Trust.

For months, several posts have been on my mind, but as my life typically transpires, it’s a whirlwind and I still have the thoughts needing to get out. So it’s now the end of the day on January 1, 2014 and it seems appropriate to write.

The year of 2013 both started and ended tense. It was far from the easiest year I’ve experienced. It was a growth year and growth hurts. It was a year of trust.

Every year I pray over and chose one word to focus on for the year. Instead of a resolution, I ask God to help me chose a word that he wants to teach countless lessons to me over the year and this year it was Trust. Immediately I began to learn lessons of trust.

2013 started with trusting God’s voice in my life. I knew Northern Ireland and the UK was a place God was stirring things in me, growing desires in my heart, releasing dreams, and connecting the dots for many areas of life. My problem was that I was back state-side for Christmas, facing delays in the visa process and gaps in my funding. I was in limbo of where I would end up and logic looked different to every active influencer in my life. I knew God was saying ‘Trust me and we’ll do this together.’ With 24 hours before my return flight, my visa was delivered to me, and I had to make a choice that a few thousand dollars wasn’t going to be the wall to hold me back from chasing God and trusting him.

I stepped into a new season living in Northern Ireland. I continued to be a student at Causeway Coast Vineyard’s Encounter School of Mission. I stepped into a role as Graphics and Multimedia Intern at the church. I stepped away from expectation of others and I continued chasing God and the shared dreams we have together.

This year I learned lessons of trust in God:

• When I want to be a dreamer - He give me dreams.
• When depression struck me and I pulled away from many relationships - He knows the loneliest places of my heart and he brings peace. He stops the lies and replaces it with joy. He gives the wisdom to speak the words “I’m sorry, and I need your support.” His support comes in friends willing to call me out on my crap and my attitudes and who drew me back to reality that I am loved and I could experience happiness again.
• With a longing for a Mr. to share my life with - He is the lasting love who comes before all, He doesn’t want to deprive me but he doesn’t want me to settle on just anyone. Love doesn’t look like what I want it to, but He never leaves or forsakes me. He forgave and forgives me when I have and will mess up and hurt others who try to love me. Waiting on His timing and not pushing for my own is hard, yet will be rewarding. Hearing “I love you” from another person doesn’t always mean butterflies in the stomach. I may feel ready, but I have to trust that my Mr. is also being made ready for me. There are AMAZING men of faith around who prove that daily.
• When finances proved a continuous struggle - God is the financial provider and asking for and accepting help is not bad. It teaches humility and appreciation for people, their generosity and their love.
• When family was far away - He sets the lonely in families, bringing new people in for comfort. He also taught me that sometimes, only the sound of our own family's voices, is the comfort I can have, even if it is only from the far end of a phone line.
• When I step out on faith against logic time and time again to follow His lead - He cheers me on. He blesses me. He honors it. And then He asks me to go farther because he trusts me.
• When I want to be creative. He fills me with ideas, he sets me with people to spur me on, He provides opportunities beyond measure.
• When I call myself an adventurer - He called me that first, and he’s calling me into greater adventures of my faith
• When I want to try my limits He cheers me on and steers me away gently and forcefully. Good things: New recipes, new business endeavours , praying for the sick, prophesying, filming, creating motion graphics, applying for jobs, swimming and so much more. Bad things: saying yes to wrong relationships, debt, not getting enough rest, staying away from His love.

I wasn’t always on the side of being asked to trust. Often, I was asking others to trust me.

• A foreigner in a different culture brings words, traditions, inflections, attitudes, and demeanors that aren’t always comfortable for others.
• Skills and expertise are given for us to use them, but sometime others are uncomfortable and scared by what they don’t know
• Building relationships takes work. A lot of it.

2013 was filled with amazing moments. Tragic moments. Splendid moments. Quiet moments. It was a year that I stood up for what I believed in, when it was counter-cultural (in oh so many ways) and I took hits for it. It was a year I saw lives changed, the kingdom of God brought forth, and God’s presence overwhelm. A year that my skills expanded, my patience was challenged, and my skills where used to connect people to a community of hope. It took a lot of trust.

I have hiked many trails in my life and I’ve seen that these paths— whether oceanside, mountainside, or deep in a forest—can change course without warning. Life is much the same way. We can walk in trust and think everything is going one way, but it changes. I should have expected it, but I just didn’t.

In August, I had a few weeks of growing anxiety surrounding many things. But my word, trust, was echoed in my ear, in my dreams, in my conversations, in my prayers. God was asking me to trust him to lead me away from Northern Ireland and back to the states. September 22 I said ‘see you later’ to many friends, I spent the night with some of my favorites, and the next day I was brought to a bus, which led to a plane, which delivered me back into the United States.

I had no plans. No job. No solid understanding of why. Except God said trust me.

It’s been a few months of being in Arizona and continuing trust to know that the answers will come of why the change.

In these few months home, I’ve been exposed to a new song that I am claiming as one (of many) anthem for the year. It is called ‘Oceans (where my feet may fail)’ by Hillsong United. There is a chorus or bridged that says:

Spirit, Lead me
where my Trust is without borders
let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me

Take me deeper
than my feet could ever wander
and my faith would be made stronger
in the presence of my Saviour.

Lead me where my trust is without borders. No matter what 2014 brings, I want to be walking where my trust is with out borders. I want to experience all God has because I’ve been reclaimed, renamed, renewed, redeemed, and there is nothing that can be more satisfying.

Church Planting

I have known for a while, ok about 10 years, that church planting was going to be a part of my future. But it always seemed far off.

A few springs ago, God reminded me of it on a hike and this was my response:

What! Really?! No way? Crap. No- it will be good. Scratch that. it will  be great!. Seriously? Ok.

Where you go I'll go. Where you lead I will go.

When I came to Northern Ireland, I kind of knew, that God was speaking into this more, I just needed to listen. There were a couple of people who were in the process of planting churches. I considered them and prayed about them, but those don't seem right. Recently, far more consistently and clearly, God speaking to me about church planting. It doesn't seem as far off in time.

Things are shifting. Things are gettting exciting. Things are getting out of the comfort zone.

I guess I would continue to ask for prayer, guidence and support.

Doing What I Am Meant To Do

Tuesday night I crawled into bed and it was almost midnight.  I had left my house about 8:45am to go to Encounter for my normal scheduled teaching session. We always know that Encounter can be unpredictable and anything can happen, but when I left to go there in the morning, I didn't expect to not come home from it until past 11pm. The day was one of the best I've had in a long time. Now, it is a few days later and I am still reeling. I feel like my lungs were filled with a fresh new air. Every part of the day I felt I was doing what I was and am meant to be doing.

I started by going to CCV for Encounter. Encounter School of Mission is a course I began last August and I believe it is one of the reasons that I was brought to Coleraine, Northern Ireland in the first place. The course is all about servant evangelism. We have a group teaching session on Tuesdays and then practical application on Thursdays. In the course, weekly we face huge risk of going into the streets to pray and minister to people. Some interaction is practical ways of washing windows, passing out muffins, and cleaning toilets, but we also ask God to direct us to people to pray with and when we find them we approach them, chat with them, and ask if we can pray and share God's love with them. Some days are great, and some are hard. The course has been a big catalyst for me in seeing God's love in such a new way. I've really grown to see and understand that what they Bible says we can do and should do (Luke 4:18-19, Matthew 28:19-20), we do really have the authority to do. I have seen people healed of crazy physical/emotional ailments; I've seen freedom come to those crushed by finances, depression or broken families. I have continuously gone into businesses to pray for them and when they were struggling financially in August are now experiencing a complete financial turn around.

Sometime I Truely Believe This Is A Fairytale

 If you ever come to Northern Ireland, Murlough Bay, outside of Ballycastle is a must see. I was with my friends Samuel, Phil and JD and they were scouting an area for a music video shoot and we ended up here. It is by far the most gorgeous place I've been to date in Northern Ireland.


It was a fairy tale in beauty and in the sense that I felt like a princess among these truly incredible men.

It was already a windy day in Coleraine, but when Sam parked the car at the top of the hill we weren't expecting gale force winds. We were just leaning into the wind hoping it wouldn't stop suddenly or we were going fall flat on our faces. Seeing the rocky cliffs, we were also hoping that a gust wasn't going to knock us over, because of course our curiousity brought us far too close to the cliff edges.

All photos are courtesy of Samuel Steele.

 

 

Sometimes even little gnomes come out for a visit in the fairy tales

Donegal Weekend Trip

A small glimpse of the beauty standing at one of the most northern points of the island.

Over our Easter Holiday break from Encounter, myself and seven friends took a wee trip to County Donegal, Ireland. It was an incredible place of beauty. I've heard in the whole time I've been here how gorgeous Donegal is but I'd really only driven through. Well after three days I would agree.

The eight of us loaded into three cars with all of our gear, and headed to a rented cottage near Fanad Head. We brought our own food and each had to cook only one meal for the rest of the group. We had no internet, an no phone connection. It was a great break.  We dandered about the beach which was only about a 5 minute walk out of our door. We enjoyed wine and a pint or two. We visited Fanad Head lighthouse (which made me think of the East Coast of the US), Portsalon, Carrickart, Downings and a few other places.

Here are some pictures from the trip