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BekahMae
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Name: Bekah
Country: United States
State: Pennsylvania
Birthday: 5/20/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: Theatre, Performance, Travel, Flying Kites, Dancing, Reading, Music, Thinking.
Expertise: Theatre Performance, Piano, Life.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
AIM:  Beckmae83@aol.com
Member Since:
2/4/2004
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| funny story first....
so i'm picking up boxes from the local ABC store and this kid, Max, tells me that i'm "hot in a PJ Harvey sort of way." i laughed, impressed that someone knows who she is, but thinking i look nothing like her. and then he says, "come back if you need a date." that was a new technique i had never seen a guy use, kind of a strange way to ask. so i let the kid know, "sorry, i'm married." the moment was very awkward for a while. and he responds, "well that's the worst news i've heard all day. good luck with that." he turns and is gone. i get in my car laughing. a very amusing little exchange.
okay....the real news......
WE'RE GETTING A REAL HOUSE!!!
as in, we are going to be homeowners. in less than four weeks i will be living at 7200 noland rd., falls church, va. i'm not even sure where to begin the story of this house. it started somewhere back in january or february when dan and i realized we should maybe consider buying a house since the market in northern va had actually dropped to the point of us being able to afford a home.
one evening, at the beginning of the process we're sitting under blankets on the couch looking through home databases online and we this one particular house that from the one exterior photo, Dan thinks looks pretty cool. within a week or two the listing is off the market and under contract. oh well....there will be others.
months later we begin to actually look at houses in person. fairfax, annandale, falls church centreville....around. we keep leaning toward homes in falls church, the location seems as if it would perfectly suit our needs. but for every house we looked at i became more and more frustrated. they seemed be out of our price range, have some kind of damage, black mold in basements, shifting foundations, holes through the floor or decades of grime. the trashed houses still seemed to go for more than we could afford. i was shocked and frustrated. the stuff we could afford would require tens of thousands in remodeling and the stuff we liked was out of our price range.
in may we received my inheritance money from Aunt Sue's estate. it as a strange afternoon sitting at the kitchen table holding a check that represented all of Aunt Sue's life. i didn't want to be holding a small rectangular piece of paper, i wanted to be talking to her on the phone, waiting for that familiar and warm, "hey bekah!" when she answered. instead, i took the check to the bank and prayed we could use this money for more than stuff, i wanted it to matter and be significant. a house would be the perfect use.
dan and i had been praying for months for the right house, at the right time in the right location. little did we know what would come. a few weeks after depositing the check we made our first offer. a cute 1950s cape cod with a beautiful addition and awesome yard. a week later, we were our bid. the second home...also a 50s house with lots of original cabinets and sinks. within 24 hours we were outbid by $30,000 sending the house way past its asking price and thousands our of our price range. so many of the homes we liked were going for %20-30 more than listed and i was beginning to think we'd have to look into condos.
we prayed, harder and surprisingly with more peace and calm. i stopped worrying about finding a house realizing that trust in God was finally being cultivated in my life. i can't even explain how calm i felt compared to the months previous. i knew that at the right moment God would bring us the right house, not the perfect house, just the right one.
the last day of june the house dan had noticed back in february came back on the market. it was a short sale and the previous contract which had been on since feb canceled leaving a small window of time for us to match the offer and put our names on the contract. dan and i were up early one morning to look at the house before work. it wasn't perfect. the awesome vintage features of the other homes were remodeled into bland grandma-ish decor (the bathroom especially), but the addition made for plenty of space and flexibility to knock out walls. we rushed to our realtor's office and got our contract in before someone else had the chance.
and then we began waiting and praying. i didn't get my hopes up. but i kept thinking it would be just like God to give us this house. it was one of the first ones we saw back in january and it fit our criteria for not being "perfect" as in we weren't in love with it instantly like the our first two offers. it just seemed as if this house could be the perfect tool to demonstrate God's perfect timing. sure enough, six and a half weeks later God decided to give us the house.
this house was a short sale, thus the reason we had to wait almost two months to find out if the bank would approve the sale. i was doubtful that they would. we had seen too many homes in MUCH worse condition go for way more than our offer. the amazing thing....there's nothing wrong with the house, no leaking roofs, no basement therefore no water damage and black mold, no half finished kitchens or bathrooms and plenty of space, more than we need. there was no reason why the bank shouldn't have foreclosed on the house and gotten more for it than we offered.
but i guess that's what can happen when God is involved. and... not only are we getting the house a great price the seller is paying for all the closing costs! we never excepted that to happen. secondly, my not having a job a the moment also turned into an amazing miracle in that our lender is offering us more than a %.25 reduction in our interest rate due my unemployment. i'm not sure how it works but with the money the lender is giving us and the extra from the closing costs we're buying down our rate to much lower than we had calculated.
i am totally blown away by the way God is providing for so much more than we need. with four bedrooms we'll have room for kids (eventually) but in the mean time have the space in case someone needs a place to live for a little while. He has given us a mortgage rate much lower than we imagined we would obtain and now our monthly payments will be lower then our current rent.
whatever you may or may not believe about God or prayer or christianity i can say without any doubt that God has worked some incredible miracles in our lives this year. the faithfulness of his love and grace is beyond our deserving. so yeah. i'm amazed.
come to our house! we'll be there in less than a month!
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| okay God, what the hell are you trying to teach me(us)? whatever it is i'm scared it's going to be a long and difficult two years. i guess not scared, scared. just scared because things don't seem to be turning out the way i thought they would.
but i guess that's your thing.
more later. | | |
| I have been turning in application materials for grad school, studying up on my math (ugh!) to take the GRE and generally feeling as if I am 17 all over again. I wish I knew what what I would be when I grow up.
Crystal Missler is coming to mine/her brother's for two weeks! I am excited, very, very excited. One of the best aspects of her visit is yet another chance to hit up all the free DC museums and galleries. I never get tired of visiting them. I am in the midst of our easiest show to date, Ion. Two wigs, two hairdos and zipping a few people into their dresses. That's it! At least this way I have time to study during the show.
I saw trees starting to bud! Spring is near, finally!
Basically I'm saying these things, not out of their inheriant interest to you, but to relieve my guilt for not every using my xanga.
Guilt relived.
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| This is the rough draft of what I shared at Aunt Sue's memorial service last year. I never put this up, although I meant to. A year ago today, this morning actually. It's still weird, death isn't something you get used to in 12 months. Probably not even 12 years.
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Aunt Sue read a book she always began with its cover, she didn’t skip the title page to dive into the introduction and plot, she would take her time, often pausing just inside the cover to point out the author’s autograph, something that has always astounded me. As a child I thought she must be friends with a lot of famous people to have gotten all these autographs. She was kind enough to skip the publishing information never skipped the title page. There she would pause, reread the title and author’s name out loud. At one time I used to grow impatient, I didn’t care who wrote the book, I already saw the title, and besides there were rarely illustrations on this page. After only a moment, and the author properly acknowledged she would begin reading and the story would unfold until the she read the last sentence and closed the book, its back cover now all that I could see.
While I can hardly claim to have an exclusive perspective on her life, I do believe my siblings and my cousin Grace and I have had a unique relationship with Aunt Sue that only the six of us will truly appreciate. We received her affection as more than aunt, at times a friends at times a mother, including the discipline that goes along with that. Just ask my brother what happened when he colored on her walls.
My earliest memories are of sleepovers at her house, the earthy pastels and bright colors of the southwest decorations became part of my dreams. I would help her wash her dog “Bruce”, which I believed was as much my dog, as it was hers. The dog’s bath usually ended up with her having to use the blow dryer on me as well. She was the first person to teach me what our state tree looked like as we hiked around Little Buffalo State park, and always eager to take us swimming on a summer afternoon.
Aunt Sue lived an adventure filled life; she would bring us gifts back from mission trips to Haiti, climbs in the Grand Tetons or trips to Arizona. Her gifts usually reflected her love for natural beauty and wildlife and her understanding of what we would enjoy most. However one my favorite life adventures was when she and my Aunt Cheryl joined my Mom and I on a spur of the moment trip to London, England.
I remember calling her on the phone late one evening and blurting out, “Do you want to go London with us?!” With barely any hesitation she said, “I’d love to, I’ve never been to England.” The four of us had an incredible five days exploring the city together. Of course there was a few times my adult traveling partners embarrassed me. At seventeen, who wouldn’t be, but we able to laugh our way through wrong turns and poor translations of the English accent and at the end of the five days we were disappointed to be leaving not only London, but also each other’s company.
As a teenager and college student I grew into a more adult relationship, driving up for a quick swim after a hot afternoon of waitressing, chatting as we cooled off in her swimming pool. We should share funny stories of my customers and she of the various humming birds or other animals that called he yard home, she would usually make sure I was well fed, or at least well snacked, before I headed back home.
Once in college, finals week became something to look forward to. Nearly every semester I received a package of candy, gum, popcorn, some photos from home and a letter from Aunt Sue. Her letters were full of stories from school, stories of her dog, Sophie, the latest updates on what God was doing in her life and usually a wonderful dose of encouragement, prayer and humor to get me through finals. I loved those packages; they were usually my favorite of the semester. When she was in the hospital one year over finals she apologized for not being able to send me a package, I did miss receiving it.
In some ways I’d like to ignore the past four months, to pretend that they never happened and yet, as a result none of us would be here to present a testament to the incredible things God did through her life. I am so happy he gave her a life full of so many people that loved and respected and most of all supported and prayed for her. Despite what cancer did to her body I truly believe that she loved us even more fully through it all. I have never heard such sincere “I love you’s” come out of her mouth as I did one she had cancer. I do not believe she suddenly loved us more necessarily, but God gave her a special understanding of his love that she in turned with everyone around her.
Even from her stay in the hospital this summer she never stopped being concerned about the details of the wedding, calling me at times to remind me of deadlines I should be following to get everything accomplished in time. She was the one that made sure I had a cake server and knife, I probably would have forgotten entirely if not for her research and prodding.
Perhaps the few things that make me smile most from the last four months was the weekend before Thanksgiving when my siblings and I were able to continue our tradition of decorating her house for Christmas. Things seemed almost as they should with her Christmas village brightly lit on top of the piano, the sleigh bells and wreaths hung and tinkling on the doors and all of us laughing and smiling at past memories and the memories were in the middle of making.
Later that evening, as we prepared the food Aunt Sue turned her job of homemade piecrusts over to us. What she could usually do perfectly by herself turned into hilarious, flour filled experience that required seven of us. We laughed as we tried to knead the dough into a perfect ball and then roll it out and transfer it into the pie pan all in one piece. They hardly turned out perfect, but there was never more genuine laughter then the laughter that occurs in the face of a fight for life.
While the things that cancer do to a person are never beautiful or enjoyable for family and friends there is no mistake that my Aunt Sue lived a life full of God’s joy that few are able manage. Yes she cried at times and grew frustrated, we all did, but there was always a fullness and hope in her eyes that cancer could never disguise. Cancer is not what she or any of us would have chose, yet if you look at her life from the front cover to the back cover you will discover a story of redemption and beauty.
Inside her front cover is the autograph of the author of her life, the title page bares his mark, the title is an ode to a woman of faithfulness, and the story is full of adventures, laughter, tears, pain and love. But when you close the back cover you will see that hers is a story of restoration. God did not forget her, she was ultimately restored to what she should be and now is living a victorious life unrestricted and free. As Jesus told the woman that bled for twelve years, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." Now that Aunt Sue’s book has been written, the back covered closed we may now fully discover what her life looked like. To quote a song by Jars of Clay:
We made it to a strange town
Going down the wrong road
Like any story retold
Couldn't find a common ending
We're way gone, be gone, looking for our own way
We needed a distraction
You said you were redemption
We knew it as a wrong turn
We couldn't know the things we'd gain
When we reach the other border
We look out way down past the road we came from
We're looking at redemption
It was hidden in the landscape
Of loss and love and fire and rain
Never would come this way
Looking for redemption
We were looking out past the road we came from
Looking at redemption
Hidden in the landscape
Of loss and love and fire and rain
Never would have come this way
Looking for redemption
In the eyes of sorrow, eyes of rage
What a sordid histories they played
The drama of redemption
Redemption
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| everything's okay. i'm still here. i work lots. sewing elizabethan costumes for Romeo and Juliet, so traditional is this production they're using an all male cast. i think it should be pretty sweet. tech starts next week so for about two weeks i'll be dead to the world, even dan. tech is when i only see him as we bump into each other in the night.
but after that, it's a run of the show, a few random events and then hopefully a MUCH NEEDED VACATION in november.
arg, we both need it.
i love you and miss you. this is dumb.
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