Dear Bekah,

Dear Bekah,

Hey girl! Happy late birthday, this blog, while still about Jesus, is my take on the birthday post this year. I hope you enjoy ~ 

So, the other day I was trying to download that new Netflix movie “Tall Girl” for weeks, but wifi in South Africa, and probably most other countries, is not like wifi in the states. It’s just not as good. My teammates were thoroughly annoyed with me constantly talking about this dumb movie, and also like, man I knew the movie wouldn’t be good, it had just been so long of waiting I couldn’t give it up. So, finally, after weeks of waiting, I downloaded the movie at this restaurant downtown. SO here I am, watching this movie, and it’s not very good. It’s the kind of movie where in the beginning, where the main character has her first dialogues with all the supporting characters like her best friend, love interest, family members etc., all their conversations have things like “you always say _____ dad, you know how I feel about that”. Kinda like they’re establishing long-lasting relationship dynamics but in a really uncomfortably obvious way? Not good at all. But in the movie there is a scene with these sisters and they’re just finally connecting for the first time in their adolescent lives and it hit me because it made me think of freshman year when you finally started talking to me like a human. We became  best friends that year without realizing it during our dates to pyramid scheme smoothie shops and late night talks over our homework. 

Yesterday, my team and I had spent the whole day together, celebrating my teammate, Karson, on her birthday. The day was so fun, crazy, random, and full of beautiful views. We started it off in a town that is home to a naval base with lines of brightly colored boats and a stunning view from this historical harbor with dank seafood, window shopped through boutiques down the town’s Main Street, and at the end of the day found ourselves in this beauuuuuutiful South African vineyard overlooking the ocean as it meets the mountains. Pictures literally don’t do it justice. It’s like 10x prettier than Malibu. As we drove home in our Uber that night, my other teammate asked the car if we could’ve brought one person from home along with us for the day, who it would be. And I said you: 1. because you would’ve have thrived with all the photo ops, good food, and the beautiful (and oddly boujee, I still don’t know how we ended up there) vineyard, and 2. because I just miss you so much. You’re just my freaking SISTER! Like in Tall Girl, the sister and her just /get/ each other because it’s just a unique bond, growing up together. You just know me so well, ins and outs, what I was like at 4, and 10, and 18. You cried when I was born, dealt with me when I wouldn’t go to bed when we were roommates in Sinking Spring for a hot minute, sat with me in the kitchen in Edina after school when we weren’t sure if mom was safe from the marathon, made me drive down the windy snake with you and you know who freshmen year, and so much more. I love how well you know me, and how well I know you. I love how much you talk about you (even though I complain) because I know if I were to talk talk talk the same way, you would care the way I care when you talk (even if we both act like we don’t), and how freely I can demand you’ll listen to me (or you to me) and how we’ll drop what we’re doing to listen if we weren’t before. That was such a run on sorry, but also, how you just love Christmas the way I do, or traditions, or talking about our families being close when we’re old, or how you know my heart so well, that you when I’m being intentionally hurtful or not, and the same way I know when you do it too. 

It’s the same way I want to know and love and be in relationship with Jesus. I want to be able to listen to Him speak to me and just get it, and if He says something harsh, know that it’s what’s best for me to hear and know His heart so well that I can’t deny what He says is true. (Like obviously He’s right and wants what’s best for me and all that, but like really understand it in my heart without question). I also want so desperately, and pray day in and day out, that I will be able to truly know in my heart how much Jesus knows me better than anyone, better than you, better than Rachel, better than mom knows me. I deeply love the feeling of being known, and it sucks because more often than not I seek it in people and not the Lord. But God knows me so well. I mean, He is our Perfect, Heavenly Father. A Father that when He used His voice to speak everything else into existence, crafted us with His hands. It says in Psalm 139: 13-14 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made [or set apart]. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” It blew my mind when I read that the first time. Now I just want it to blow me away ever day. Lately, I’ve been trying to use earthy examples to help me better understand God, because while it’s cool to see how beautiful the Lord has crafted our relationship to be so intimate and close and one that we had to choose, the one we can have with Him is so much better. Relationships take time though, just like ours took almost fourteen years to really start. Now I’m just figuring out what pursuing the Lord looks like. So far it takes patience, persistence, and prioritizing. Updates to come…

I have to wrap up because all my teammates are sleeping and I’m sure they’re annoyed by me typing away late at night, but I just wanted to make your birthday as special as I could without having a sick birthday post for you lined up. I hope you like it, I love you SO much, and quick call out to all the siblings that didn’t call Bekah on her birthday, I did all the way from South Africa!! Do better. Missing you always.

Much love, 

Sarah