Author Archives: Rebekah Roper

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01/04/2013

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Undone

A friend of mine was recently talking about his strained relationship with his mother. He laughed because some of the things she said were so ridiculous. Absolutely and utterly horrible, but completely ridiculous. And I was glad he could laugh. Truly. Because sometimes the laughter is the only thing that keeps us from tears.

There are too many broken families in this world. Too many children who don’t know what it is to have both a mother and a father. Too many kids who don’t know what it is to love and be loved in return.

In a world like this, sometimes I find it hard to hold onto hope. I find it hard to believe that happy endings could ever come from the ashes of these relationships. Sometimes I set the fairytales aside and allow my heart to become a little cynical. To stop believing that hope makes its own magic and that we can walk through trials and pain and be better off for it when we finally reach the other side.

The word that echoes in my mind is “Undone.” When I think of love and heartache, a quote from Jennifer Donnelly’s Revolution  pounds in my brain:

“I am not afraid of beatings or blood anymore. I’m not afraid of guards or guillotines.
“There is only one thing I fear now—love.
“For I have seen it and I have felt it and I know that it is love, not death, that undoes us.”

And when I read that quote, I can’t help but think that maybe it is best to be undone. Maybe it’s best to love and receive nothing in response than to allow our hearts to be clouded by hatred, or worse yet, that cold sense of unfeeling.

Maybe it’s best to learn the same lesson that Jennifer Donnelly’s character learns. When confronted with how her actions have led to nothing but her own demise—when reminded that the world has not changed for the better on account of her sacrifice—she responds:

“The world goes on stupid and brutal, but I do not. Can’t you see. I do not.”

Though my world goes on, stupid and brutal as before, I do not. I choose love. I choose to be undone.

Because I’ve always had a penchant for fairytales. I’ve always been fascinated by words like “hope” and “love” and “wonder.” I still choose to believe in beauty from ashes. I think my friend does, too.

And while it breaks my heart to think of how his mother’s words must hurt him, the person I feel most sorry for is his mom. Because she doesn’t know what she’s missing. She can’t know. Or she never would have told him goodbye. She’s the one who is suffering. She’s the one who goes on stupid and brutal. But my friend… he does not. Can’t you see? He does not.

And I hope, when it comes down to it, you would choose to be undone. You would choose not to be stupid and brutal as the world would have you.Becoming Undone

I hope you’ll find that love is always worth it.
And that hope will ring true.
Because we all need something to believe in.
And we all need to be believed in.
And on this day that I come undone…
I choose to believe in you.

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12/31/2012

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Word of the Year

If I’ve established anything in my two years of blogging, I hope it’s that I don’t exactly go about things the typical way. I’m the girl who trashed my list of what I want in a future husband. I’m the girl who doesn’t believe in five-year plans. And when it comes to New Years resolutions, I laugh in the face of 2013. Because there is only one thing I know about this coming year: It won’t be anything like I would expect it to be.

I know people—several people—who assign words to their years. One year they will focus on joy and the next, courage. It’s a great idea in theory, and it seems to be working out for them. As for me… Like I said, I’m not typical.

I took a look through the journals that document this year of my life and was surprised by what I found. Because I had expectations for 2012, and I didn’t find them in the pages of this year. In the midst of  unrealized dreams being realized and falling in love with a new job and discovering Hannah Brencher *squeal*, I also found that birthing dreams is hard and messy and not at all like I once imagined it would be.

“Every day is different,” I find in January. “As fickle as the emotions of the four-year-olds I work with. One moment they’re spitting at you; the next moment they’ve wrapped their arms around your hips and nuzzled their face into your side.”

There was a dream coming into being, but there was also opposition and confusion and heartache and goodbyes.

“God, it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” February claims. “I don’t know how it was supposed to be, but certainly not like this.”

Because if I could have chosen a word for this year, it would have been something about stepping out. Something about dreams coming true and hopes being realized. It would have been the year my purpose unfolded and my ministry skyrocketed. And it did. In so many ways, all of those things were true. But God was doing something deeper beneath the surface. Something I didn’t realize I needed until it threaded its way through the pages of my story and, eventually, onto the face of the internet.

Vulnerability.
Approachability.
Trust.

Those were the words God would give me this year. Words I didn’t even realize were missing from my vocabulary until He whispered them into my heart. Those words lingered beneath the surface of my reality, begging to be fully realized.

I had finally allowed entrance to those two crazy guys who only ever wanted to befriend me, but it took a little longer for me to understand that there was more to letting them in than finally agreeing to go to their stupid Christmas party two years ago. That’s where it all began—the vulnerability, the learning to be approachable, the willingness to open myself up and trust that they’re not going to hurt me.

“Here’s to becoming approachable,” I wrote in June.

“Here’s to being vulnerable,” followed in September.

And November hit me with the weight of it all: “I’m going to put myself back in the arena. Open myself to more wounds, more scars. And more grace.”Here's to becoming approachable.

It’s not what I would have thought—what I would have chosen—for this year, but it is what I needed. And I have no idea what my story will be in 2013. I have no words to define this year I’ve yet to know. But I’m certain that it’s going to be something far beyond what I would ever dream for myself. Because God… He’s awesome like that.

Here’s to another year of walking hand in hand with the God who knows me better than I know myself.

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12/21/2012

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Paradoxes and Mysteries

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A Very Clumsy Christmas

I love children’s Christmas programs. I love watching kids act out the story of a miracle that took place over 2,000 years ago.

Only in a children’s Christmas program do angels sing off-key and shepherds stumble against the backdrop as if they are trying to bring it down.

Only in a children’s Christmas program do you hear that an evil king was “determinated” to kill baby Jesus.

Only in a children’s Christmas program do you see a four-and-a-half-foot angel climb up on a chair so she can scream at Joseph and Mary to “GET OUTTA THERE!”

And only in a children’s Christmas program are we reminded that Christmas is a little bit clumsy. Yes, clumsy, as in: “done awkwardly or without skill or elegance.” Because, while the Christmas narrative was perfectly orchestrated, it played out in the most awkward and uncomfortable of ways. It was clumsy…

Clumsy like an awkward teenage girl being visited by an angel and finding that she has been hand-chosen by God to bring the Messiah into the world. Clumsy like agreeing to this miraculous conception when she, like the rest of us who have ever answered “yes” to the call of God on our lives, didn’t really know what she was getting into. Clumsy like stumbling her way to Bethlehem in the final days of her pregnancy only to give birth in a dirty, smelly stable.

Clumsy like the shepherds who abandoned their sheep to see this child for whom the heavens had split open. Clumsy like the wise men who alerted the king of this impossible birth as they hurried to bring the newborn king the most unusual of gifts. Clumsy like being awakened in the middle of the night and hastening away to Egypt until the threat of death exists no longer.

Somewhere over the last 2,000 years, we’ve perfected our hymns and polished our performances until the Christmas story is something that plays out effortlessly in our minds, but I can’t help but think that the real Christmas had all of the elegance of a stage filled with elementary-aged kids, stumbling over their lines and completely forgetting their stage directions.

The King of the Universe came to earth with little fanfare, revealing Himself only to a young woman, her betrothed, a handful of shepherds, and a few wise men. When you look at it that way, the Christmas story is beautiful in its simplicity, miraculous in the most ordinary of ways, and absolutely, 100% clumsy.

This year, as you remember the story you’ve heard a thousand times, I pray you see it through new eyes.

May you have a very clumsy Christmas and a joyous New Year.

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12/17/2012

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Sing-Along Scriptures

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Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy (Say it One More Time)

Last week I shared a verse with you because I found that it really spoke to me. Judging by some of your responses, I’m not the only one who misplaced that joy God offers in Psalm 16. It’s not the first time I misplaced it. And it won’t be the last.

See, I lost sight of it again—mere days later. I’ve been all go, go, go; busy, busy, busy; just trying to get everything done before Christmas vacation and I’ve lost some of that Joy to the World they sing about this time of year. And again, I didn’t even realize what I was missing.

So wouldn’t you know that I picked up my Bible and opened it up to Acts 2—that familiar passage where the Holy Spirit falls upon the believers, and they start speaking in basically every language known to man, and Peter stands up to say, “These men are not drunk!” (Thanks for clarifying, Pete.)

It’s the sermon where Peter quotes that awesome passage from Joel about how God will pour out His Spirit on all people and their sons and daughters will prophesy. I’ve always loved that scripture. It reminds me of how amazing the transformation that takes place in the hearts of believers is.

But Joel isn’t the only passage Peter quotes in that famous sermon that drew 3,000 people to repentance, and I didn’t need to read the footnote to know the reference for the second chunk of scripture He shared.

“You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.”

Psalm 16. He quoted Psalm 16. And I said, “Okay, God, I get it.” But I didn’t. Not really. Because I’m still having a hard time recovering that joy in the midst of the busyness that has overwhelmed my heart these last few weeks. So I say it again and again: Joy. Unspeakable Joy. Joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Because maybe if I say it enough times—maybe if I think it over and over and over again—it will finally be down in my heart to stay.

Choose Joy

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12/14/2012

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Love Letters

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Love Lettering the World

Earlier this year, I fell in love with Hannah Brencher’s heart. I fell in love with her desire to spread love into the dark corners of the world because, in my own heart of hearts, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. But the thing that amazes me most is that Hannah’s ministry stemmed from a very selfish desire. In her own words:

“Anyone who knows me–knows the heart of me, and the bone of me, and the bends of my smile–knows why I really started writing love letters. It was not some strange aficionado for stationery. Never a day in my life have I ached to bring the art form of letter writing back to her fullness. It wasn’t a racing heart for cursive & curves on a page. It was a fear that I was very much alone in this world. It was a fear that I might never feel whole again. It was fear that not a single soul needed my footprints, my input, my laughter. It was a crippling belief that I would live and die and I would never have made noise in this world.”

And so the girl who was rather desperately in need of a love letter started leaving the kinds of words she yearned to hear for strangers to read. She lit up New York City one heart at a time and, in the process, healed her own. That’s what happens when you take your eyes off of yourself and start writing for other people.

I started writing for me. Because I had words bottled up in my heart that needed somewhere to go. Sometimes I still write for myself. Sometimes there’s a message God is pounding into my heart so fervently that it is all I can write. And the beautiful thing about those blog posts is that I get comments from all of you saying how badly you needed to hear those words, too.

When I set out to love letter the world, it started writing letters back to me. Letters that said, “I needed your words. You’ve given me permission to dream.” Letters that said, “Thank you for the reminder. It set my heart back on the right track again.” Letters that said, “Your voice, your words, your heart—they matter. They matter.”

Maybe I was more like Hannah Brencher than I thought—maybe I wrote out of my own fear that I would live and die having never made noise in this world—because your words mean the world to me.

Today I am ever so thankful for you, my readers, who believe that the words that flow from my heart through my fingertips are worth your time. I’m grateful that you make me feel as though my efforts matter. You’ve helped me realize that the world isn’t as big as it once appeared, and that I am changing it…

one love letter at a time

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12/10/2012

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Live the Journey

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Joy in Your Presence

My life has been so busy lately. That’s been my answer for everyone who asks how I’ve been.

Busy. Busy, busy, busy.

Maybe that’s why Psalm 16:11 hit me like a slap in the face:SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

It’s the kind of verse that makes me realize how far off track I’ve been here of late. Caught up in the mundane. Just pushing to get through another moment. Another day.

In the hustle and bustle of everything happening in my life—the tasks I have to complete and the dreams I yearn to see fulfilled—I’ve forgotten an essential thing.

There is joy to be found in the journey. Joy to be found in the One who gives life to those as undeserving as I.

And I find that what I’ve been missing these last few weeks is joy. The joy I used to find in His presence. The joy that unveils itself with every step God leads me through.

The path of life is just that: life. It’s not meant to be routine. It’s not intended to become mundane. It is meant to be lived. Fully. With joy in His presence and eternal pleasures at His right hand.

And for too long I’ve been forgetting to live so fully.

Today I come to find joy in His presence again.

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12/04/2012

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Something About Dating…

So, I wrote my third guest post for Devotional Diva. One thing I really love about guest posting for Renee is that it is always challenging. I’ve had to step outside the box and/or delve into some issues that I don’t spend much time talking about. First she had me write about becoming approachable… which I’m not—I’m totally not. Then she had me addressing some issues with my skinny little body… which I tend not to talk about because most people don’t understand that “skinny” isn’t a good thing. Today, I’m talking about dating… which is laughable.

But, you see, someone asked me how I felt about not being allowed to date until I was sixteen and, for the first time in my life, I actually thought about it. And the answer I came up with was really quite beautiful. It made me want to hug my dad (and I probably would have if he weren’t 450 miles away).

So here’s my thoughts about dads being involved in their daughter’s dating life: Get all up in the middle of it, please. Even if she tells you she doesn’t want you there. Because she’s lying. And here’s why I believe that.

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11/30/2012

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Live the Journey

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A Light That Shines in the Darkness

My mom recently asked me if I could recommend any Christian books my little sister could read. Having been reading young adult fiction for the last year, my list of “Christian” books isn’t very large. When I explained that fact to my mother, she teased me for my sudden fascination with “heathen” books and music.

Well, you know what they say. When you turn a sheltered, homeschooled child out on her own…

But seriously. My mom was completely messing with me, but if I’m honest with myself, I do sometimes fear that the stuff I’ve been reading is going to color my world with shades of gray (but not fifty shades of it because I’m not even touching that). So I started looking at the shape my life has taken since I stepped outside of the Christian genre. This may sound strange to say, but I think I’m better for it.

Young adult fiction challenges me in a way that Christian fiction never did because instead of flowing smoothly with the worldview I was raised with, it grates against every fiber of my core. There have been books that I’ve cringed through and others that I’ve set aside because they’re not even worth finishing. They present a series of “what if’s” that Christian fiction had protected me from.

The thing is… I like being challenged. I like questioning my convictions and wondering how they would hold up under fire. I like being stirred to anger or moved to brokenness over the scenarios that present themselves to me. I like when a song comes on the radio and I’m reminded to pray for the state of my world… even if it means I have to change the channel every couple of songs.

And I know there is a fine line between convictions and compromise. I know that when you walk too closely to the edge, there’s always a chance of falling. That’s why I spend my mornings with a Bible on my lap and a pen in my hand. That’s why I still crank up the praise music and dance my heart out in worship. That’s why I cling to the promise that God will hold me up if I will simply trust in Him.

Over the past year, my calling has shifted in so many ways. I stopped working at a mission’s organization because I wanted to write full time and because I realized that my calling was to this nation, not the nations. I decided that I’m writing YA fiction with an underlying theme of grace rather than overtly Christian fiction.

Somewhere in the course of the past year, I realized that I don’t want to be a light that shines amidst all the other candles; I want to be the one who stands alone in the dark.

And I know that suggests that I’m going to spend a large portion of my time feeling very, very lonely, but I’ll keep shining—keep calling others forth—hoping that I will one day leave a trail of bright, flickering flames where there was once nothing but darkness.

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11/26/2012

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Growing Pains

“The prerequisites for growth,” Bruce Mau said, are “the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.” Perhaps that is why so many of us reach a point where we simply stop growing. It’s not easy to let an event change us from the inside out.

Or perhaps we simply reach that place where our bodies have ceased growing and we think maybe the rest of us has grown up as well. Now there’s a laughable thought.

I’ve said before that I’m the kind of girl who always had a plan. I always imagined I had my life figured out. I always thought I knew exactly what I wanted. Maybe that’s why I stopped growing. Maybe when I reached that place where my mornings were devoted to my writing, I thought I had finally arrived.

Because this is what I wanted. And even though I knew there was always room for growth, I had let myself believe it could only be the small stuff from here on out. I was settled. I was certain. I was in that dangerously comfortable place… until God reminded me of how often I’m more like a three-year-old girl in her pink tutu and plastic tiara, claiming that I’m going to be a princess when I grow up (which I don’t think I ever actually said growing up, but the principle remains and you know that every three-year-old girl has thought it).

“Darling,” God whispered, “you’re still growing. You’re still in the stages of becoming and discovering and finding it’s not always so easy to stand with your head held high.”

The past few weeks, God and I have been discussing my flaws and, let me tell you, there’s a reason they call them growing pains instead of growing pleasures. I’m learning that there is a price to pay for the joy of becoming. Slowly but surely, I’m accepting the pain for the blessing it truly is.

And if you’re finding it hard to move past the growing pains, just remember that those sharp pangs in your ankles rendering it hard to walk right now are going to make you a little more surefooted in the future. The spasms shooting up your arms are making you strong enough to carry the loads you were never able to shoulder in the past.

Because Little One, Little One, you were made for so much more… You were meant to be so much bigger. You were created for greater things.

But you’re still growing. And it still hurts, though sometimes it’s glorious to realize how tall you’re now standing. But you were made for greater heights than this. For longer reach. So don’t you dare become content to stay just as you are. Because you’re still growing. And yes, it’s a painfully glorious thing.

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11/23/2012

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Fairytale Fallacies

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Best Romance Here!

So, when the girl who first started blogging about singleness and waiting and fairytales and the like hasn’t talked about relationships for months, you should probably see it coming. Also, you can blame it on the holidays and all those people who say that it sucks to be single this time of year. (Side Note: I have never and will never agree with that statement. It’s always great to be single. Except when you’re not.)

You read about relationships everywhere. I was on facebook the other day and saw an ad with the line, “You can’t leave. I will make you my bride.” The ad boasted “Best Romance Here!”

Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got? Because it sounds sort of creepy/stalker-ish to me.

But maybe I’m a skeptic. After all, I held onto the adage that “boys are icky” until the age of 13 16 21. I’m not the kind of girl to swoon at cliched movie lines. And maybe that’s not fair of me. After all, I’ve never been the recipient of one of those cliches (at least, not seriously). And since I’ve watched far more practical people fall prey to cupid’s arrows, it’s hard for me to assume that I would be immune to cheesy lines like that.

In fact, there was this one time that a friend—a friend!—whom I swapped states with over Christmas suggested that we could wave as we passed on the highway. I stared at the comment on my computer screen, teary-eyed, until my mom thought she was going to have to track down a thermometer. If the first three months of homesickness could do that to me, I hate to think what might happen when a guy shows up in my life.

Yes, I should probably stop laughing because, one day, Prince Cheesy is going to come along and sweep me off my feet with an endless barrage of cliches.

But mostly, it’s not the cliches that bother me. Sure, those are the lines at which I roll my eyes and say, “Oh, puh-leese,” but the lines that really get to me are the ones that are meant to be romantic and turn out to be more suggestive and degrading. Those are the ones that make me wonder if we’ve somehow cheapened love.

We’ve evolved past the “helpless heroines” of the fairytales and crafted stories better suited to our culture. And we call those love-at-first-sight one-night-stands romantic.

Sometimes I’ll watch a movie like Shall We Dance? and I’ll think that Hollywood finally got it right. When I hear Susan Sarandon talk about why people get married, I think, “Yes, yes, yes. That’s what I want. I want someone to care about the good things and the bad things and the mundane things, and I want to care about his mundane things, too.”

The problem with our world is that we’ve tried to make love all about us—what we want and need and feel. That’s why divorce is so prevalent in our culture. When the other person fails us, we give up, wondering what went wrong. I’ll tell you what went wrong. We’ve strayed from God’s command to selflessly love and have taught ourselves to love selfishly. We’ve made it so that it was never about the other person at all.

We feed each other lines and lyrics that are sprinkled with cliches, but hold back the one thing the other most desperately needs from us: Love. We clutch it with our fingertips and catch it on our tongues because the word seems almost foreign tumbling from our lips.

Love. The real kind. The genuine version. The one that revolves around the other person rather than me. That’s what I want to offer the world. And if it’s not too much to ask, that’s what I’d like to one day be returned to me.