Amy and I at my birthday party this past January.
Amy Horton is one of my dearest friends on earth and today is the day of her birth, which I am so thankful for.
Here’s why:
1. Amy was the first friend I ever felt I could ask for help from. It’s weird now, but at the time, I never felt I could ask anyone for help. She and her (now) husband Bart are such servants and care for people in such a way that I felt confident it wouldn’t be a burden to them to help. From the beginning of our friendship until now they have bailed me out of numerous situations, served me to their own hurt, and come to my rescue when I knew I needed it and when I didn’t. She has been instrumental in teaching me to humble myself and ask for help when I need it!
2. She is the type of person who treats you as if you are her dearest friend even if she’s only known you for two minutes. I, unfortunately, am very selfish. And I tend not to open up to people if I don’t think they like me/care about me. I think that’s why Amy and I are such good friends, because she is so good at showing care for the people around her that I immediately felt comfortable with her and like I could open up my soul to her. I’m sure she would tell you it was just me, but as I’ve watched her over the years, I’ve seen her do this time and time again. She just really cares about people and that is obvious to anyone she comes into contact with. She exudes a warmth and love I wish I had! And the best part is that it is a genuine love for people, not contrived.
3. She is surprisingly hilarious. If you just meet her, you think she is this ultra sweet, really caring person. And she is. But if she was just that, I don’t know that I would be such good friends with her. I tend not to like to ultra sweet and caring type, I need a little bit more spice and spunk than that. But once you get to know Amy you find that she has a wicked sense of humor and dripping sarcasm that is even more funny because it takes you off guard coming from someone so sweet! I love being with her and laughing with her.
4. She is the type of friend who withholds judgment and criticism. There have been numerous times that I have been in the wrong and Amy has held her tongue so that I could learn it on my own. Not because she doesn’t love me, but she is wise enough to know when I need a little kick in the tail and when I need to learn something on my own. She trusts the Lord enough to know He is at work in me and He will bring me around (which is so hard!) and is wise enough to know when lessons are better learned on one’s own. So she lets me make mistakes and fall, and is still there to pick me up and listen to me cry when I learn my lesson. It makes me confident she is going to make an incredible mother come this December.
5. She is beautiful. The kicker is that she doesn’t really realize this, which just makes here even more beautiful. She just doesn’t seem to care about her beauty. She isn’t vain or proud, and when I asked her if she felt self-conscious about being pregnant (because a lot of women get all crazy about their bodies growing when they are pregnant) she just said, “I am so excited about having this baby I don’t even think of it.” Her beauty is just as deep inwardly as it is outwardly.
6. She loves the gospel. Amy and I share a passion and love for the gospel which makes her so fun to get to share with. She understands how life-changing the gospel is for the believer and how much we need it every single day. So as I am learning new things, she shares me excitement and learns them right along with me! It’s a blessing to have a friend who is learning and growing in some of the same things I am and who loves the same things I do. Her love for the Lord and His work in her is just another reason why I love her.
There is so much more I could say about her. I just love being with her. I love going shopping with her, driving with her, showing up places with her, going to dinner with her before bible study. I love talking with her about what’s going on in my life and hers, and love that I can always count on her to include me in her life as part of her own family. She has been such an amazing friend to me in so many ways and we have shared a lot of precious memories and I treasure her as one of my very best friends.
Happy Birthday Amy!
I wish I had more time to blog about all of this, but I have a feeling that even if I did…no one would want to read it all. So I’ll try and do some quick updates:
Things I’d Like To Blog About:
1. The concept of calling. I’ve settled into my calling. I’ve bucked it for awhile. I don’t want to have a sad, poor, trial-filled, unglamorous, unimpressive life. And yet I think this is what God has called me to. I’ve fought it at every turn and decision, but again and again God has convicted me that I need to choose what He wants, not what I want. He has made the decision clear. My calling has never seemed ambiguous. So I went to a school that isn’t prestigious, pursued a career that won’t make me wealthy, stayed in a place that isn’t beautiful, gave up a life of freedom and ease, accepted a job where the work I do is seemingly insignificant. I’ve given up a lot of what I naturally like, am drawn to, and desire. It’s not a life that’s impressive to most people. I’m okay with that now. This is what God has called me to. The road has been hard, but worth every step of the way.
2. How and why my nephew is changing my understanding of Salvation/God/Christian Living. He is possibly the first person I’ve loved that I am confident a) I will always love more than he loves me; b) Serving him and caring for him is so far from a burden that it almost seems selfish because I love him so much; c) I cried and cried and cried when I had to leave him and dreamed up ways to get to see him again. There’s more, but this is how we should be with our entire family of believers. If I loved the Body of Christ the way I love that little guy, man what a irresistible place the Church would be!
Memorable Moments of the Summer:
1. I became an aunt! Timothy Indiana Noble “Indy” was born June 19. I am incredibly, crazy, almost embarassingly in love with the little bugger. Can’t get enough of him!
My mom, sister, nephew and me at a picnic in the park!
2. Esther, Rick, and Jackie came to visit me at my parents house and I gave them the official “Beth Catron Tour” of San Francisco. If you don’t love the City, come with me. I will show you why it’s worthy of love and adoration. It was great to see them! It was a hilarious day (but what is to be expected?). A bird pooped on my hair (first time ever!), I suggested going on the elevator at the Westin St. Francis (an absolutel must) but got scared and jumped off at the 12th floor, Rick got his first limo ride which sounded glorious until the driver kept telling us how drunk and high he was, and Jackie beamed through her entire first cable car ride.
Jackie and Amy getting bird poop out of my hair. What are the chances?!
The group of us in the Marin Headlands across the Golden Gate Bridge. R to L: Amy (Jackie's ex-RA), Jackie, Rick, Esther, Joshie (my cousin), and me!
3. I fullfilled my lifelong dream of milking a cow. I have a cousin named Kenny, and it seems that any time I mention anything, he takes it as a direct order to get it done. For instance, I say, “My lifelong dream is to milk a cow.” Kenny takes that, talks to his dad, figures out where I can milk a cow, arranges all of it, invites me down for it, has me stay at his place, and goes with me to milk the cow. He is so precious. I LOVED IT! It was more than I hoped and dreamed it would be.
Me and Guitar, the Jersey Cow.
Things I’m Thankful For:
1. I feel back to my old self. Happy, laughing, goofy, confident, free. RD retreat this last week showed me how different it is from who I’ve been! It feels so great. It’s times like this that I am very thankful for who God made me to be and see how joy-sucking it is to try to be something different. By God’s grace, I am who I am.
2. I have really good friends. It occured to me over the summer that I have friends who walked with me through this past year when I was sad, cynical, complaining, joyless, and not funny. Bart & Amy, Laura, Rick & Esther, my parents and sister, my girls Amy and Kim, Ona, and Ben pulled me out of myself and walked with me. They didn’t give up on me when it got hard, when I wasn’t fun for them anymore, when I wasn’t benefitting them any longer. Yesterday I was telling Ona this and he said, “Because people really care about you. Do you question if people care about you?” I answered him with this, “No, I don’t question if they care. I know they do. I just don’t know why.” I feel very very blessed to have such wonderful friends.
3. My family. I love my family now more than I ever have before. It is an amazing gift to have a sister. My love for her grows and grows and I can’t believe there is someone who has known me so long and walked with me through so much, who is my own flesh and blood, that I get to have in my life. I love her son. I love my parents. Through all of our ups and downs, the downs just bring us closer together. I am so thankful for them.
4. Love. I typically associate love with hurt and pain or joy and good times. In my mind, love only hurts when you are wronged or mistreated. Relationships are hard. That’s true. But when I left my nephew last weekend I cried for a good 6 or so hours straight (I know, I know, I told you it was getting embarassing!). Not because I was hurt, not because I was wronged or mistreated. Because I just loved him so much the thought of being away from him was unbearable. That’s a pleasant kind of pain to love someone that much. I’m thankful for it.
5. The lessons I’ve learned over the past year. The Lord took me through a year where He showed me the glaring errors in my faith, caused me to love Him and His gospel more, to long for Him and Heaven more, to distrust my own strength and rely on Him, to use the good and bad in human relationships to learn more about him, caused me to see some massive failures and sins in my life and repent of them. It was a good year. I can’t even begin to tell you how thankful I am for it. Sanctification is freeing.
6. My bosses and colleagues. I work with phenominally godly, hilarious, gospel-minded, others-centered, enjoyable, servant-hearted people. It’s convicting, humbling, and encouraging all at the same time. I am very thankful for them.
Today I returned from my first retreat of the new school year, RD Retreat at Three Rivers. More on that to come….
I’m headed down to TMC next week to finish up my classes for the summer. I’ll be taking “NANC Certification” — which is a class that has you do all the work to — you guessed it — become NANC (National Association of Nouthetic Counselors) certified. A few weeks ago I had to turn in a first draft of the exam portion of the certification — which is compromised of 51 questions that all take 1/2 to 1 page to answer, but in reality there have been entire books written on the subject. For example, “Describe the trinity and defend your view from Scripture.”
“Alright. Sure, I’ll do that. You also might want to consult WAYNE GRUDEM.”
It was actually pretty encouraging because as I wrote out my answers, I realized that, while I hadn’t studied for this exam, I had a general idea of most of the answers to the questions. Apparently I haven’t been wasting the last 7 years of my life.
Anyways, I thought I would share this with you because it made me stop and worship Christ right then in the midst of writing my exam. This is just one sentence from my answer to one question.I got to read all these verses in one sitting. YES PLEASE.
What’s crazy is this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what Christ did on the cross.
God has given His Son to die in our place as the ransom (Matthew 20:28; 1 Timothy 2:5-6; 1 Peter 1:18-19), atonement (Psalm 65:3), and propitiation (Hebrews 2:7) of our sin and those who are saved by His blood receive forgiveness (Psalm 130:3-4; Acts 2:38, 5:31, 10:43; Ephesians 1:7), justification (Romans 3:24, 5:1, 5:9, 8:30, 10:10), righteousness (Romans 3:22, 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 5:21) and life (John 3:16, 36, 6:40; Romans 5:21, 6:22-23).
“…Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” – Matthew 20:28
“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” – 1 Timothy 2:5-6
“…knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” – 1 Peter 1: 18-19
“When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions.” – Psalm 65:3
“If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” – Psalm 130:3-4
“And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” – Acts 2:38
“God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” – Acts 5:31
“To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” – Acts 10:43
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” – Ephesians 1:7
“…and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” – Romans 3:24
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Romans 5:1
“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” – Romans 5:9
“And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” – Romans 8:30
“For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” – Romans 10:10
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” Romans 3:21-22
“And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption…” – Romans 1:30
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” – 2 Corinthians 5:21
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” – John 3:36
“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” – John 6:40
“…so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” – Romans 5:21
“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:22-23
This past week I was back down in Santa Clarita for a week taking Summer Classes for the MABC program, so I spent some time on I-5 driving, which gave me time to think.
As I was driving I was remembering some of the monumental moments in my walk with the Lord this year. It’s been a truly life-changing year for me. I’ve been a faithful journaler since 7th grade, but for me journaling is a way of focusing during prayer by writing out what I pray. So…I don’t actually have a record of the events, just the prayers that accompanied them. This post is a way of looking back and recording God’s grace to me. I hope I never forget it.
October 15, 2008 — Realized that I am forgiven. Not just was forgiven, but am. This ruined my pursuit of self-righteousness (read: a righteousness found in myself, outside of Christ) and self-atonement for my failure.
November 7-8, 2009 — Elyse Fitzpatrick spoke on God’s Transforming Love at the Women’s Retreat at Master’s. Realized I didn’t understand God’s love and felt I was on the verge of something big but knew I still didn’t understand it fully (which God has been faithfully opening my eyes to little by little since).
March 12, 2009 — Was deeply impressed by the strength of character needed to make a marriage work — by both spouses. I had been focused on men needing to have that type of strength of character to be godly husbands but I saw that if I want to have a godly, happy, marriage one day, I need to start by being a woman with that strength of character.
May 31, 2009 — Realized nothing was ever enough for me. I was discontent and ungrateful and needed to be thankful instead. Able to enjoy being alone for the first time in my life.
June 30, 2009 — Confronted with the strength of my desire to not be taken advantage of and to have my voice be heard and the way I react when I feel I am either being taken advantage of or I don’t have a voice/am not being heard. It’s ugly.
When I write these things, I’m aware that they sound simple. But any of you who have walked with Christ for any length of time understand the difference between acknowledging something as true intellectually and being deeply convicted, grieved, and changed. The latter is what I mean when I say I “realized” or was “confronted” by something. These were mountains in my soul that God moved.
It’s no surprise to me that God began by teaching me of His forgiveness and love and after that began showing me massive areas of sin in my life. Before I learned of God’s forgiveness and love post-salvation, I would have never been able to bear looking at that sin in my life and would have worked desperately to cover it up. It was the freedom I found in forgiveness that enabled God’s transformation.
Last summer I heard a song by Shane & Shane for the first time, Acres of Hope. One line hit home to me when I heard it, “How the story ends is // Love and tenderness in Him // Not safe, but worth it.“ At the time, it seriously petrified me to think of the valleys of life God might lead me through. Now, after a year of being lead through a valley (one that I never wanted to walk through), I’ve come to find that He’s not safe. But worth it. And the valleys He leads us through do in fact give us acres of hope.
Tonight I had a break through. I keep having these break throughs this year. Except it’s not that I am brilliant or have some novel concept or idea…it’s that God is breaking through the layers of my sin. Ouch.
It seems as though every time I feel like I’ve gotten a handle on things and doing pretty well, the Lord starts chipping away again. You might remember my post a little while ago about the people fast. I’ve been feeling pretty good about that, especially since i’ve been home. I’ve been happy, content, thankful. I’ve been serving my family instead of reverting to jr. high again and acting like a spoiled little brat. I’ve been letting things slide off my back, covering in love. I mean really, I was incarnating Christ like it was my job (please hear my sarcasm in that).
Then, that all got thrown off. I fell back into my old pattern of thinking. Got a sinus headache (which I now think are actually stress headaches). Couldn’t shake myself out of it. Decided I was better off on my own, life is easier without relationships, and made secret plans in my head to return back to Master’s early to get myself out of this predicament sooner rather than later.
When my mom and I were having dinner tonight, she blasted the top off my sin. I don’t think it was even on purpose, just asked a simple question. I started to see the same things oozing out of a lot of areas of my life. Booty. Just when you think you’re getting things under control!
This year has been one of incessant refining. The Lord has been very kind to put me in a spot where He used my own desires to force me to face my sin, repent of it, and begin to change. God used the perfect set of circumstances to peel back layers of old patterns of sin I had dolled up enough to not have to pay attention to. As I look back to last year at this time, I realize I am a very different girl than I was then which I’m incredibly thankful for. And tonight I didn’t feel annoyed that God showed me more sin. You know when you’ve had a heck of a day and one final thing happens and you just start to laugh because it’s almost comical and somewhat unsurprising? That’s more it was it was like. “Of course you would.”
But, the good news is that sin is enslaving and sanctification is freeing. No, actually, the good news is that because of Jesus Christ my sins are forgiven. Tonight I am more thankful than ever for relationships that don’t end when things get rough but instead grow stronger and stronger with each storm and a God who is relentless in His love.
I’m excited about what God is up to.
