Grab a cup of coffee and meet Becky Bennett, today’s “A Life Lived Beautifully” feature!

Your weaknesses, your planner, your family, your mundane moments, and your feelings were all meant to be arrows that point us to our Savior Who is everything that we need. 

James: Weeks 12 + 13

I was on the phone with a friend the day I received a text that flipped our family’s world upside down. My sister was in her first trimester of pregnancy and was at her routine check-up when the nurse noticed something abnormal in her ultrasound – several markers for Down Syndrome. I remember reading her words, each one of them hitting my heart like a freight train. Down Syndrome doesn’t run in our family, this can’t be true, I told the Lord, begging Him to spare my sister of any potential heartache and hurt. She and her husband had been trying to have another child for years, this couldn’t be the way God would answer their longing.

My head was spinning. All at once it seemed like every ball I was attempting to juggle came crashing down. I sat in the living room staring at the intimidating notifications on my phone. Sitting next to my phone was a lengthy to-do list I kept rearranging each day, hoping to finally make some headway on it. Instead, I sat there paralyzed with fear that I would make the wrong decision and waste precious time. I was enslaved to the feeling that I had to do “everything” so I ended up accomplishing nothing. 

Even typing this I feel like a weight is sitting on my chest. There is so. much. to. do. Do any of you reading this feel like you have an endless to-do list and like you are being crushed by the expectations of this world? This is not living. Feeling overwhelmed by life is really no life at all. It is mere survival in the wilderness of the day-to-day grind instead of thriving in God’s grace in the midst of it all. I’m through with it. For most of my life I’ve been a “yes” girl, never questioning an offer to participate in something and rarely addressing my schedule to see if my commitments are actually doable. When it comes to planning, I tend to have a “thanksgiving” mentality. 

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James lock screens: weeks 8, 9, 10 + 11

Week 7: James Scripture Memory Challenge

Dear Single Self (& Single Friends), You are not alone. I feel I need to repeat this so it sinks into your heart, you are not alone. In the world of singleness it is easy to feel, well, singled out. Kind of like you are wearing a scarlet letter that say available and alone. You may feel lonely and you may feel hopeless, but don’t allow feelings to direct your steps.