The Side of Love

It's not often I think to myself 'I'm watching history in the making.' But tonight I did. I started following the BBC on Facebook recently and they posted a video about protests in Barcelona in response to Carles Puigdemont's arrest in Germany where he'll stay until his extradition order is processed.

It reminds me of King Charles II of England running for his life in the middle of the night only to be caught and executed. It's easy to read that from a distance of several hundred years and only consider the events historically. But the English Civil War was real for the people of the day, and what's happening in Spain is real for them as well. Just as what is happening in America is real for these brave students who are protesting and demanding better government. Things are heating up; they have been and they will continue to escalate.

It makes me think it's time to decide where I stand. For so long I've refused to take a side or voice an opinion on things, partly because I can see from so many different perspectives so it's hard to pick just one, but also partly because people are so opinionated and usually they're very passionate about their opinions (and the louder they get the more annoyed I get). I don't want to argue. But I want to know what I think and why I think that. I want to know where I land. And I want the place I land to be the side of Love.

Am I for or against greater gun control? I'm for Life, so you tell me. Where do I stand on the situation in Spain? Am I for or against an independent Catalonia? I'm for the people who live there, for those who need to know Truth, Freedom, Hope and Peace, all of those things that come wrapped up in a beautiful man named Jesus.

So that's where I stand, on the side of Jesus and on the side of Love.

Late Night Musing

There seem to be an awful lot of ENFPs in my life lately. I wonder if God's trying to teach me something...? :) #creativity #freedom

Now and Not Yet

On Sunday, one of my friends asked to pray for me at church and he prophesied over me about a new season coming for me, the season of Spring.

Last night, I was at small group and we did a prophetic activity where you take magazines and cut out photos you feel God is highlighting to you in order to create a vision board. The thing is that the vision board isn't for you; it's for someone else in the room, but you don't know who. I'm not going to go into the details of how to do that, but I will say it worked and God was very clearly speaking to us. On the vision board created for me, it had a cloud and the words 'When: Right now,' meant to be reminiscent of when Elijah prayed for rain and finally, his servant saw a cloud the size of a man's hand and very quickly, the rain came and it was a lot of rain!

I've been receiving prophetic words for about a year and a half about experiencing joy upon joy, surprises, a massive gift, and now Spring and rain. I understand them, but I'm having trouble believing them. When you've prayed for something for so long and you cannot see any hint of it on the horizon, it makes sense that your brain would deny that that thing is about to show up in your life. But I don't want my brain to deny it. I want to receive those words and stand on them. I want to be excited about what God has for me and expectant that He will fulfil the desires of my heart. But I'm so tired of disappointment I'm not quite sure how to do that.

Lately I've been in quite a positive place, enjoying life and work and friendships, not thinking much about the future, which is strange for me. I'm usually quite future-oriented, always looking to the next thing. And although there are changes ahead for me which I'm excited about, I'm still very present right now, which is good. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't really know how to be present and future oriented. I don't know how to be content with what I have now and excited about what God is saying He will do (despite my lack of vision). Yeah, I just don't really get how to walk in the tension of the now and the not-yet.

It's All About Love

I don't really know what to write about today. It's not that nothing's happened, but I'm struggling to put today into words. 'What was the most significant part of my day?' Maybe that question will jog some thoughts. Well, we had ESOM this morning, as is usual for a Tuesday. We spent the entire time listening to each others' stories from recent mission trips. A few weeks ago, the interns split up for special trips, one group went to Carlisle, one to London and one to Norway. It was amazing to hear how God met each group in their circumstances and how they shared His love with people. Most of our interns talked about how they gave specific and accurate prophetic words to people or how they had words of knowledge for people or about how they prayed for people and they got healed. But it was so cool because at the end of our time together, the last people to share about their trips really just brought it back around to what's most important: LOVE. Love is such a catalyst for change and giving people an opportunity to encounter God and experience His presence, well, that's love right there. We can operate in such a high level of prophecy, we can move in signs and wonders, but if we don't have love, we're 'nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate,' so says The Message. And that's what I experienced in Belfast last weekend. It was Love that led the church to share God's heart with people on a day historically known for drunkenness and violence. It was Love that caused our leaders to weep over their community before we went out. It was Love that filled my heart and compelled me to speak and act and be Jesus to people I don't know and may never see again in this life. And that's what it's all about.

Last Weekend in Belfast

This past weekend I had the beautiful privilege of going to Belfast to join our team there for a special mission day for St. Patrick's Day. I'll let the photos do the talking, but the team definitely made the most of the celebration to interact with young adults in the community! St. Patrick's Day is obviously significant to the Irish, but it has often been a day for drunkenness, violence and division. What we saw however were mostly bored young adults who'd started drinking by 10am (if not the night before) and only had plans to watch Ireland beat England in rugby and then go out and party some more. That in turn provided a bit of opportunity to talk with people as they really had no agenda for the day, with plenty of time for us to share God's love with them.  It was a cold day for sure though and the free hots drinks we provided passersby were also incentive for people to stop and chat with us. 

 The Belfast team--2 Americans and a Brazilian

Joseph dressed as a leprechaun, which drew attention to us and gave us an opportunity to talk with people. He also quite creatively used chocolate gold coins as part of his costume which he then used to tell people the parable of the Lost Coin, sharing with them that they are precious to God in the same way the lost coin was precious to the woman in the story. It was really clever!

Some of the young adults we met along the way. St. Patrick's Day is definitely an excuse to go a bit crazy!

Emily & Paula trying to keep warm while serving people hot drinks!

This guy hung out near us for hours! Sometimes chatting with us or sitting with some friends across the street, but I think he was out in the cold with us from beginning to end. 

Some of the young adults our team work with who joined us for the mission day.

Serving hot drinks to anyone who passed by! #loveisahotdrinkonacoldday

On Sunday, I got to join the team at their church for the morning service, which the young adults led entirely! It was so cool to see them prep, lead worship and preach the sermon, sharing their youthful enthusiasm with their church family!

Me hanging out in the team's office as they helped their young adults prepare for Sunday.

These two lovely ladies preached together on Sunday morning. The one on the right has grown incredibly since the team arrived in September. She was very shy and hesitant at first, but she continued to step out of her comfort zone and push herself and she now joins the team on outreach, praying for people and she's started preaching!

They did such a great job!

Young adults leading the way :)

Paula serving, as usual!

Emily and her mentee

Young adults who are advancing the Kingdom in Belfast!

Find the Problem

This morning as I was doing some routine Communications tasks that don't require a whole lot of brain power, I was listening to a podcast from a series my line-manager recommended to me called Building a Story Brand and one of the speakers said something that caught my attention. He said that the inability to identify problems well is the root of depression. I had to rewind and listen to it again. Yep, that's what he said. He went on to say that there is a specific kind of therapy called 'Problem Solving Therapy' and that often people fail to recognise what the problem is; it's not even about finding a solution yet. It's the problem that needs to be found. Wow, that makes so much sense to me.

Depression is not something I personally struggle with, but when I'm in an uncomfortable or stressful situation, I often find that my mind continually repeats things that have been said and experienced in that situation; it's like my thoughts are rolling around in a tumble dryer that just keeps going. And my brain is busy trying to connect the dots and find the pattern, to recognise what's going on. Now I realise I'm actually trying to find the problem. Because when a problem is identified, finding a solution is rarely difficult. The challenging task is to realise what the problem is. I think that fits in with what I was saying yesterday, that we often know the right thing to do, but we need to help ourselves out by asking the right questions so we can get to the solution. We ask those questions so we can identify the problem. I've never thought of it like that.

Help Yourself Out

I finally took the time to read and respond to my friend who sent me her sample blog post and I gave her some feedback. I have to laugh at myself now though as I clearly understand what's important in setting up a great blog and what needs to be included and what pitfalls to avoid, but I don't actually do those things myself.

How often in life do we know the right thing to do, but we don't do it? The feedback I gave my friend was not revolutionary. She probably could have thought through all that herself. But she asked me. I often do the same when it comes to life.

I find myself in situations and feel I don't really know what to do. I feel like I need someone to give me wisdom. (To be honest, I sometimes think through who I could ask and come up with no one. Then I'm reminded that the Holy Spirit is our Counsellor, so I talk to Him. And He gives great advice!) Even though I think I often give others pretty good advice and ask provoking questions to help them find a solution to their problem, when it comes to my own life, this doesn't seem to be the case.

But every once in a while, it is. Sometimes I choose to be very intentional to talk to myself as I would a friend, to remove myself mentally from my situation and ask the questions I would ask if someone else came to me with this problem, to give myself the feedback I would offer to another and usually I'm quite surprised at what I come up with.

I think, in general, we often know the right thing to do or to say, but perhaps it needs some drawing out, some provocation to help bring it to the surface, to the forefront of our mind where we can see practically what we need to do and how. I think we're much more intelligent and capable than we give ourselves credit for, but maybe we just need to be more intentional to help ourselves out.

The One Thing

One of the privileges of my job is mentoring my Media Assistant. In addition to the mentoring we do for work, we are going through The One Thing by Gary Keller. This is a great book about 'the simple truth behind extraordinary results' and we're loving it. It's been so encouraging to chat through Keller's ideas and how we can be more effective and more efficient in how we do what we do. Today we discussed the lies of Multitasking and that 'Everything Matters Equally' (everything on your to-do list, that is), including Pareto's Principle that says that 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of the work you do. Consider that! This is a great book if you're looking to streamline what you're doing in work and/or life to get the best results you can!

Find it on Amazon here!

Just Write

Last week a friend sent me a sample blog post to read and asked me to give her feedback because she's thinking of creating a blog and wants to develop the discipline of writing. And I felt convicted.

I know I'm supposed to write. It's a calling on my life. I even received a powerful prophetic word about it a few weeks ago. But to be honest, I get so overwhelmed with what to write, I rarely end up actually doing it. There are just so many options of things I could write about. And then there's the actual effort and energy that go into getting those half-thoughts/images/emotions out of my head and into words that make sense to other people. When I simply start thinking about writing about something, the amount of work involved (for me) makes me tired from the outset. But I think, like learning and growing in anything, it's about strength-training. The more you do something, the more you can do.

So I had the idea yesterday that I would write (on here) every day at lunch time. Maybe even before I eat lunch so that I have to earn my food. Haha. I don't know why this has been so difficult for me; maybe I think about things too much and need to realise that I don't need to have every thought, idea, expression planned out perfectly. Maybe I just need to do it. So, prepare yourself, because I have no idea what's coming. It will probably be an imperfect smattering of the aspects that make up my life right now, a mess of thoughts and emotions that I will try to convey coherently, and if you want to read it and are able to get anything out of it, so much the better!