What is my life about?

So lately, as I take these steps into the new journey that God is leading me on, I just cant help but be excited!! I am about to embark into new territory, something I have never done before. Its INCREDIBLY frightening to me and at the same time, AMAZINGLY EXCITING!! But as I take these new steps, I have begun to examine my own life as well. You see, one thing I am learning is that as I take these new steps, I must know who I am, know what I believe, and know it very firmly, because THAT is what I will have to stand on in this life!

I feel in some ways that I have not really lived my life yet :) Oh sure, I have had plenty of experiences. I have been out of the country on a Missions Trip, I have been to New York City twice and been to over half of the states in the US travelling and sharing Christ with others, I have lived on my own, I went to college and had alot of great experiences there, I have counseled at 30 different camps and sang on numerous stages. I have had a life! But, I have never really lived it and made a choice for ME!

You see, I love that God has given me the heart that he has, I wouldn't have it any other way. Other people mean the World to me and I want to do everything I can to help them to care for them to be there for them. But in that, sometimes I feel guilty when I want to make choices for myself. When I want to make choices that I know will benefit me, sometimes I just dont want to do it, because it might affect others or hurt them. Like this move, people will be hurt when I move, so a part of me says, "should I just stay?" But then others will be hurt if I dont move. Friends, in case you dont know me to well yet, welcome to the analytically challenging brain of Becky Canny. I just always want to make sure that the choices I make will make everyone else happy and that everyone else will be cared for. HOWEVER, God has been giving me the challenge lately that its okay for me to make a choice for myself once in a while. and that just as much as I want to see others be happy and cared for, HE wants that for me. and not only that, but as as I said in my blog yesterday, OTHERS want that for me too. SO, I AM MOVING TO THE CITIES!!!!  For ministry opportunities, and so that I can have amazing friendships in my life and accountability. I can go to Bible Studies and Small Groups, I can enjoy life!!

This past year has been both challenging and rewarding for me. Challenging in the fact that I never knew how hard it would be to care for my own parents. The people who have taken care of me all of my life, and I know I have shared this in other blogs, but I just cant stress enough how hard and difficult that really can be! My parents are some of the most amazing people I have ever met in my life and I dont know why in the World God chose to bless me with them, but a blessing is exactly what they have been! Our life has not always been easy, believe me, but I have always known that at the heart of their lives, CHRIST was in the center! and it challenged me to live my life that way as well. THAT is the rewarding part of this year and caring for them, the chance to see that I get to give back to them just a tiny piece of what they have given to me!! The year has been challenging because I went through some pretty difficult times. I am not going to share all of those here, but suffice it to say that it was quite a lonely year for me and I had to do some serious soul searching!

In this year, it has been a HUGE year of self examination. I am going to be blunt here and tell you that this past year, with my mom going through cancer and the horrible things that it brings with it, I really had to figure out my walk of faith with Christ and it has been quite the journey. I am finally learning what it means when Christ asks us to come to him as broken people. I came to him a very broken person this past year and have had a lot of things to work through. At the beginning of all of this, I had questions of if I even still believed. I was bitter and hurt and angry. I asked myself how a God who loves us so much could allow us to go through all this pain. My mother, who has done her best to serve Christ throughout her whole life, has been suffering from illness for most of our growing up years, with depression and horrible arthritis, and NOW she has to have cancer. WHAT DID SHE POSSIBLY DO TO DESERVE THIS?!?  And I had to begin to search. I needed to understand who God is. I needed to understand what faith really was and how I was supposed to practice it in my life. I needed to make my faith my own. Not just something I have believed my whole life, not just something that has been my identity for years, but when I stand before Christ, I need to know who he is and I need to know who I am in him!

A couple years ago, a really good friend of my brothers was killed in a car accident after a night of revival at our college. I knew of Trevor and we had talked a few times, and I had seen his heart for God. He lived it out daily. When he died, it rocked all of us. The next night of revival, the speaker got up to talk to us and try to help us process through it. He had a cup in his hand, and he started talking to us about this HUGE lake that is beautiful, how he wanted all of us to experience it. And then he began to share. He asked us if he were to take that cup and scoop up some water from lake and bring it back to us, would we have experienced the lake? Well of course we all said no. And then he shared, that this is the same with God. Here on this Earth, we only get to experience a VERY SMALL part of God! AND EVEN THAT IS MORE THAN WE DESERVE OR CAN IMAGINE! So the reality is, we cant fully understand all of God and who he is this side of heaven, but if we are in his word and we are seeking him daily, there are pieces of him that we can know and he wants to care for us and embrace us! Its just an incredible thing to think about!

You see here is the lesson I have learned over the past year. In our walk with Christ, it is often times at these points of questioning that we get to the real heart of Christ, it challenges us to really find him and when we do, THAT is what faith is all about. I have been a Christian since I was 5 years old, as most of you already know. Living for Jesus is something that has always been very important to me. In fact, when I was 3 years old, I would sometimes stand up in the shopping cart of the grocery store or on the table at Mc Donalds just to sing songs about Jesus so that other people could hear about him. I was in Bible Quizzing, Childrens Choir, AWANA, Caravans, and many other church events. In High School I was on the Youth Praise Team and the Youth Drama Team. I was a leader for our youth group and a host of other things. And most of all, I KNEW what I believed. Going into college it was the same thing. I was very involved and I was learning more about the Bible everyday and felt as though I was growing in my faith. I had a grasp on things. So when college was over and I was ready to be in ministry, I thought I had it all together. BUT I DID NOT! And it has taken me several years to first of all figure that out and second of all to be willing to admit that. Im this person that always wants to have it all together, and admitting that I dont, well that is NOT an easy thing for me to do. But as Christians I think that is the point we need to be at. Because when we realize that its not about us, and that we dont have it all together, THAT is when Christ comes in and we work in his power and in his strength!!!

I feel like a new person now though. I feel like God has begun to truly take over my life. And I am beginning to learn who he really is. And I am beginning to seek and know him more, so that I have the knowledge of him both in my head and in my heart. Seeking his word on a daily basis and finding those answers. What does the Bible say about drinking? and not just what I have been taught or believed about it my whole life, but what does it really say? What does the Bible say about swearing? and how does that affect my everyday living? What does the Bible say about following the plan and will of God and am I doing that? I am excited about where God is taking me. and in all of this have been realizing that I have to get out of where I have been comfortable. God has a plan for me! God has a will for me :) God has a way that he wants to use me.

Heres the thing, in learning more about Christ and following him, we have to get to a point where we realize that NOTHING in this life is about us, its all about HIM and bringing glory and honor to him! But it is also about a God who loves us so much that he wants the best for us. He loves us so much and he has given us gifts and talents that he wants us to use for his glory. I am amazed at the gifts that God has chosen to give me and sometimes I dont feel deserving of them at all. God has given me a gift of working with children and I love doing it too :) God has given me an incredible gift and passion for working with Youth and over and over again has placed those youth in my life who I get the chance to minister to. God has just recently opened my eyes to a passion for Young Adult Ministry and an incredible need for it as well. And then there is Music. I dont know what it is about Music, but I LOVE IT! God has given me this incredible love and passion for music in my life. And over the past 2 years, I have not really used my voice much at all. But at camp this summer and as I seek the future ministry God has for me, my singing has become a HUGE part of what he wants for me. I realize I have not been using my gifts to the full potential that they could be used. I am ready to do that and I am just blessed and honored that God has allowed me to have them. I want to be his humble servant and be used by him in everyway possible!

SO there it is! I want my life to be about Christ. But more than just the name, I want to be changed by him daily! When I read the word, when I seek his face, I want to have  more than just the knowledge in my head, I want to truly be changed by it! Do I know what I believe? I sure am getting there! Do I seek to know more? I hope that I am always seeking to konw more. Have I been changed by God? IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE! I am honored to be called a child of God! and I pray that everyday I will look more like him!