It's been a long time.........

I saw just the last time I posted was in March 2010-over a year and a half ago! I am a definite slacker! Several people have asked me about my blog but I guess I thought after leaving Mission Year and moving from Charlotte that I had nothing of interest to write about. I was just reading over the last few of my posts and they made me smile and feel like crying all at the same time. I miss Atlanta and Charlotte so much and at times, it hurts to think about my life then-especially when I was dealing with some depressing from being unemployed and having to move back to Indiana. But God had a plan for me and life has changed so much and it's crazy awesome to look back and see all the incredible things God has done since March 2010.





I'm going to take a few minutes to highlight and reflect on the journey and adventure 2011 brought to my life:





Jan-I began working part time (20 hrs a wk) as a waitress at Bob Evans. I was barely making enough to pay for gas and my cell phone. I was still relying on my parents for a place to live and them and Ryan for money for food, clothes and anything else I may have needed. I was not in a good place emotionally and was depressed and feeling down. I had been rejected from job after job and felt hopeless. I am so thankful for the support of my amazing parents and Ryan for the love and support they gave me through my 6 months (prior to Bob Evans) of unemployment. They never gave up on me and knew that God had something wonderful and perfect in His plan for me.





Feb-I began working at Wheeler Mission in the Women's Shelter. If you don't know much about Wheeler Mission, google it right now! It's a great ministry that shows Christ's love beautifully to everyone person that walks through our door. I am the Program Assistant in the Children's minsitry-so fun!




April-I got engaged!!! wooo! Ryan proposed to me one beautiful evening in front of amazing fountains ( I loooove fountains!) after taking me to a yummy and fancy pants restaurant called The Mesh. It was perfect! And my adorable niece, Alexis was born! Such a cutie! :)

May/June-We began the fun process of planning our wedding! Ryan was super involved and helpful the whole time! :)

July/Aug-More wedding planning/ bachelorette party, bridal showers etc. So much fun! I loved every minute of the planning!

Sept-I got hitched! I became Mrs. Ryan Langley!!!! It was more perfect than I could have ever imagined!

October/November- Getting used to being a wife, living with a boy and the transitions and perks that come along with being a newlywed. There was also our 1st Thanksgiving as marrieds, roadtrips to KY and ATL and trying to figure out what to do with all my stuff! One bedroom apartment is just too small! Oh-and I learned how to play Madden 2012-I was pretty proud of myself...Ryan was too! :)

Dec-I was so unbelievably excited for Christmas this year!! I went a lil crazy with the ornaments and the decorations but I was just so excited!! I also was asked to move into a new position at work that has more responsibility and would give me more experience in casemanagement (which is what I really want to do) I was a bit nervous at first to accept because I would be working with the 30 day emergency ladies as an Assistant Casemanager and right now I work with the mothers and children. I love my job but was definitely ready for more responsibilty. After much prayer and talking to Ryan and my momma, I decided to take the job. I start Jan 9. I was also asked to co-teach a Conflict Resolution class for the ladies. I'm a a lil nervous about that as well. It's been a while since I've taught a class to adults. Please pray for me as I transition into this new role. Also, Ryan got a promotion/ raise at his job last week! Such a wonderful blessing!

Life is full of unexpectedness! It has its moments of craziness, definite ups and downs but it has always been an adventure. I am looking foward to see what God has planned for mine and Ryan's future!! :)

I will blog again soon and definitely more often...promise.

conversations and revelations

The past few weeks have been real tough for me. Well actually the past couple of months have been difficult and full of circustances that I just didn't know how to deal with. I have this reoccuring problem of thinking that I can do everything on my own and have been constantly reminded that I need to rely on God. He's got my back and knows what is best for me. I have been so blessed to have the amount of incredible people in my life that I do in Charlotte. When I first moved here 7 months I thought I'd never be apart of a close community of friends but God has this incredible way of placing people in your life at the time you need them.

I love having deep/ below the surface conversations with people and the past few weeks have been full of just that. I've been almost seeking out how to make these life changing chats happen because my life is absolutely insane and I am having to make decsisions and doing things that I never thought I'd be doing right now. Some of the conversations haven't been easy and a few were even a bit awkward but each have caused me to think about my life and the lives of the people that I love.

I've even had a few revelations come from these chats. One thing I learned is I am a hot mess and a bit crazy but guess what?? So is everyone else! No one has it together but we are all act like it because we are afraid to let down our guard and let others into the craziness of our life. I have to stop acting like I don't need anyone else and stop being afraid to let people love me.

That leads me to my second thing-I need to let people love me. It sounds simple but for some reason I am having a hard time grasping the concept. It's always been a re-occuring theme in my life. I don't love who I am so I can't even fathom how anyone else could love me. I'm not the only one who struggles with this, many girls I know deal with the same issue and it makes me so sad. God created each of us in His own image. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made.We are beautiful and fabulous creations of God and we shouldn't insult God by not loving what He created. I know all of these things but I have a hard time of finding my worth in life. I want to work on it but how do you tangibly work on loving yourself?

Revelation #3-Never settle and don't give up on dreams. I feel like people settle and give up too quickly in life. It saddens me to hear people talk about their dreams and goals that they used to have but they have given up on them because they didn't have the confidence to do it or life got in the way. I have so many things that I want to accomplish in my life and I know that some may not happen but I'm going to do my best to make sure that most of them do. I feel like most people don't reach their full potential. I am surrouned by folks everyday who could do amazing things but because society tells them that they have to have a certain type of job, car and house and they don't end up reaching their potential or doing things they feel the passion to do. Each of us are made for so much more that what we are doing right now in our lives.

Numero 4-life is too short. I know it's a bit cliche but it's so true. Life is entirely too short to be sad all the time. Or to get upset about the little things that don't really matter. Relationships, friendships, jobs and lives in general end too quickly and we need to spend time loving those around us and enjoying the life that God has given us. I'm done being sad or mad about things that I can't change. Life isn't always awesome but we still need to enjoy it and be thankful that God has blessed us with another day. If you are struggling to love life I reccomened coloring, going to the park to swing or randomly bust out in song and dance....these are things that help me :)

There are many more mini revelations I could share but I'll save that for another time.

Hugs Hugs Hugs!

"Ms. Becky your hair feels like a bunny." Will you be my best friend?" "Can I come stay at your house?" "You wanna come over and play video games, my mom will cook us dinner?"

Oh how I love kids. Those quotes are from kids at the elementary school in our neighborhood Every Wednesday (and other days if possible) I go there to hang out/tutor a few kids. I am also a lunch buddy to a precious little 7 year old girl named Queen. She is quite possibly the cutest and funniest kid I know. I love spending time with her and the other kids in her class.

I went there today to have lunch with Queen and as I walked in the front doors as Queen and her class were lining up in the hall to go in the cafeteria and when they all saw me they started screaming, MS. BECKY!!!!!! and about 15 kids flocked to me hugging me and touching my hair and begging me to sit next to them. They all know that when I come there I sit next to Queen but they always fight over who is going to sit in the other seat next to me. I wore my hair straight today (which is a rare occasion) and this one lil girl kept touching it and she was the one who said it felt like a bunny. Such funny kids!

Life has been insane lately and I have been feeling pretty low and depressed but going to the school today really helped me a lot. I can't help but love all those kids and being around them and receiving all the 50+ hugs I get every time I'm there puts a smile on my face. Today we talked alot about mommy and daddys and they were asking me questions about my parents and if they had the same last name as I did and if I have more than one daddy and if I ever got hit if I did something wrong-it just broke my heart. I usually always end up having really good and sometimes intense converstations with them, especially with Queen. I walked her back to her classroom after lunch and she stopped in the middle of the hall and hugged me for a few minutes and then looked up at me and said, "I love you Becky. You are my best friend." I definitely started crying (Im an emotional mess lately) and just hugged her some more. Hugging is such a beautiful thing, I think that each person should give/recieve at least 5 hugs a day-it just makes you feel so loveable and fantastic so go hug someone right now!!! (ps that's Queen in the pic!)

again I say REJOICE!!

Since I don't have an official office, I work from home, Elevation, local coffee shops and if I don't need my computer, the park. This afternoon I decided I didn't want to work from home anymore so I made my way to my favorite Starbucks. I enjoy all the noises of the coffee grinder, the chatter of friends catching up on life, the huge comfy chair I'm sitting in, the wonderful smell of coffee and the warmth of the sunshine streaming in on me through the window-all while listening to some Kirk Franklin. I do love me some gospel. Sigh.....life is good.

For the first time in a long time I feel content, at peace...a true sense of happiness. I know that happiness definitely can be determined by circumstance but I am happy and I am going to soak it in. I've been working on having joy no matter what craziness life may bring. It's been challenging but knowing that God is faithful really helps. Work is crazy right now and I try not to worry too much on the future of Mission Year in Charlotte. I know that it is in God's hands and I trust that He has plan that exceeds anything that I could dream up. I feel a peace about the future and life in Charlotte, it's something I can't really explain but I am very thankful for it. I am slowly learning how to let go of every aspect of my life and let God be in control.

life after love week

It's been over a month since I've blogged-I'm such a slacker! There has been a lot going on lately, I'll try to give a quick overview. Love Week happened and it was a huge success!! I'm not sure if I have mentioned Love Week before but basically it was a week long volunteer event at Elevation. The idea was to have at least 5,000 people from Elevation volunteer 5,000 hours at various organizations around the city in one week-yes, it was as crazy as it sounds! I was one of the people that were running it/ in charge of everything....I pretty much got no sleep that week but it was worth it. All the several months of hard work and planning paid off. We exceeded our goal and had a total of 10,5581 volunteer hours served in Charlotte that week! We made over 12,000 sandwiches for the homeless, rebuilt playgrounds, cleaned up parks, painted, sorted clothes, scrubbed walls, picked up trash, served food, did extreme makeovers to offices, worked in schools and much more all in that week. Plus we were on the news and radio multiple times!

I wasn't sure what I thought of Love Week when I was first asked to help out. I'm not a fan of making sure everyone knows how many good things you are doing for others and I don't like when people think that volunteering for one hour every few months is all they need to do. My goals and ideas on success for Love Week were a bit different than most everyone's else's. I not only wanted to have my events run smoothly with a ton of people but also to open their eyes to the needs of the city. I wanted to make sure people understood who they were serving and how real homelessness and poverty is. I wanted people not to feel sorry for them but to see the face of God in them and allow God's pure and amazing love to shine through them. People began to ask questions about homelessness, injustices, poverty and how to love others who are different than us-it was so great! I absolutely love talking about those things! It's my hope that the people from Elevation will continue to volunteer and serve in Charlotte.

Even though Love Week was crazy, there were several fun things that helped me to stay sane and stress free: v-day package from my momma, swinging with Sam, coffee dates, playing in the snow, lunch with Queen, v-day package from my wonderful ATL friends, bowling, painting rocks, dance parties at Crisis, Lost, and of course many trips to Target. I've been helping plan Love Week since I moved here so life is weird without it. I was sick most of last week which I believe is a result of lack of sleep...no fun. My mom came to visit for a few days-it was sooooo great! That's all for now kids, I need to go to sleep! I promise it won't be a month before I write again....good night!

let it snow!

The past few days have been wonderful! Let's begin with my friend Jason being here for a few days...yay! We worked at the Cafe together during my Mission Year. It's so fun to have him here! Yesterday was my day off so we just kinda hung out around the house for a while, went to Target(of course!) and then went to Urban Ministry to be in a video shoot for Elevation! Yes, a video shoot-I met one of my goals for the year! It was freeeeezing so we took random breaks in the middle of the shoot to go into the art gallery they have and warm up. They have a piano in the gallery and we all just hung out and sang songs....Samantha even played us some tunes! During the video shoot it started to snow!! Sam has never seen snow falling before-it was so fun! Later that night we went to game night that my small group was having and it was snowing like crazy! This morning when we woke up it looked like a winter wonderland! It was so beautiful! We played in it all morning! Kids came over for a while this afternoon and we played Uno! Earlier tonight, Sam and I went sledding and pretend ice skating! We would run and slide along the ice on the road....and I only fell once! Oh we had tacos tonight AND girl scout cookies that Jason brought us-basically life has been great!!I definitely needed a couple of days of fun....now if I could just have a couple of days without working! :) Off to bed I go, have to wake up early for church! Good night!

life........

I just got in from swinging.....yes it's 30 degrees out and after midnight and I was swinging. I've written before that swinging helps me clear my mind and think about things and tonight I definitely needed time away to think. These past few weeks have been unbelievably crazy and at times I find myself feeling lost and uncertain what to do. I'm not a person who cries often but I've cried more in the past few weeks than I have in the past few years. I hate crying, especially in front of people. Tonight I cried three times, two of those times were almost in front of people so I had to get away quickly. Why do I think crying makes me look weak?

I know we aren't always supposed to understand why things happen they way they do but sometimes I just want answers. I did a lot of talking to God tonight while I was swinging. I was hoping for some sort of clarity or answer when I got done......that didn't happen. All I felt was the urge to continue on. I guess that's all I really can do. Life isn't in my control. I don't get to decide what happens when or who it happens to. I can't make people listen to me or do what I want them to just because I think my way is the right way. All I can do is trust that God is in control and He knows what is best for my life. So I'm going to trust. It's hard, so very very hard sometimes but I'm going to do it. After all, The Bible says all we need is faith the size of a mustard seed and we can move mountains.......