On Wednesdays from 9-10:30am we have small groups, and without any bias mine is the best. =P But, in all sincerity my group is amazing. Our small group leader is absolutely beautiful; her name is Synnove and she’s from Norway. Including me there are 7 girls in the small group. The girls are: Amanda from Canada, Emma from England, Megan and Brittany from New Jersey, Noemie from the French part of Switzerland, and Laura who is from Pennsylvania. When we are together we have an absolutely amazing time. There are many times where we meet outside of small group simply because God has blessed our small group and we have joy in that blessing.
This past Wednesday we had an ‘assignment’ for small group. We each had someone else in the small group that we were to be praying for. We were asking God for a word or phrase that He wanted us to give this certain individual. For this assignment I had Synnove, and God gave me the word ‘fire’ to relay to her. I really didn’t understand why he gave me that word, so I continued to press in asking Him why He presented me with this word. He showed me this picture of people trying to put out a forest fire that was quickly spreading. Long story short the fire represented Synnove. After I told her this she went on to explain how in the last couple months or so that ‘fire’ keeps on coming up. She had a vision of herself bending over a field that was completely dead with a torch. A song that she has continually been listening to deals with being on fire, and so on. Super cool how God uses us to speak to one another.
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| Emma and I at Starbucks |
So, my fantastic British friend, Emma, had me for this small group ‘assignment.’ Let me give you a little info on this lovely lady. She is 18 years old and makes it known that I’m so much older than her. Her birthday is the day after mine so she makes it a point to say that I am 6 years older than her. BUT, this is only kind of true for like 10 hours. I am really only 5 years and 10 hours older than her…not 6 years. As you can tell she likes to pick on me, but it’s all dandy because we pick on each other. PS. Did I mention that I love, love, love her. We didn’t talk the first week, but you can find us hanging around each other pretty often now. She is on my outreach team to Thailand as well. Boy, I am pizzzzummmped. Here are some things she enjoys: picking on me (as I stated before), blaming me for injuries to her body that I had nothing to do with, make fun of Americans, wash dishes after dinner, borrow my blue zip up, etc. This girl is crazy cool.
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| me on top of Bunsen |
Okay now hold on tight ladies and gentlemen because what she had for me is super crazy awesomeness straight from Jesus. So God laid a couple verses on Emma’s heart for me and then gave her a vision of me along with the verses. The verses are from the beginning of Romans 5. It says, “[1] Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. [2] Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. [3] More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, [4] and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, [5] and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (ESV). Then she had this vision of me climbing a mountain, by myself. She said when I was on this path I was kind of rushing up to get to the top and I wasn’t looking at the beautiful view that was surrounding me. Then as I continued to climb the mountain and came to the top Jesus was standing on top of the mountain. She used the word ‘glory’ to describe what He looked like. Then she said after seeing Jesus a man stepped out behind Him. She said that she had the sense that I needed to continue trusting in God’s glory, focusing on what He has laid right in front of me right now, and chase after glorifying Him and that eventually He will provide me with the desires of my heart. Not only is this awesome in itself, but the awesome part about this entire thing is that this summer when I was in Yellowstone National Park I was climbing a mountain and my aunt Debby asked me to take up the back of the pack when we were hiking Bunsen. When I got to the top of the mountain God convicted me of my attitude and selfish desires. I was trying to race up the mountain instead of being in the moment God gave me. Long story short, a couple of weeks later we were climbing Avalanche Peak and I was at the back of the pack again. This time it wasn’t by choice or service, I was sick and was having a difficult time climbing the strenuous path. I was with 5 other girls and 2/3rd of the way up the mountain we stopped and rested. During that time I pulled out my Bible passed it to a friend and asked her to read Romans 5:1-5. I’m in a hurry so this story is not in as much detail as I would like. But, the point I am making is that God communicates. He is talking to us all the time, even when we don’t think He is, HE IS. Most of the time we aren’t aware of how He is communicating with us. It’s so amazing how the talks to us, but not only does he talk to us…He CONFIRMS what He is saying to us. He did just that with what He gave Emma to tell me. God wants to talk to you. Believe that. I am learning more and more of what that actually means. So exciting!! God is personal God!
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| me on top of Avalanche |
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