(Slightly related elaborations from this post.)
Something else God pointed out to me:
I was upset because I had nightmares lat night. I’ve been upset on many, many nights because insomnia was robbing me of much-needed sleep.
But you know what?
God made night and day. And He called them both good.
I hear that from time to time: people talking about how God made everything and called it good. But I usually hear it referring to people‚ or to nature—living things. All true and excellent, of course. Yet, God said everything was good. He took the time to call out every individual thing He created and tell it how good it was.
So I have “good” nights and “bad” nights. There’s grace in that, too. There is grace because God always shows up.
So I bless the night. I bless it even when I don’t meet the new morning feeling phenomenal. I bless it even when it made me miserable. I bless it, because God did it first.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
grace & small revelations
Today was what I would usually understatedly call “not the best day ever”.
I had nightmares last night (which is an extremely rare occurrence in my life) and woke up feeling really gross. I was tired all day. We had an activation in the morning session where we had to tell people why we loved them, but I wasn’t able to find most of the people I wanted to talk to. When we did treasure hunting in the afternoon, nobody wanted to talk to us and we couldn’t match any of our words of knowledge. We had chicken for dinner. I napped by mistake and missed a meeting of my outreach team. We went to House of Prayer (two hours of intercessory worship) in the evening, and I was feeling really sick, with no recourse. Then, just as I was ready to go home and crash, one of my outreach team leaders came up to me and filled me in on what I missed at the meeting…
…we’re sharing testimonies tomorrow night. Not in the school—in front of the church. Having had no prior practice. And because most of our team is leaving for the holiday weekend (Thanksgiving in Canada is inexplicably in mid-October), it’s only going to be me and two other people. There was also somebody that I was feeling a little bit judged by in the evening, which is not something you encounter a lot of here, so even a little bit of condemnation (real or perceived) feels like a ton of bricks.
I was literally on the verge of bursting into tears. The whole way back to the dorms, I was just like I can’t do this. There’s no way. I don’t want to do any of this.
In lieu of having any comfort food (I haven’t been able to buy chocolate because I’m poor), I took a hot shower and God and I had some space to talk. I poured out what i was feeling, and ended it with “…it just has not been a good day.” and suddenly, I was reminded of a quote I heard a couple of weeks ago from a guy called Graham Cooke:
Although I was really tired this morning, I was still able to immerse in the storytelling glory of the marvelous Chris DuPre (our speaker for the week; more on that in another post). Even though I hated the chicken at dinner, the sweet potato fries we also had were fantastically good. I was able to reach out to people this morning that I might not normally talk to a lot. Even if it felt like our treasure hunt was a failure, we still stepped out despite feeling incredibly awkward, and that’s a stinking big deal. We finally got our shower head replaced this week, so I actually had water pressure for a decent shower (glory, glory hallelujah!). Emily lent me use of her hot chocolate mix. I was able to participate in the rapid-fire prayer at the House of Prayer and actually feel like I was connecting with God even though I felt sick. Somebody randomly turned out to have a book I’ve been wanting to read and offered to lend it to me. One of my roommates gauged that I was in a weird mood (she became alarmed because I wasn’t talking to myself) and asked if I was okay, which meant a lot to me.
I still am feeling really not-okay with testimony-sharing tomorrow, but there will be grace. There has been grace for every time I’ve had to get up and babble in front of people before. I actually have a testimony to share, and I have a friend or two that will let me practice on them in the hallway tomorrow. So that’s a good start.
There’s always grace. Ask for it, and you’ll find it.
I had nightmares last night (which is an extremely rare occurrence in my life) and woke up feeling really gross. I was tired all day. We had an activation in the morning session where we had to tell people why we loved them, but I wasn’t able to find most of the people I wanted to talk to. When we did treasure hunting in the afternoon, nobody wanted to talk to us and we couldn’t match any of our words of knowledge. We had chicken for dinner. I napped by mistake and missed a meeting of my outreach team. We went to House of Prayer (two hours of intercessory worship) in the evening, and I was feeling really sick, with no recourse. Then, just as I was ready to go home and crash, one of my outreach team leaders came up to me and filled me in on what I missed at the meeting…
…we’re sharing testimonies tomorrow night. Not in the school—in front of the church. Having had no prior practice. And because most of our team is leaving for the holiday weekend (Thanksgiving in Canada is inexplicably in mid-October), it’s only going to be me and two other people. There was also somebody that I was feeling a little bit judged by in the evening, which is not something you encounter a lot of here, so even a little bit of condemnation (real or perceived) feels like a ton of bricks.
I was literally on the verge of bursting into tears. The whole way back to the dorms, I was just like I can’t do this. There’s no way. I don’t want to do any of this.
In lieu of having any comfort food (I haven’t been able to buy chocolate because I’m poor), I took a hot shower and God and I had some space to talk. I poured out what i was feeling, and ended it with “…it just has not been a good day.” and suddenly, I was reminded of a quote I heard a couple of weeks ago from a guy called Graham Cooke:
“[God] is faithful. From this day on, for you there is no such thing as a good day or bad day. There is only a day of grace. And some days the grace of God allows you to enjoy what is happening. And some days the grace of God allows you to endure what is happening. But don’t think about good and bad anymore – just enjoy the grace that is present.”So I started thinking about what grace showed up in my life. obviously I endured, or I would be dead right now. So how was God showing up in my “bad day”?
Although I was really tired this morning, I was still able to immerse in the storytelling glory of the marvelous Chris DuPre (our speaker for the week; more on that in another post). Even though I hated the chicken at dinner, the sweet potato fries we also had were fantastically good. I was able to reach out to people this morning that I might not normally talk to a lot. Even if it felt like our treasure hunt was a failure, we still stepped out despite feeling incredibly awkward, and that’s a stinking big deal. We finally got our shower head replaced this week, so I actually had water pressure for a decent shower (glory, glory hallelujah!). Emily lent me use of her hot chocolate mix. I was able to participate in the rapid-fire prayer at the House of Prayer and actually feel like I was connecting with God even though I felt sick. Somebody randomly turned out to have a book I’ve been wanting to read and offered to lend it to me. One of my roommates gauged that I was in a weird mood (she became alarmed because I wasn’t talking to myself) and asked if I was okay, which meant a lot to me.
I still am feeling really not-okay with testimony-sharing tomorrow, but there will be grace. There has been grace for every time I’ve had to get up and babble in front of people before. I actually have a testimony to share, and I have a friend or two that will let me practice on them in the hallway tomorrow. So that’s a good start.
There’s always grace. Ask for it, and you’ll find it.
Monday, October 7, 2013
SoM: the dreadfully overdue update, part one
Hello friends! Apologies for going three weeks without a post. Oy vey. Our schedule has been turning on its axis rather faster than normal the last couple weeks, but I’ll get into that in a bit.
We wrapped up Core Values month in the last week of September with five sessions of prophetic training from the famed, the mighty, the two-and-only Ivan and Isabel Allum! That was crazy, let-me-tell-you. Not only were we supplied generously from their fount of wisdom, advice, and admonition, but they also made us do lots of activations (a word that used to give me goosebumps. Seriously). (If you’d told me a month ago that I was going to prophesy over half the school in the space of two hours, I would have completely flipped my lid. Now prophesying and blessing people seems like sort of a regular thing…we’ve done it in the hallways a few times as well as being requisitioned into it at church.) I also got a prophetic word from Ivan, in which he used the word “visionary” five times in two minutes. So that was super exciting!
We followed that up with a four-day shift as ministry volunteers at the Catch the Fire conference on Sept. 25th-28th. All the students were on the prayer team in the evenings, in addition to having another duty in the morning or afternoon. I was on Welcome, which basically boiled down to standing by the front door for four hours giving out “good morning”s and directions (and occasional hugs). I was a bit amazed by how many people were genuinely excited to be greeted at the door, by someone who wasn’t just checking for registration wristbands!
The conference was full of great highlights, by the way. David Ruis led the first worship set and I was basically transported back to my childhood. Two measures into the opening piano of “We Will Dance” and I was literally crying. We also did this song on the third night, which was one of the most powerful corporate worship experiences I’ve had. A guy I’ve never heard of named Duncan Smith gave a great message on “Jesus as our magnificent obsession” (it especially appealed to me because he opened it with a literary analogy [about Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, which isn’t one of my favorite stories, but I’m not going to argue with the Holy Spirit’s artistic revelations]). The very last session was led by none other than Heidi Baker (I’ll pause if you need a moment to fangirl like most of us did) and it was amazing. She just shared about how she got into her current mission field and some of her very early testimony, in addition to a few stories about the lowdown in Mozambique. She is a passionate, hilarious, fiery, humble, very blessed lady.
God’s still getting down to the basics with me. Right now we’re working through some forgiveness and honor stuff—which is simultaneously really refreshing and really hard—and He’s also still making sure I’m taking HIm at His word. Both prophetic word, and Bible word. We did a fire tunnel at the conference, and because it was following the Heidi Baker session, i was sort of expecting it to be explosive, expecting to get some great revelation or anointing. I thought that was what i needed—some direction, some clarity, some vision, eh?…
Nope. I was feeling some stirrings of joy and love and general manifestations of Holy Spirit goodness, but not hearing much from God. No visions…nothing. I was physically manifesting pretty intensely, so much so that I had to just lie on the carpet for awhile. So here I am: the sanctuary is full of shouting and laughing and whooping and people generally having a really great time in the Spirit, and then…quiet. It’s just me and God. I try to ask him questions, try to ask for revelation, and I’m still not getting anything at all. So I gave up.
And then it’s that tickling voice, that quiet, heavy voice, and He says: “Say you believe Me.”
“Okay—I believe you.”
“Keep saying that.”
“I’ll say it as many times as it takes for me to really believe You, at a heart level—“
“No. Never stop saying that. Never stop believing in My pursuit of you.”
So i said it a lot. I even shouted it out loud—which is really not a thing that I do, not that anyone was going to notice it in the midst of the Holy Ghost party.
And I’m going to keep saying it. God, Your yes means yes and Your no means no. I believe You.
I've another post in the works about this past week and what’s coming up – but I don’t want to burden you with my entire autobiography just yet, so I’ll wait a day or two before posting. Thanks so much for reading! <3
We wrapped up Core Values month in the last week of September with five sessions of prophetic training from the famed, the mighty, the two-and-only Ivan and Isabel Allum! That was crazy, let-me-tell-you. Not only were we supplied generously from their fount of wisdom, advice, and admonition, but they also made us do lots of activations (a word that used to give me goosebumps. Seriously). (If you’d told me a month ago that I was going to prophesy over half the school in the space of two hours, I would have completely flipped my lid. Now prophesying and blessing people seems like sort of a regular thing…we’ve done it in the hallways a few times as well as being requisitioned into it at church.) I also got a prophetic word from Ivan, in which he used the word “visionary” five times in two minutes. So that was super exciting!
We followed that up with a four-day shift as ministry volunteers at the Catch the Fire conference on Sept. 25th-28th. All the students were on the prayer team in the evenings, in addition to having another duty in the morning or afternoon. I was on Welcome, which basically boiled down to standing by the front door for four hours giving out “good morning”s and directions (and occasional hugs). I was a bit amazed by how many people were genuinely excited to be greeted at the door, by someone who wasn’t just checking for registration wristbands!
The conference was full of great highlights, by the way. David Ruis led the first worship set and I was basically transported back to my childhood. Two measures into the opening piano of “We Will Dance” and I was literally crying. We also did this song on the third night, which was one of the most powerful corporate worship experiences I’ve had. A guy I’ve never heard of named Duncan Smith gave a great message on “Jesus as our magnificent obsession” (it especially appealed to me because he opened it with a literary analogy [about Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, which isn’t one of my favorite stories, but I’m not going to argue with the Holy Spirit’s artistic revelations]). The very last session was led by none other than Heidi Baker (I’ll pause if you need a moment to fangirl like most of us did) and it was amazing. She just shared about how she got into her current mission field and some of her very early testimony, in addition to a few stories about the lowdown in Mozambique. She is a passionate, hilarious, fiery, humble, very blessed lady.
God’s still getting down to the basics with me. Right now we’re working through some forgiveness and honor stuff—which is simultaneously really refreshing and really hard—and He’s also still making sure I’m taking HIm at His word. Both prophetic word, and Bible word. We did a fire tunnel at the conference, and because it was following the Heidi Baker session, i was sort of expecting it to be explosive, expecting to get some great revelation or anointing. I thought that was what i needed—some direction, some clarity, some vision, eh?…
Nope. I was feeling some stirrings of joy and love and general manifestations of Holy Spirit goodness, but not hearing much from God. No visions…nothing. I was physically manifesting pretty intensely, so much so that I had to just lie on the carpet for awhile. So here I am: the sanctuary is full of shouting and laughing and whooping and people generally having a really great time in the Spirit, and then…quiet. It’s just me and God. I try to ask him questions, try to ask for revelation, and I’m still not getting anything at all. So I gave up.
And then it’s that tickling voice, that quiet, heavy voice, and He says: “Say you believe Me.”
“Okay—I believe you.”
“Keep saying that.”
“I’ll say it as many times as it takes for me to really believe You, at a heart level—“
“No. Never stop saying that. Never stop believing in My pursuit of you.”
So i said it a lot. I even shouted it out loud—which is really not a thing that I do, not that anyone was going to notice it in the midst of the Holy Ghost party.
And I’m going to keep saying it. God, Your yes means yes and Your no means no. I believe You.
I've another post in the works about this past week and what’s coming up – but I don’t want to burden you with my entire autobiography just yet, so I’ll wait a day or two before posting. Thanks so much for reading! <3
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