A day in the life......

I think it is about time for me to write another entry in my blog, to fill in my loved ones on what God is doing in my life and how I am growing and learning.

I am so blown away by the goodness of God.  Every day I thank Him for what He is doing.  This is a season of reaping for me, of receiving from Him.  God has provided for every need and not only my needs but the desires of my heart.  

I have had a lot of people bless me financially this year and each one who has given and invested into my future holds a special place in my heart.  It is overwhelming to experience such generosity.  I love to give to others and I have learnt a lot through giving but receiving is just as challenging.  To receive and not be able to give back takes a strength and humility.  To allow people to meet a need in your life requires vulnerability.  I don’t think this is something that any person finds easy but any daughter finds it easy to go to a great father and ask for what she needs.  

God loves to bless us. He meets our needs every day.  It is a given.  He also wants to go above and beyond that and give us more than we can imagine, to give us what we desire more than anything.  He placed those desires there and He wants to be the provider of them.  

Recently I have seen this happening every day.  I have been given the opportunity to see dreams fulfilled, I got to lead worship this week at the Bethel prayer rooms, I have got my dream trip to South Africa next year and I will be visiting Washington DC in December.  Some of these dreams were like throw away thoughts in my head.  I have imagined myself going to DC but I didn’t have it really high up on my list of dreams, it was a fleeting thought and God is showing me that he sees the tiniest of thoughts, He is faithful in the small and the big.  

I think one of the biggest things I have learnt through seeing these dreams come true is that I no longer have reason to doubt God in the fulfillment of my dreams.  I am seeing Him provide these things.  When I am in a season of waiting, I start to loose faith, I may start to doubt whether or not it will happen but when I have testimony of God providing, how dare I doubt?  How dare I shake in my resolve, I must press on, I must trust in His goodness and faithfulness. It says in Hebrews 11v11,” It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old.  She believed that God would keep His promise.” 

Trust and believe. 

Believe in the nature of God who loves us and wants to give to us.  It might not be in our timing but God knows when we will be ready for what we want.  It reminds me of being a teenager.  I got to an age were I really wanted to stay at home and look after myself, when my parents went out for the evening but, they knew I wasn’t responsible enough.  I felt responsible enough.  I felt like I could handle it but my parents knew better, and then they also knew when I was old enough, mature enough to handle it and they allowed me to be at home alone.  I felt frustrated and impatient but my parents knew better.  God knows better, He knows us better than we know ourselves and he provides when He knows we can steward those dreams well.

My dreams are coming true, I am seeing the fruit of stewarding well what God has given to me and it is beautiful.  It is a season and I know that this doesn’t mean that I have to stop working.  There are areas that I am sowing into.  

This week I have been challenged about seeing myself as a daughter amongst leaders.  I have incredible parents (I don’t think I mention that enough really) and I know I am loved by them and I feel so safe with them but when it comes to being a daughter under leaders, especially in church, I struggle to trust, I struggle to be vulnerable because I’m just not comfortable.  

This was a huge revelation for me.  

I want to be an example to young women of how to be a great daughter, of how to be a woman who knows who she is in every area of life and I still need to grow.  I need to be able to position myself below leaders who I want to learn from.  I need to know how to be a daughter to leaders because I need to know how to steward their vision well, I need to know how to ask them for things and be open to direction and input from them.

I also need to learn to be a daughter in my city, to respect and honour my government leaders but also to take responsibility for my city.  If I want to see change there I need to step out and be the change. This involves knowing that I am seen in my community, knowing I am a valued part of it and my contribution there can make a difference.  EVERYTHING we do comes out of who we are, or who we know ourselves to be.  It is so vital that we position ourselves for the change we want to see.  If I want to see revival in my city, in Belfast, then I have to be the person to start it.  

I want to set a bit of a challenge to you, to look around in your life and evaluate yourself on whether or not you are walking in full sonship, to God and to your leaders and family.  Are you in a position where you have leaders as well?  People who you can learn from and serve.  

We need to know what we are capable of accessing, we have people in our communities with incredible giftings and talents and when we enter relationship with them and serve them and what they are doing then we get to a point were we can ask them for what we need.  I have spent a lot of time recently just hanging around at Bethel, it is my church and I can spend as much time there as I want and it has given me opportunity to meet people I never would have spoken to before or even had a chance to speak to.  I am able to learn from observing my leaders and I am able to serve them by being available.  It is that easy, just positioning yourself as a son or daughter can open doors to opportunities to walk in it.  

Its been a bit of a long blog this week but I feel like I am overflowing with revelation at the moment.  I have a really high value for giving my breakthroughs away.  I will persevere in learning to be a daughter because I want to be able to give away that breakthrough.  I want to embrace the process so that others don’t have to work for it but can receive it from me.  I hope you enjoyed this and I will blog again soon. 

Love to you all

xxx

Hey everyone,

Its been a long time since I blogged but I have made it one of my goals for the year to blog more regularly.  

I am back in Redding!!! YAY!!!!

I had an amazing summer at home, I connected so well with new and old friends, I got to preach at my home church and that was just so empowering for me, it was a dream come true and my church family were incredible, so honouring and I felt really valued by everyone.  They blessed me coming back out to Bethel and I have never really experienced such great support. I am so happy to have such an incredible community at home.

While back in Ireland I felt like God totally showed me my country as if it were a brand new place to me.  I feel in love with the scenery, the people and my city.  God has been showing me how much space there is for Him to move there and how I can be apart of the change.  Its exciting times for Ireland and I cant wait to get back there and be apart of it all!!

But first things first.  I have the privilege of attending Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry for another year.  I get to sit under the leadership of some of the most incredible people in the world.   Already in the last two weeks I have learnt so much and I am blown away by the humility and wisdom of my leaders.  Second year is so different from first.  I got told that a lot last year but you don’t realise the shift until you are actually sitting in it. This year it is recognised that we are leaders that we will be in places of significant influence at some point and therefore we must establish what we believe, what our values are and how we are going to implement them.  Its exciting!!  I feel like second year is the reason I came to Bethel.  To be challenged about my views and to be equipped to be an excellent leader.

Now that I have had a chance to settle back in here, and get over the crazy jet lag, I have been thinking a lot about what I want to get out of this year.  What my goals are.  One of them has already been put into action.  I want this to be a year of conquering fears and not allowing fear to dictate what I can and can’t do.  The reason I wanted to do this is because last year I applied to be apart of the worship team but when the auditions came around I was too scared to go.  Then a couple of weeks after that I went to this waterfall with some friends, we were meant to be cliff jumping and I got to the top and, once again, became fearful and ended up not doing the jump.  I spent the year regretting both of these choices.  I was determined that no matter how bad I felt or what the outcome was I wasn’t going to make the same choices as last year.  Last night I got to conquer my first fear of the year and auditioned for the worship team, I was nervous but I wasn’t scared.  I was pleased with my audition and I felt so excited afterwards because there was breakthrough.  I don’t even mind if I don’t make the team because thats not what it was about.  It was me proving to myself that I could do it.  This is the reason I have chosen to name this blog setting the standard.  My standard for the year is to not let fear get the better of me.  I am going to do things I have never done, I am going to take risks and its going to feel great.

So yeah, there is a little bit of an insight into my first couple of weeks.  Its already full and I cant wait to see what happens in the next couple of weeks.  Its my birthday and we are going to have a party in our new home, I am really excited about it.  I will fill you all in on how it goes after.

Thanks again for reading this, I appreciate all the support.

God Bless,

Stephanie

Hello everyone!

So much has happened since I last blogged including missions, spring break and now the wind down as school comes to a close :-(

This has been a time of reflection for me.  I have had a lot of ‘lasts’ over the past week, including my last hang out with my beautiful South African friends Nick and Jan and my last ever party in Trisha Wheelers revival group.

I didn’t think this would be an emotional time for me, I mean how many times have I had to say goodbye in my lifetime?  Countless!  But, I think I have shed more tears in the last week than the whole year. 

I realised something important though.  This year has been about me learning to be vulnerable, in all my relationships. I have learnt to open up and let people know who I am and what I am going through.  I realised very early on in the year how much pain I was carrying from where past relationships hadn’t worked out.  I was looking for people who didn’t show weakness because they were the only ones I could be safe with and guaranteed to not be hurt by.  This left me feeling isolated and lonely because of course I couldn’t find very many of these people. 

I was judging people.  I was trying to protect myself by judging everyone else.  

When I realised this, or more accurately it was pointed out to me by my wonderful revival group pastor, I went through a process of repenting for my judgements and learning to forgive those in my past who had hurt me.

It was an overnight change.  

My roommates said they couldn’t believe how different I was.  They felt accepted and safe with me because I had let my guard down.  It was an incredible breakthrough and it led to a year full of friendship and deep levels of connection.

At this point in the year I am starting to see just how vulnerable I have been.  I am having to say goodbye to friends and I am not quite sure when I will next see them.  It hurts but not in a way that I am used to.  It is a grief for the lose rather than a pain caused by wounds.  

There is hope in it because I know I have connected with people I will be friends with for a lifetime, in whatever form that takes. It is a healthy process, one I am happy to embrace.  

In the past I would have shut down and emotionally detached myself from those friends because it was ‘easier’ than continuing in a friendship that required more trust and vulnerability at a distance.  

Staying open and vulnerable is a scary business but if there’s one thing I have learnt this year it is how to deal with disappointment and hurt in a healthy way, I trust God with my heart.  I know that He is always there.  He is my comforter and healer.  People will let me down and hurt me in the future and I can build up walls that I think will protect me but that means I will also never experience anything.  I will never experience the intimacy of relationship that I was created for or the love that I need to sustain me.

I know that the experience of those things is far greater than any pain. When I do experience pain all it should really do is bring me closer to God.  Take me into a deeper revelation of His love. This has been my experience so far, so why would it be any different in the future?

Through being vulnerable I have learnt what I need from relationship.  I have learnt that it is ok for me to have needs and wants and that when people love me they want to meet those needs, not out of obligation but out of love.  It also means that when I love someone I want to do the same for them.  Love is selfless.  It requires nothing in return.  

I pasted a phrase onto the front of my journal this year it read; it is time to get love right.

I read it the other day and chuckled to myself because I knew that it is the biggest thing I have learnt this year. 

How to love selflessly.  

How to bring something to my relationships rather than always trying to take from them.  Not that I always thought like that but most of the time I was looking for what others could do for me rather than what I can do for them.  

I have had the healthiest relationships of my life this year and I thank God for each one of them.  

I can honestly say that I have not had one argument this year.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t had conflict.  I have learnt to confront in a healthy way that strengthens my relationships rather than hurting them.  I know now that the other person is more important to me than what I am feeling in a moment.  I love them too much to let the offense or hurt get in the way.  

When I put myself first I go into a conflict with expectations about what the other person should do for me.  When I put them first I go in knowing how much I value the relationship, how much I am prepared to lay down the misunderstanding or offense because I love them.  It sounds really simple but this is something that has changed my life!

Part of me thinks its only been this easy because of the amazing people I have met this year but I know when I leave here I will be the same person.  I will be able to carry these lessons into all my future relationships and hopefully be able to see a difference in more of my relationships at home.

So there you have it, another wee insight into what I have been learning and how much I have grown this year.

I am really excited to go home and share more with people and reconnect but I will also be sad to leave.  It is a bitter sweet ending but, its more of a to be continued as this is only the first chapter.  In September I will hopefully be returning to do second year.  I am so excited about what this will look like and how much more God is going to do in and through me.

I will keep everyone updated over the summer, there are weddings and graduations to attend and who knows what God will be up to!!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.

I love you all

Stephanie

xx

So it has been a while since I wrote my last blog but I think it will all become clear through this blog why that has been.

Since I came back to school from Christmas break I feel like I have broken through to a new level with God.  I have had such a hunger for His presence and love.  Nothing else could satisfy the hunger I feel.  It was such a big deal that for the first time that I can ever remember in my life I had to ask for space from people close to me.  Let me explain…..

In my first term I was very focused on socialising and I had a bit of a fear of being on my own because of past experiences.  Being alone in a house with no plans of what to do and a limited amount of people to hang out with made me feel anxious.  

I am a people person, anyone who really knows me knows that I get energised from being around friends and family.  In fact my parents would say that the way to punish me, as a child, when I had done something wrong, was to make me go to my room and spend time alone. Where as, my brother would be told to go and hang out with people because he loved being on his own.  

So when I came back from Christmas I had a very busy schedule, I had established amazing friendships with people I wanted to be around all the time.  I never needed to be alone, but I missed it, I had got used to the alone time and I didnt even realise it.  I missed having my own space.  I missed me time and it was such a weird concept to try and grasp.  

One friday night I eventually lost it, not in a way anyone would have really taken much notice of but in my head I did.  I NEEDED time alone but I couldnt get it.  So, I decided to go to the prayer chapel at Bethel the next morning. I spent time alone with God and just sorted my head out.  It was amazing!  I felt so close to Him and just totally at peace getting that much needed rest in His presence.  

Since then I have talked to my roommates and just established times when I can get that alone time.  Not because they were doing anything that prevented me from getting it but just so that they knew where I was at and what I needed.

When I get time alone to think or concentrate I want to be with God and I want to be in the secret place.  I long to be there more than anywhere else in the world.  I have turned down dance parties and social gatherings with some of my closest friends because all I want is God.  All I need right now is Him.  

It is such an exciting time for me, I am learning about God’s character and more about His heart for me and what he wants me to do with my life.  I have been dreaming bigger and becoming more aware of what it could all look like.  

I have really been going after worship time in my own time. Music speaks so much to me about God and whether it is through a melody or a lyric I can feel close to Him and hear Him speak in it.  This one song, Fall Afresh by Jeremy Riddle is my favourite right now because it just speaks so clearly of how wrapped up in Gods presence that I want to become.  I want God to touch the parts of my spirit that have become dormant, that have fallen asleep.  I want every part of me to come alive to what God has in store for me and the world.

This has been so good for me and I know that life will not always give me the space I need to be able to have so much time to invest in my relationship with God.  So, while I am in this season I am going to make the most of it!

In three weeks I will be heading to Tecate, Mexico on my mission trip.  Although I haven’t really thought to much about it, I am now starting to get excited for what is going to happen there.  I will definitely blog again after that to let you all know how it goes and what exciting miracles take place there!

Love you all and thanks for reading this.

I am having the time of my life!  

There is actually no other way to put it.  

So much is going on and I am learning a lot everyday.  

I went down to San Francisco, a few weeks back, with friends.  I wanted to go down and see it as it is on my dream list, while most others were looking for a nice break in the city and the opportunity to maybe fit some shopping in ;-) 

We had a blast, I mean it was so much fun to see the sites and go to the pier and be somewhere a little different.  Many memories were made. We stayed in a hostel, or at least most of us did (a few braved it in the cars), we went out for dinner and we had sing-a-long Disney on the bus and in the car on the way home.  A perfect trip for me really haha! 

It was a great opportunity to get to know people better and just hang out.  I’m such a city girl so it did my heart good just to be there and be surrounded by some of my favourite people.

School has also been incredible as of late.  We were being trained in the prophetic last week.  I found it very interesting.  I didn’t realise there were that many different ways for God to speak to us and slowly but surely I am becoming more confident in my ability in this area.  

This has also been helped with the encouragement of great friends.  At home we have been practising on each other and in revival group we have had opportunity to prophesy over one and other.

I also began my prophetic arts activation last week, this will be the way that I get out into the community and bless people.  

I didn’t think it was possible to be so stretched!!!  We were singing and dancing prophetically over one another, this was alright, I could wrap my head around that and do it because it was logical.  Then I thought I would try culinary arts.  O my days what an adventure.  We were told to close our eyes, then take something out of the bowl, being passed around, after that we had to eat whatever it was we got and give a prophetic word to the person in front of us based on the food.  I thought it was crazy but it worked!  God gave me a word for the person and she felt it was accurate.  I felt so encouraged, who knew you could do that?  Ha Ha!!  

Then there was Thursday night.  I was at my church service (we are all assigned different ones depending on our revival groups),  I have struggled a bit with these services but that night something shifted.  I felt totally free and worshipped in a way that I haven’t felt free to in such a long time.  I think I experienced breakthrough from what I had been doing in the prophetic arts class and I just went for it.  This led to me being asked to dance on stage.  I kinda freaked out at first and got up there totally terrified but once I focused on God it was incredible.  I felt like I was doing what I have been created to do.  I am a worshipper through and through.  I have always known that but I forgot how much I love to see other people get their breakthrough in it.  To be able to release people to give God EVERYTHING that they have is just incredible.  I was reminded of when I used to dance with a band and I loved every minute of it!  I love my God and any opportunity I get to show Him, and the world, how much I feel for Him I will take.  

I really feel like God is taking me on a journey of discovering new things, new ways to worship Him and new paths for my life.  I thought I had it mostly figured out before I got here but I have laid down those things and I am loving what God is bringing to my attention.  So much more that I can do with my life and new dreams of what I will be doing.  All I can say is BRING IT ON!  Excitement and anticipation are my friends at the moment :-)

Well another week or so has passed here in Reading and I gotta say it just keeps getting better.

This week I celebrated my 23rd birthday and it was fantastic.  We had a BBQ at our apartment then we went to the pool and played some games, like the big kids that we are. We played games such as signs and mafia and these are extremely funny when your friends cheat by using words of knowledge from the Holy Spirit to win or save someone.  A new way of cheating haha!  They also played tricks on me when we played Marco Polo, my “friends” decided to just get round me in a big circle and just make it ridiculously hard to catch anyone.  After the fun of the games we came back to the apartment and everyone prophesied over me and Jaime ( a new friend from Auz).  It was Jaime’s birthday that day and she didn’t tell any of us but we were able to do a little celebration for her as well. :-)

After that amazing night I went on retreat and that was just a full on Holy Spirit encounter for 2 straight days!  I loved every minute of it.  Praising God and getting dosed with joy and peace!  Fantastic!  

On the retreat I also had my first encounter with a snake.  Yes!  A REAL snake!  It just came out of nowhere towards me in the grass and I freaked out!!  I was dancing about like an idiot.  Yuck!!  Even thinking about it now creeps me right out.  Marissa, my housemate and beautiful friend, thought it was hilarious.  She just laughed at me.  I really hope that is the only encounter I have with the horrible creatures.

On the last day of retreat it was my actual birthday.  We went to a coffee shop in Chico called the Naked Lounge and I got a free drink just because it was my birthday ( I love America) lol.  Then I went to Forever 21 with Marissa and Jess (my South African friend)  and during the course of this trip I think I bumped into every girl, from the retreat, in the store, laden with clothes.  I got some lovely new things as celebration of the day. :-)

Today I went to some cliffs with friends from my revival group.  We started off at a cliff that was just like a water slide.  So much fun!  No bumps or anything just smooth rock straight into the water.  I loved it!  Then we went to a waterfall and there were some cliffs to jump off.  So everyone else had done the jump and I decided that I should just get over my fear and do the jump….easier said than done.  I proceeded to spend about 20 minutes at the top of the cliff wondering whether I should jump or not.  Today the fear got the better of me.  I must say everyone was so encouraging and they are all a fantastic bunch for trying to get me over the edge but I couldn’t hack it.  It has become my challenge for the year though and I am determined that by the end I will have made the jump.

What a week!!  It has been full of ups and downs but, I have really got to know some truly amazing people.  I have been extremely blessed with the girls I live with and we just seem to click.  I can’t wait for the stories and memories we are all gonna have by the end of this year.  

There is some very exciting stuff happening over the next few weeks so I will hopefully have more stories to tell :-)

Love to you all!

Waow so I have officially been Redding for a week.  It crazy how much stuff has already happened and how amazing it has been.

I have been blown away by the community that has been so quickly established here.  Meeting people has been really easy because people are constantly opening up their homes for parties and stuff.  Everyday I have been so busy.  

I went cliff jumping last week which was fun, I didn’t do the top cliff but it was all good.  It was such a hot day and the ground was burning my feet and just to get into the water was a relief even if it was freezing.  We also went body rafting down the river and that was interesting as we bumped into a couple of snakes in the water.  I didn’t think much of it because I thought they must be just water snakes but when I went home later one of the girls I was staying with explained that there are rattle snakes and other poisonous snakes here.  I was so glad no one told me that before I went, there is no way I would have got in the water lol.

I also went to church at the weekend.  The worship here is great, there is so much freedom to just be with God and I love that.  Then you have got these incredible preachers; Bill Johnson and Heidi Baker spoke on Sunday and each where incredibly powerful in different ways.  Its hard to describe in detail what they spoke about but Heidi blew me away through the stories she told of her experience in Africa.  She has an incredible heart and it was really amazing to get to see a glimpse of that.

Then we started classes!  O MY DAYS!!!  It has blown me away.  I cannot believe how blessed I am to be hearing from Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton everyday.  I just keep being blown away by their one liners, for instance,  Bill was talking yesterday and said that when God is silent it is because you already know the answer to what you are asking.  God has already deposited the information that you need for it and he wants you to remember that.  WAOW!  Flipping awesome!

Last night I went to my first revival group party.  I was excited for it because I knew I would get to know more people and that these people were going to be the ones I will spend a lot of this year with.  Even better though was that a lot of people who had been in Trisha’s, my revival group pastor, group before showed up to give us prophetic words and touch us with the Holy Spirit, this was awesome!  I got so many words for this year and it just blew me away.  I am still on a high from that and I can’t wait for class today!

Well that is just a glimpse of what I have been doing this week.  Hopefully I will have way more to share next week :-)

I have been pondering some of the challenges I have faced in the last few years that I wish I could have been prepared for, one of these being my first few months of university.

I don’t remember anyone ever telling me just how difficult it could be.  Sure everyone mentions how exciting it is and how much you learn but what I realised is that learning experiences aren’t always happy times!

When I first arrived at university in Manchester I found it very emotional.  I hadn’t really thought about the fact that I was going to be completely on my own.  It hadn’t really occurred to me, but as soon as I closed the door on my parents I burst into tears.  I had to be a grown-up!

My first few months were awful, I felt lonely and vulnerable.  I had just finished an eight-month internship in a church and now had to put what I had learnt into practise.  Not getting drunk, leading by example and talking about my faith…..gotta say not the easiest thing in the world when you are a student, surrounded by people wanting the ultimate student experience if ya know what I mean?

I felt like I didn’t connect with anyone in my flat and church was alright but not exactly meeting my expectations.  By November I was ready to quit, I had had enough and when my mum came to stay in reading week all I wanted to do was go home, she told me to stick it out though.  While mum was with me my dad was at a songwriters conference in London.  While there he met a worship leader from Manchester and explained about me being there and looking for a church.  The guy told my dad all the details of his church and said I should check it out.  So I decided I would go, I mean if it made the month before Christmas go a little bit faster, before I went home for good, then it couldn’t be that bad. 

Well, everything changed after that point.  I went to this church and suddenly found somewhere that I fitted I belonged and was accepted. It changed my whole university experience and if I had known at the beginning that all I had to do was hold out for that I probably could have survived but I wouldn’t have learned nearly as much as I did from the experience.  So although I wish someone could have told me what to expect, in that it would be so difficult, it would have helped but at the same time I’m kinda glad they didn’t because I always had a hope that some day it would be better. 

So some things have to be experienced, rather than taught I think. :)