Alright… time to write again… and what good news I have!!! Yesterday, I must say was amazing. God is just so good, as I’m sure all of you already know! Let me kind of go into my explanation sideways. I’m also going to start with a little bit of personal…
I remember waking up yesterday morning and I had kind of a really depressing dream… not a bad dream, but the sort of dream that when I woke up, it made me sad that I had it because it wasn’t real. Anyway, I’ve been dealing with a lot of personal spiritual battles. I was thinking about it today, because God keeps doing all these things in me. He keeps breaking things that I didn’t know were there, giving me revelation after revelation about things… he puts mindsets in me and strengthens me and builds up my confidence. All this happens after really long grueling nights of just battles in my heart. The thing is that I’ve felt kind of crazy. I’ve felt kind of crazy because God will do all these things and then the next day; it feels like everything is coming against it to bring it back down. I’m also dealing with things that I’ve never dealt with before, and my spirit has just felt so beaten lately. What I was thinking about today though… what God kind of revealed to me was… OF COURSE! I mean we are in such a spiritually active environment. Satan has been throwing anything and everything at me… every lie, every old issue I’ve ever had, he’s gripped me in every way imaginable... even good things, things God’s put in my heart, he turns around for his evil schemes. Then when I mess up, his favorite thing to do is rub it in… keep me in the holes I tend to fall into. No wonder whenever God does something in me; it gets faced with unimaginable opposition later. It’s been such a wild roller coaster for me. Also, my natural tendency when I mess something up is to try and fix it. Something God just kind of started talking to me about was His point of view about that. It started with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader… kind of random maybe but God has been speaking to me through anything and everything. He even just speaks to me when I’m by myself and thinking about things. It’s something God’s done before (speaking to me while I’m just processing stuff), but not to this extent or with issues this heavy ever before. Anyway, back to the book… in it, this character named Eustace who is a rather unlovable character accidentally turns himself into a dragon. He has a miserable time of it and he hates himself. He’s disgusted at his eating habits and at what he looks like. Also, while unable to talk or be friends with people because of his dragon form, he thinks about what a horrible person he had been to the people around him when he was a human. Well, one night he meets Aslan (representation of Jesus) at a pool one night. All that Aslan tells him is to take of his clothes. Eustace didn’t really understand because he was covered in scales, but all the same he starts to scratch and scratch at himself until he sheds a layer of dragon scales. This entire dragon skin is laying beside him but he immediately realizes that he still has another layer of dragon skin on underneath… so he starts to again, try and scratch it all of. He does this several times until finally Aslan says that he has to do it. Every time Eustace scratched the dragon skin off of himself, it didn’t hurt. When Aslan started to peel away at the skin, he said it hurt worse than anything… but out he came as a boy once again and Aslan threw him into a pool of water to get clean. Immediately I knew that I was like Eustace, constantly trying to fix my own problem, trying to get it to go back to the way it was… I needed to learn how to let Jesus take the scales off of me Himself.
It’s just been really interesting because for so long I’ve been frustrated; I haven’t felt like myself and I’m caught up in all these things that Satan keeps throwing at me. God’s been moving and using me and doing things in and through me but every day has been an endless battle and having to reconquer and reconquer… it gets rather tiresome. It was good to have God show me that it’s ok… that He’s still right by my side through all of this and that He does indeed have a plan whether or not I see it. See what happened yesterday… after all of this side wind… back to the dream. Just because of things that I’ve been going through on this trip, this dream was really hard to take… I woke up and I wanted to disappear. I remember I made that my facebook status as well! Ha! I just needed to be pulled out into a different world. I had no idea that that was indeed EXACTLY what I needed and that was EXACTLY what God did for me. So, again, I’ve been reading the Chronicles of Narnia; yesterday, I was finishing up the last book: The Final Battle. It is an incredible book. Anyway, towards the end is when everyone goes to the new Narnia which is the equivelant of heaven. Just from the way C. S. Lewis describes this new Narnia and how it was real… he says that there is no other way to describe it except that everything was exactly the way that it should be. Everything was bigger, better, deeper… the same… but even more real. Just going into the depth of all these words, and the depth of Aslans character and how he really represents Jesus and in the end the children realize this… it was just massive revelation moment for me. What was funny was that hen I was reading Prince Caspian… I remember reading about the part where Lucy meets Aslan in the woods. See, I’ve always had a really close connection to Lucy’s character, just cause a lot of who she is resonates with me and I played her character in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe… So, when I read about her meeting with Aslan, and just the kind of relationship that they have and the adoration, the affection… all of it. I remember wanting that so badly… with Jesus, and wanting to experience Him just like that. Well, that’s exactly what God did for me yesterday. After finishing that last book I just couldn’t even help but go straight into worship and through the revelations God was giving me… I really just experienced Him like that, as a lover, as a best friend, just so indescribably close to me. The feeling was just so strong that I actually wrote a poem about it. Ha! I love God, I love the things that He does… He truly is amazing.
Well, I got home and just decided that I should go for a walk again, there was just something really important about being by myself and letting God work through completely the things He was doing. It was one of those times where I couldn’t stop worshipping and really, nothing could’ve stopped me! I love having those times with God. Anyway, I got kind of called to go see Charoline… so I did and just ended up in a really great conversation with her. I never realized how much favor God has given me in that relationship with Pastor Jimmy’s wife until I talked to her yesterday. The things she confided in me and talked to me about, the testimonies she shared and just getting a better understanding of her heart was really cool! Definitely gave me even more of a heart to pray for her. I’m super excited because the whole time I was talking to her I just had this really strong feeling that God has something really, really cool in her very near future.
Later, we had two of the guys over overnight the night before. Jehu, and Lesean (I don’t know if I spelled that right). I don’t really know Lesean at all but Jehu is Nicole’s (a good friend I’ve made) little brother. He has been on my heart almost as much as his sister has been on this whole trip. Watching the changes that have happened to him throughout this trip has just been really cool. I don’t know what it is but his heart has just been… there’s just something about his spirit that mine has understood and I could see a sort of hunger. Most of us knew from the very beginning that he would be part of the core by the time we leave. Well, last night was just the coolest. Kirk just opens a conversation with them about whether or not they want to be serious about God and what that really means; really, just giving them the opportunity. It was completely God ordained because it got the guys into a conversation with them that lasted for hours about just what it means to serve God and different aspects of that life. At one point us girls got kicked out because Kirk said… we can make this final decision here and now or later… Lesean said now… so we girls went into the guys’ room. At first, we were a little distracted but I felt really strongly that something serious was going on in the other room and I wanted to worship or pray… it was really heavy on my heart. So we did… we started to worship which ended up leading into some massively intense spiritual warfare. I mean we were all yelling and declaring for a really long time… it was awesome really! My favorite part was this one time where we were declaring some stuff and I just felt really strongly to talk about how God has promised us that where two or more are gathered, He hears us. So, I just started to speak that out and say “here we stand united, we stand as one, in agreement” and we were all agreeing together… it was awesome! We ended with some more worship and eventually when the boys were done, we went to eat dinner.
Well, I was starting to get really sick, and I am sick now too… longest, most sleepless night ever… but still… so I went home earlier and the girls came later. When I got to the boys house this morning I heard the most exciting news. The guys had spent a lot of time declaring stuff together and just setting aside parts of there life that didn’t belong… but after we left… they were both baptized in the Holy Spirit. WOW!!!! So, so, so, so cool!!!! Seriously!! I was so excited when I heard that! Well, thank you to all of you who are praying. I just need to say please pray more… now that things are coming down, a core is being built… God is really on the move… there are bound to be many, many spiritual attacks. It’s just a given… Satan is not going to take this laying down. And as you saw from my explanation earlier… it’s not always a up front attack against the group as a whole… He is also going to try and take us down one by one, individually. Thanks again for all your prayers guys! Miss you! We’ll be home soon!
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