Wow, You're So Judgemental

This was originally posted in May, 2011 on tumblr

Today I had a funny realization. Well, I hope you find it funny, because to me it’s just shameful and embarrassing and a terrible reminder of my humanity. I was reading 1 Peter 2 (one of the most convicting chapters ever) and with each verse I felt like I was being pummeled with more conviction-stones. Verses 11-17 were hard for me to read, especially 17. “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” Short, sweet, to the point. And horrible. My thought process went something like this: I know some people who aren’t doing this. They are constantly judging and questioning authority. They act like they know everything about this situation, but I heard something else from so-and-so, so they must be wrong. How can they be so judgmental? 

Then came that terrible moment when I actually thought about what I was saying, put myself in the verse instead of everyone else but me, and realized how stupid I am. God likes to do this to me a lot, and I’m still not sure how much I appreciate it. (I’m definitely exaggerating here. Conviction is good, realizing my sin is good, I just hate the sting at first. For some reason believing you’re perfect is easier than working to get rid of sin in your life. Huh.) I was sitting there, Bible open, praying to God, telling Him all about how He needs to go convict this person of their ridiculous sins of ignorance, arrogance, and judgmentalness. I was being judgmental about someone else being judgmental about something that I obviously know nothing about. 

Ouch. 

A teacher at school recently talked about how easy it is for us to compartmentalize our minds. We know about all these sins, wrong ideas, false beliefs, then we place them in boxes in our minds and label them “BAD.” Then, when we meet people who subscribe to these false ideas and beliefs, we put them in those boxes. We lose discernment and begin judging. The person who God loves doesn’t matter any more, because we’re right and they’re wrong. And well, apparently I do this too.

I hope you enjoyed this. I didn’t. 

:)

Urge Me Not to Use Moderation!

This was originally posted in April, 2011 on http://beccafrench.tumblr.com/post/4298250320/urge-me-not-to-yse-moderation. 

From “For Immediate Abolition” by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831, addressing slavery. 

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not a cause for severity? I will be as harsh as the truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her baby from the fire into which it has fallen—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.” 

Urge me not to use moderation when speaking of the murder of 115,000 children a day. 

Urge me not to use moderation when speaking of the devastation of 115,000 mothers’ and families’ lives a day. 

Urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. 

Abortion ended another 115,000 innocent lives today, and devastated even more. Will you be a voice? 

(Cite: Biblical Worldview Rhetoric I, by Shauna K. Howat)

Moses

Originally posted in March, 2011 on tumblr. 

Note: this was posted a while ago, and thanks to some hardcore editing I'm not nearly as close to being finished now as I was then. This isn't a bad thing at all, it's just how editing happens. 

Stress and Big Prayers

After a much needed two week spring break and a week of being sick, now “real life” has to start again. The other day I was thinking about the coming quarter, I got slightly overwhelmed at the lists of things that needs to be done. Besides school, there’s babysitting and family and so so much writing to be done to keep me busy. With only four chapters left to write (only one of which requires a lot of research! Hallelujah!), completing the first draft seems so close but still just out of reach. While thinking about all of this, I began praying. “Help me glorify You. Did I say that wrong? Be glorified through me. In me. Despite me. This is one of those scary prayers that I don’t know if I want to pray—but I feel as if I must. Help me depend on You. Make me depend on You.” In the book Forgotten God Francis Chan talks about how God will do something completely unexpected in the most unlikely person possible in order for Him to be glorified even more. I’ve been thinking about that a lot the last few years. 

Unlikely People Doing Unexpected Things

My favorite example is Moses, because he was so unlikely for the job God gave him to do. He was born an Israelite, but grew up in Pharaoh’s house as an Egyptian. When he was around 40, he went out and saw an Egyptian beating a Israelite man. Moses killed the Egyptian and buried his body, which made the Israelites fear him. Once Pharaoh heard Moses had killed an Egyptian, Pharaoh tried to kill him as well. In a matter of days, Moses found himself belonging nowhere and hated by everyone. I can’t imagine that in my own life; everything being normal one day, then suddenly everyone hating me and trying to kill me. He ran, and left behind him his family, friends, everything familiar and dear to him. Years later God came to Moses in an unlikely way, a burning bush, to give him an unlikely task. 

God said to go back to the country where he’s an outlaw. Go to the man you grew up with as a brother who probably now hates you (who happens to be the king by now), and tell him to let all of his slaves go. Then become their leader, despite the fact they hated you too, and bring them out of oppression and into the wilderness. After hearing this, Moses promptly reminds God that he has a speech impediment (which is kind of funny, actually). All the odds are against him. There were so many people who would have been a more reasonable choice to do what God was telling Moses to do. What does God say? “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak” (Exodus 4:11-12). Now, it seems unlikely enough that the most powerful king on earth would listen to a man without an army when he said to let all of his slaves go free. Then throw in the other variables that Moses was an outlaw, wasn’t exactly on friendly terms with anyone, and could very easily be thrown into slavery with his fellow Israelites. Not to mention he was putting his own family at risk by bringing them to Egypt with him. But God had a bigger plan: “Now therefore go, and I will be your mouth.” God wants to use our weaknesses to show off His strength. I used to always think He made us with our different talents and abilities so we can serve Him best. While that’s somewhat true, I think He gives us our weaknesses even more for Him to be glorified. 

I’m not an outlaw, I’m not hated by everyone, I’m not suffering from a speech impediment, and there aren’t people plotting my death, but I do have my own weaknesses. There are so many things that should disqualify me for doing what God has me to do. I have nothing interesting about me to make people want to read what I have to say, I’m not that great of a writer, I’m only sixteen years old… Just to name the most obvious, but the list goes on and on. However, God is telling me to “go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” 

Prayer Is an Opportunity for God to Shine 

Asking God to make me depend on Him is intimidating. Actually, it’s really, really scary. Setting out to write a book on on of the most heated topics of our time as a teenager is really, really scary and intimidating. Praying and asking God to end abortion and the daily murder of thousands of innocent children is also scary and intimidating. But God is a big God, and if we don’t depend fully on Him, He wont have the opportunity to provide for us in big ways. If we’re not weak, He wont have the opportunity to be our strength. If we don’t pray big prayers, He wont have the opportunity to give us big answers. 

So, these next few months, I’m going to be depending on God. The normal Becca stresses out each week because of just homework, and really can’t manage much at all. Instead of freaking out, I’m learning to ask: What is God going to do despite of my weaknesses next?

Why the Heck Are You Writing a Book?

Originally posted in February, 2011 on tumblr. 

Woo-hoo. Little Book Girl’s got herself a blog. 

For my first blog post ever, I wanted to explain the question I get asked more than any other: “Why the heck are you writing a book?” I’m a sixteen year old highschool girl who’s setting out on the ridiculous mission of writing a book. For teenagers. About abortion. Believe me, I’m still in shock too. It’s still an absurd thought that I would be doing something like this, and I laugh about it frequently. Let me try to explain why I’m doing this. 

In the Beginning, There Was a Research Paper

It started with a research paper, assigned to me in early 2009. The assignment was a 7-9 page paper on an American “anti-hero;” certainly a daunting task for ninth-grade me. The list of people we could choose from included Betty Friedan, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Margaret Sanger, and many more. While my topic was still undecided, one day my teacher came up to me at church and asked me about my paper. She told me, “You should write your paper on Margaret Sanger!” For some reason, I completely agreed with her and just took her word for it. From that moment on, I knew that’s what my paper needed to be about. It’s odd explaining it, but I felt as if it had already been decided. 

2.5 billion: Dead. 

I soon began researching the life and legacy of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. In my research I read books like Killer Angel by George Grant, Why Can’t We Love Them Both by Dr and Mrs Willke, and Won by Love by Norma McCorvey. I read dozens of pamphlets and brochures about everything related to abortion. I read websites like theunchoice,justfacts, and afterabortion. Everything I read lead me to one conclusion: abortion is a heinous act of murder and treachery, and somebody has to stop it. I clearly remember the moment, sitting at my desk in my room, reading Grant’s Killer Angel, when I read that 2.5 billion children have been killed by abortion. That has left far more than 2.5 billion people scarred by the abortion—mothers, fathers, siblings, family members, doctors, nurses…billions of people. I was stunned. I felt helpless against such a huge evil; there was nothing I could do. 

Do Hard Things 

Soon, I finished my paper and turned it in. I hadn’t totally forgotten about abortion, it seemed to lurk in the very back of my mind. I didn’t start thinking about it daily until later that summer. I read Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris and suddenly I could believe that teenagers could do big things too. Teenagers can, and are, changing the world. I attended their Rebelutionconference where I heard of Abort73. I looked them up when I got home, and the horrors of abortion became fresh in my mind again. Despite lots of other things going on in my life, abortion became the front and foremost thought in my mind. I memorized statistics. I littered my room with sticky notes. I read anything I could get my hands on about it. Finally, I emailed my teacher who I wrote my research paper for and asked her what to do about it. 

“Hey Becca, Write a Book”

A few weeks later, she came up to me at school and said something that, since that moment, has completely changed my life. “Becca, I think you should write a book.” She went on to explain how much teenagers need to know about this; it directly effects our lives and we have the power to do something about it. I knew right away this is what I had been waiting for; this is what I needed to do. I continued to pray about it. I was incredibly hesitant to tell even my friends and family for fear I would fail. But God gave me an incredible peace about it, and more faith than I had ever experienced before. This is what I was made to do. This is why I am here. I’ve become more comfortable with the thought of writing a book, it’s gone from terrifying to hilarious. God has provided for me in so many ways for this book—from giving me a free laptop right after first telling me to write a book, to people frequently sending me links to things right when I need them the most. It’s been an incredible growing experience for me, and I hope to share some of that with you as God moves, I write, and life goes on. I’m still figuring out how in the world you’re supposed to write a book (much less as a teenager and about abortion), and I’m blown away over and over again by God’s grace in the midst of this chaos. 

That is the condensed version of why I’m writing a book. God works in such mysterious ways, I could never write all of them in a blog. I don’t think even I will fully understand why I’m doing this—other than because God said to. Nothing brings me greater joy than doing this. I’m hoping I can share that with you through this blog. Let’s hope I actually update it :) 

Here are some more FAQs (I’ve always wanted to say that. Ha.) 

Q: What is your book going to be called? 

A: The Unborn and the Uninformed. Snazzy, huh? 

Q: How long will it be? 

A: 30,000 words. Give or take a lot. Right now it’s looking like 10 chapters,between 3,000 and 5,000 words each, which is approximately 15-20 pages each. That means the book could run between 150-300 pages. But all of that depends on font, font size, page size, publishing company, how editing goes, ect. Basically: ask me when I’m done. I don’t really have a clue. 

Q: Are you going to get it published? 

A: That’s the plan. 

Q: How will that work? 

A: Ideally, I’ll find a publisher. But that’s unlikely and very difficult to do, especially because my book is so unique. If publishing doesn’t work, I’ll self publish. 

Q: When will you be done? 

A: I’d love to be done by the time I graduate highschool, but I don’t have much control over that. The more I research, the more there is to write. The more I write, the more there is to edit. I’m relying on God’s timing for all of this, so whenever He decides He wants it done it’ll be done. James 4:13-17. 

Q: What’s the significance behind “twopointfive”?

A: 2.5 billion lives have been lost to abortion. That was the statistic that first hit me and has stuck with me the most. Long story short, when I sat down and tried writing for the first time, I named the document “2.5,” and the name just stuck. (For those of you who don’t know, twopointfive was the name of my survey project a year ago.) 

Thanks for reading :) 

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” James 1:27, ESV.