It's been about 2 hours since I got back from soul survivor. I'm sitting in my room, listening to some music surrounded by bags that need to be unpacked. They can wait though. I'd rather write about some of the exciting things that God has been doing over the last five days. I knew that soul survivor would be an amazing experience, but I don't think I quite realised how amazing.
I'll admit, up until the Sunday (it started Friday evening) I didn't feel like God was saying anything to me. I had doubt in my mind, which looking back was pretty silly as God has done so many amazing this in my life and other peoples lives up until that point. But anyway, there I was, wondering if I would ever have an answer from God about what I had been praying for. This all ended up changing around pretty quickly!
I was speaking to one of the people I was camping with about what we thought God had been saying to us. He said how God was saying to him that God's timing is perfect and patience is needed. I felt like this was God saying to me that I needed to wait for him to answer my prayer at the right time.
I also spoke to someone about how God can move the mountains (such as mountains that can get in the way of things we want to do in our lives), and that maybe He was saying that there will be things that are going to get in the way, but that he will move them so we can carry on with his plan.
Then things got a bit crazy - amazing crazy.
We went to late night worship (me and the group of my fellow campers - now my family). There was a girl singing with a guitar, leading worship, and another girl with a violin. The worship leader had left a time of space near the end. people started singing out their own songs. someone started singing Mighty to Save. One of the lines in the song is 'saviour, he can move the mountains', as well as other songs about how God will guide us and show us the way and go with us. I sobbed. I knew God was telling me that things really are changing, just as I thought they would be before soul survivor.
On the Monday night in the main meeting, I prayed to God, and received prayer from others. I asked God a question. A question that has been on my mind since I started thinking about YWAM (youth with a mission - I wrote about it in my previous blog post). I didn't get an answer straight away again, so I left it, accepting that it might not need to be answered yet. I then sat down with my friend Max and asked him the question. He gave the answer I was expecting. I sobbed (again...).
*I know that last part doesn't make complete sense as I haven't said what the question was. I'm not saying it yet as I'm still praying about it and asking God to confirm things for me. It's also a much bigger story than just that so I'll be writing about that at a later date.*
So, there it was. The answer I needed. I felt so relieved. My faith grew so much stronger that night, and the night to follow. We were in the big top for the last evening meeting. We had a time of worship. They started to sing a song that me and Max have had on our hearts for the week. It was a song that really spoke to us about what we had been praying about. We turned to each other and smiled. A few minutes later, we simultaneously remembered what happened the night before when God answered my prayer. We turned to each other and mentioned the one word that it was all based around. We laughed and cried, filled with Gods joy. It was such an incredible experience. All my life I'd had that little thought in my mind, wondering if it was just people pretending, or getting caught up in what other people are doing. I know now that that's not true. Being filled with joy from the Holy spirit happens. I felt like I was spiritually over flowing (it's hard to describe, and that's the best I could do). This went on until the end of the worship - leaving us standing, laughing and crying in a room of about 7,500 people who were sitting down! We eventually managed to sit down and just relaxed in the presence of God. We celebrated at the end of the meeting, feeling so renewed and refreshed.
So here I am, writing a blog post that doesn't make complete sense, because God can be like that sometimes. There's so much else I want to write about, and will do soon. All I can say for the time being is that now I'm home, my new life has started. My life for God. No distractions from things such as School, time to focus on him and getting to know him again, and learning to live and do things for him, and things that honour him. There's a lot I need to change, and it's not going to be easy, but God can move mountains. He can help me with the struggles of letting go of things that I once relied on. This will be tough, but so worth it. I can't wait to see what this new life will hold for me. One thing I do know now is that I'm going to have a nice warm bath after a week of camping in the rain.
Results day: where do we go from here?
On the 13th I got my AS level results from sixth form. This was and wasn't a big deal to me. About half way through the year I almost left as it didn't seem like sixth form was the right choice for me. I started looking at other options; apprenticeships, college courses, anything we could find or think of. One thing we found was YWAM (youth with a mission). It sounded perfect! The only problem was, you have to be 18 or over to do it. So I stuck with sixth form and thought I would be able to somehow motivate myself to do well in subjects I mostly had no interest in.
So then came results day.
I wasn't worried or stressed about it until I pulled up to the school car park and walked into the building. By that point I felt sick. I felt so so sick and nervous about something that I knew was in God's hands. I collected my results. I opened the envelope. I saw the letters written down the page. Then it hit me. I cried. I hugged my friend and sobbed on her shoulder.
The page showed this:
U
E
D
U
I was gutted. (I needed at least E or above in all of my subjects to start year 13)
I pulled myself together and spoke to the head of sixth form about where to go from there. My options are to either restart my A levels with completely new subjects, or to leave the sixth form and go to another college or do an apprenticeship or some other type of course.
The day that this all happened, I was trying to persuade myself that I needed to stay. I needed to do my A levels and stay with my friends and go to prom like everyone else. When I got home, my mum started telling me that I should just leave and that I wouldn't do any better if I went back. I felt like she was telling me that I'm stupid and that I can't do it. I know that isn't what she meant at all but I was tired and emotional and just didn't want to think that I might have to step out of my comfort zone and do something new and different.
I got some sleep and spoke to mum with a clearer mind. I still wasn't sure on the whole leaving sixth form idea, but I listened to her ideas. She mentioned YWAM. I hadn't really thought about it after the last time... She pointed out that I'm 18 about 3 weeks into the next school year, meaning I could do YWAM instead of go back to sixth form. At the moment I'm feeling drawn to do this. I'm still not 100% sure what I'll be doing in a month's time. I just know that a lot is going to be changing, and I'm going to write about all (or at least most) of it on here.
This could be the beginning of the next chapter in my life. Then again it might not be - who knows?! (Well, God does, but you get the gist...)
There's so much more I could write about right now, but this post is already long enough... there will probably be a lot of posts over the next few weeks and months about what's going on - this is helping me get my thoughts straight, so there may be a lot of rambling - sorry in advance! And lastly, please pray for me if you can or want to - I need a lot of guidance from God in this one.
So then came results day.
I wasn't worried or stressed about it until I pulled up to the school car park and walked into the building. By that point I felt sick. I felt so so sick and nervous about something that I knew was in God's hands. I collected my results. I opened the envelope. I saw the letters written down the page. Then it hit me. I cried. I hugged my friend and sobbed on her shoulder.
The page showed this:
U
E
D
U
I was gutted. (I needed at least E or above in all of my subjects to start year 13)
I pulled myself together and spoke to the head of sixth form about where to go from there. My options are to either restart my A levels with completely new subjects, or to leave the sixth form and go to another college or do an apprenticeship or some other type of course.
The day that this all happened, I was trying to persuade myself that I needed to stay. I needed to do my A levels and stay with my friends and go to prom like everyone else. When I got home, my mum started telling me that I should just leave and that I wouldn't do any better if I went back. I felt like she was telling me that I'm stupid and that I can't do it. I know that isn't what she meant at all but I was tired and emotional and just didn't want to think that I might have to step out of my comfort zone and do something new and different.
I got some sleep and spoke to mum with a clearer mind. I still wasn't sure on the whole leaving sixth form idea, but I listened to her ideas. She mentioned YWAM. I hadn't really thought about it after the last time... She pointed out that I'm 18 about 3 weeks into the next school year, meaning I could do YWAM instead of go back to sixth form. At the moment I'm feeling drawn to do this. I'm still not 100% sure what I'll be doing in a month's time. I just know that a lot is going to be changing, and I'm going to write about all (or at least most) of it on here.
This could be the beginning of the next chapter in my life. Then again it might not be - who knows?! (Well, God does, but you get the gist...)
There's so much more I could write about right now, but this post is already long enough... there will probably be a lot of posts over the next few weeks and months about what's going on - this is helping me get my thoughts straight, so there may be a lot of rambling - sorry in advance! And lastly, please pray for me if you can or want to - I need a lot of guidance from God in this one.
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