with arms high, stepping forward in having a personal relationship with their saviour... (sighs, takes a deep breath, ahhhhhh and smiles)
Inn a way God started something new in me, he does continue to stretch me constantly, he really taught me how to be still...to rest in him, to trust in him, to step out in confidence in him.
Yes I've heard this so many times but this time the Holy Spirit was training me, i was actually learning it, actually experiencing it. Knowing that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, I said ALL things! I can move a mountain with him being the strength of my life.

I'm the type of person that when there's worship going on and most people are at the front jumping I immediately dive right in... Ready to get my praise on!
But this time at the conference every time I headed to the front to jump and dance, the Holy spirit immediately would tell me, 'i want you to go to the back' a little disappointed i pouted my lips and headed to the back
i don't really know why God was asking me to do this, i know we can get to pumped being up at the front, adrenaline is rushing, were dancing before our king but i think God was wanting me to do this so i wouldn't be distracted by the people around me, it would just be me and Jesus.

In Chapel before the service we spent a lot of time on our knees, praying for breakthrough in spiritual warfare, praying for our leaders and speakers, for the kids, for our young adults.
Man oh man its so powerful to see how God turns up and the Holy Spirit pouring, pouring, stirring, stirring.
We all had an expectation that God would move and he did! Lives were touched, the altars were full of kids on their knees giving their lives to Jesus.
So powerful to see, we get excited we jump with Joy over their lives, we jump with Joy when we see God moving in their lives. Wohoooo!!

Filling station's theme this year was about 'Grace', we had awesome speakers, Simon Gau, Donna and Doug Lasit from Portland, Oregon.

Simon spoke on the Friday night about how we are covered by God's Grace, and questioning us 'do our hearts burn to follow? Because if they don't we are in trouble!'

We all had workshops that followed on the Saturday, I attended Donna Lasit's workshop on worship. Oh wow I was so blessed, so encouraged, so impacted, so in AWE.
Did you know that worship is like to kiss the hand of God. ......picture that for a moment, it puts a big smile on your face doesn't it?
Donna sang, I love how God places songs on her heart randomly, then she spoke a little maybe about ten minutes, but those 10 minutes were very very encouraging, I think I may have cried throughout the whole workshop. Just a joyful, Godly cry.... people who know me well know that I cry lots when I'm in the presence of God, joyfully and sometimes when my heart breaks for others. Anyway!
Later on that day I attended the 2nd workshop of Doug's class on Timothy 2, we talked about the life of timothy how Paul was a little crazy ha ha so we learned the spirit of leadership I was loving it!
A lot of laughs, a lots of AMENS!
Later on that evening Pastor Doug Lasit spoke again on 'what is the cause you are living for?, what is that cause? what it means to live for Jesus,
our CAUSE is this – we live to love God, build the church, reach humanity with the Love of Jesus.

Sunday church at Bible Fellowship is always awesome, I love the pastors, the people, all of us gathered together. I love it :)
Doug and Donna both spoke that morning, Doug was at 9am and Donna was at 11am, unfortunately i was running a little late and only heard Donna spoke.
Donna spoke on Idolatry, on how idolatry is anything you put above God! Anything you put 1st above God is Idolatry, we need to know what is important to us.
2 kings 17- they worshipped worthless idols you become worthless yourself, you are doing to find yourself worthless when you put things in front of God.

Donna also talked about Idol image- our desire to be accepted, that the world has bought into the lie that even I have bought into this lie that if you look good you will feel good. Yes you can feel good for a time... but it wont last long. Its an insecurity issue and I think so many of us deal with it.
Donna really challenged us on understanding what worship is, I think its something that we really need to study and meditate on, really look at it from God's perspective not our own.

Think about this - Can we really worship God at our lowest point, our darkest moment when everything has been taken away from us?
I love love love, in-fact my favourite story in the bible is the story of Paul and Silus in Acts 16- Paul and Silus are stuck in prison they were praying and singing , the other prisoners must of thought these guys were a bunch of loony's because they were NAKED, they are in the worst conditions, there probably in pain, their chained up and there's probably rats running around their feet, YET they praised and worshipped God.
I love that it stirs something within me and I get so excited, its time that we got our praise on in every situation, his praise shall always be on our lips!

I'm actually getting side-tracked.. because I was planning on talking about my trip and stay in Portland not the Filling station, I just got to excited :)

Sooooo how it came about... on the Sunday after Donna spoke at church, my two closest friends Deanna and Daniel were heading back to Portland Bible College, but before all that happened I bumped into Doug Lasit and mentioned that I had two friends from the bible college and i mentioned to him that I thought it would be an awesome idea if I came down for the week and he agreed .... but truthfully I didn't think I would actually go.
So just before Daniel and Deanna left for Portland I had very little time to make my decision! It was a little ' should i stay or should i go now' moment. Soooooooo a lot of people encouraged me to go... and I did hesitate so many times just because i didn't have enough clothes and my hair straightener and felt i was very unprepared.
So the conversation an hour before we left surrey was, yes, no,yes, no, maybe, yes, no, no, no ,yes, i don't know. Ha ha so you can imagine! I had no idea if I were to go or not.
I am very very happy that I went! I Soaked in so much, I got to experience awesome teaching from the classes at the bible college, amazing worship at chapel, Lisa Trent spoke at youth on Wednesday! Oh how amazing it was, the altar was flooded with kids!!!
I am super blessed! I am rich in the blessings of God.
Not to mention that I was surrounded by amazing, amazing, amazing people of God. The girls in the dorm were so loveable.
I'm having a little giggle with myself :).
when an opportunity arises last minutes like that, Go for it! Unless there is big Red lights going off and the Holy Spirit is very clear with his 'NO'.







I'm excited to go home and back to my church! I miss all my youth, excited to spend time with my Sunday school kids! Just excited to be with my church family in general.
I wasn't gone that long but whenever I'm away from home and my church. I miss them and get so excited to see them when I come back.

As you can tell I'm pretty high on life right now...!!

JESUS!!!

Struck

I’ve been struck, like a bullet to the heart, a bit of a wake up call.
I have been shaken, like a medicine bottle, ‘shake well before use’ I really needed to be shaken well before God could of used me.

As a youth leader in my church I’m held to a higher standard, people ARE watching me, watching my reactions, my attitude for I am an example.
If you think about it every Christian is, every Christian should be held to a higher standard for everyone is watching us, the world is. They are watching Christians. How they act, the words they say and use (are they words of life or words of death?)

I have to say, it took me a while to get this. And I admit I have failed miserably in this area of example I could have done better, a lot better. Yes we are human we do make mistakes but we need to think about the people around us, who are we affecting?
I’m not saying I’m trying to be perfect, not at all because I know I never will be and we do learn from mistakes, sometimes we could of dealt with a situation better but from experience we will know how to approach it if it happens again in the future.
Do we want to leave people a bad taste of Christians? heck no!

I have to admit through my years when I was 16/17 I hated Christians. I didn’t have a good taste of Christians. When I thought of Christians the things that came to mind were not positive at all I thought they are all backstabbers, ‘holier’, prideful twats. Obviously I had a lot of bitterness and unforgivness in my heart. Thank you Jesus for changing my heart! I’ve fallen madly in love with the church and the church family!

I’ve come to realize that I have received gift after gift, grace after grace! And when Im old I will take a step back and have a glance on my past and know I will be overwhelmed by how much God has done in my life. It comes down to GRACE, a word we don’t hear enough.

To be continued…..

I am just a girl....

I am just a girl standing in front of a man they call saviour.

In rags and ashamed I’m afraid to look at him in the eyes

I want to kiss his feet but I feel unworthy.

He wants to sit and talk to me, to love on me?

I lay my head in my hands and cover my face, how can this man love me?

Tears fall off my face and he wipes them away, he lifts my chin up and calls me Princess, Daughter of the king.

I have rags, stains and covered in dirt he wants to wash me clean and renew my heart

I have just met this man they call Saviour, but he has been In my heart for a very long time.

He loves me and makes me whole.

I don’t understand this grace because the world cannot give it; it’s a beautiful gift that I do not deserve.

He holds out his hand and we walk, we walk this road called life,

He is constantly smiling at me.

I have fallen in love with this man they call saviour.

He is beautiful and I adore him, his presence, his love, and his indescribable grace

I am his and he is mine, my king, my savior, my husband, my everything,

He is Jesus Christ the Messiah, the one I have been looking for.

So I'm laying on a hospital bed at this very moment as i write this,

I'm very impressed that I have my very own TV with Internet and I can make and receive phone calls with my very own personal number, high five, very nice

I'm not worried, although my mother is freaking out, I don't blame her, if I found my daughter collapsed on the floor I would be to.
It was weird, I woke up feeling perky went downstairs felt a big pop in my stomach then i was on the floor....then from that moment on I had severe pains so bad that I couldn't stand or move. So off to the hospital we go, I waited in the emergency ward for ages to be seen, then a good old family friend ended up examining me which was pretty awesome...and weird. Then I had a young student who looked like he just left high school wanting to stick a flipping cannula in my arm for a drip, usually I would say yes go for it but i freaked out a little and asked if a real doctor could do it, he ended up doing worse and failed twice to put it in me not to mention it really hurt and i may have said a very bad word....feeling very guilty.

I'm laying here eating my dinner, its quite good and i get ice-cream wahay

but i watch this woman across from me who has just been told she has cancer, unfortunately the don't tell her privately but simply pull the curtain over to tell her.
her family arrive and know nothing yet until she starts crying. it was awful, the curtain is closed but all you can hear is family tears. the doctor came back and explained everything to the woman, repeatedly apologising about the news.
i cant imagine what this woman and her family are going through, but i pray that GOD will do a miracle.
for doctors to tell news like this, i just couldn't do it. i would cry with my patients, i would pray with them.

let us pray for those who are sick and believe that GOD will bring healing in Jesus name.

A little Testimony

This wasn’t easy for me to write, Testimonies are great but this one wasn’t easy for me to write, I took a glance back and said okay here it goes, I’m going to write.
This is a Testimony of a season in my life that I haven’t really talked about with many people, simply because it was a time I didn’t want to remember.
It took me a while to write this, I teared up a couple of times writing this, trying to remember what I was going through in those moments. I teared up because it also reminded me of God’s grace and no matter what situation you’re going through, he is there.

It’s quite long but please do take the time to read it, :)

For ever how long I can remember since I was child through out primary school, high school and college I allowed people to walk over me, bully me and torment me through those years.
I didn’t know how to stand up or speak up for myself, I didn’t know how to, it wasn't my nature, I just allowed people to walk over me, use me and treat me like I was dirt off the ground.
I don’t remember I lot from my school years, etc friendships or even learning, all I remember is coming home crying everyday, shutting myself away from the world I would constantly curl up in a corner and cry in my pillow.

Primary school were horrible years of sillyness, I remember having stones thrown at me, My Mother arguing with other mothers to tell there kids to leave me alone.

High school was a lot worse horrible years of torment, I’ve been to 4 high schools; I wasn’t a trouble child I was very shy. (Shocker! Yes I Rebekah was shy in her high school years.)
I started attending Loudoun Academy in Ayrshire after I got back from Canada when I was 15 and a bit.
I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t stay at that school long enough to know anyone, i was there for no longer than 5 months.
These were the hardest, challenging 5 months of my life.

If you have seen the movie ‘mean girls’, at the beginning of the movie Lindsay Lohan’s character starts off at this new school, nobody talks to her and she spend her first few lunches sitting on a toilet seat eating her lunch. That was me, no joke. I actually did that, but scrap out the eating lunch bit on the toilet seat that’s a little disgusting.
All I remember is that people weren’t warm to me, teased and tormented me.
I had my head smacked off a computer by one of the girls in class as the teacher had quickly popped out to get something. I was stunned and confused in why this girl had all of a sudden done that to me, I hadn’t done anything to her!
I walked out that classroom afraid, numb, and confused I just wanted to run (ever had that feeling where you just wanted to run and didn't care where) I had that feeling a lot.
I still couldn’t stick up for myself I didn’t want to because that would only cause a fight.
A friend told my mum what had happened and the next thing I knew my mum had called up the school to let them know what happened. My mum would always be so mad when things like this happened, it was too constant. Like any mother they would hate to see their child being bullied for no reason, you would want to protect them and stick up for them.

For some stupid reason telling the school what happend to your child can be the worst thing ever, it causes more problems.
Ayrshire is not the place to do that, you’re only asking for trouble not just for yourself but for your family.

Things got a lot worse, those 5 months were so difficult my relationship with God was the only thing keeping me alive. Every morning before school and after school I would be on my knees praying and face down in worship. I needed God more than ever.
One morning I remember being on my knees praying and I felt the Holy spirit saying to me “prepare yourself today something is about to happen” it wasn’t a warning but I remember thinking ‘oh finally this is the day that something good is going to happen! maybe people will want to be my friend, maybe God is going to do something really awesome today’.
Well God certainly did, but it wasn’t what I had in mind.

The music department is separated from the main building and I remember coming out of the music department to go to my other class, all of sudden I hear yelling behind me, next thing my hair was being pulled back, I was on the ground and my head was being hit off a brick wall.
I was being kicked, punched and spat on by this girl, I saw all the kids and even some of my ‘friends’ surrounding us, doing nothing.

No cheering, just watching.

A kept hearing this verse over and over again ‘The Lord is my light and salvation whom shall I fear, the Lord is the strength of all I am, whom shall I be afraid. All I could feel was God’s presence, he was right there beside me.

I felt no pain as this girl kept kicking me over and over again.
I managed to pull myself up and walk to the first aid room but I didn’t quite make it there, I collapsed on the way and I remember being carried to the first aid room by the janitor. I sat on the bed crying and crying, the nurses held me “its going to be okay” they kept saying. I knew it would be but I wasn’t crying because that girl beat me to the ground, I was crying because I was so overwhelmed that the thing I needed the most was God to be right there beside me, and he was!
Later I was taken to Hospital, I had no broken bones or any serious injuries, just a concussion.

The next day I had a Police Officer come over to my house and sat me down asking if I wanted to press charges on this girl. I thought about it but I knew this would go on her record, that this could affect her life, and so I didn’t. The Officer was quite shocked and astonished that I refused; he kept repeating “are you sure?”
I was very sure, I didn’t hate the girl I wasn’t even mad at her, I wanted to be mad at her but I couldn’t.
To this day I still don’t really know why I couldn’t be mad at her but I think it was God working on my heart with instant forgiveness and teaching me about what Grace.

I didn't go back to school after that, my family didn't want me to. But I did go back for 1 day and that day was to let my Principal know I wasn’t coming back and also to confront the girl who attacked me. I wanted to let her know that I forgave her. It wasn’t hard to tell her, she pretty much laughed in my face and called me every horrible name you could imagine. I walked away with a smile, I ignored the lies and I kept my head up high knowing my position as a daughter of Christ and no one could separate me from the Love of God and his amazing, indescribable Grace.

God walked me through some tough times during that season in my life, I really struggled with depression during that time and thought it would be so much easier to make everything go away by ending my life, I tried to so many times by suffocating myself in a pillow, I failed to take my life so many times. I was in and out if hospital because my mum would randomly find me on the floor unconscious meanwhile I have worship music playing in the background? I try to remember those days, what I was going through, what I was feeling, what I was going through in my head. All I know is that Satan tormented me he wanted me dead, he’s out to do 3 things, steal, kill and destroy. I remember crying on the floor so much begging God to let me come home and be with him. He kept reminding me of Jeremiah 29:11. I just couldn’t see it at the time because Satan had me wrapped up in chains. Those chains needed to be broken.
Yes those days were very difficult but I will never forget the moment my father, my saviour protecting me filling me with his words of life, reminding me,

‘The Lord is my light and Salvation whom shall I fear, the Lord is the strength of all I am whom shall I be afraid.’

I wasn’t going to blog this but I felt it was on my heart to do so.
There can be times in our lives where we want to give up but know that that is the very thing that the enemy wants you to do, we aren’t going to let him have his glory.
We will stand up against him for he is under us and God has given us the authority to speak against him.

We will sing,

‘The enemy is being defeated and death couldn’t hold you down, were going to life our voice in victory were going to make your praises loud,
Shout onto God with a voice of triumph, shout onto God with a voice of praise, shout onto God with a voice of Triumph we life your name up! We life your name up!