First off, let me start off by saying that whoever said being a Christian is boring has obviously never seen Hillsong UNITED live! They are jumping and dancing all over the place, and I loved every bit of it!
Ok... Now, Truth. This is actually really hard to share, because it means that I am vulnerable and let's be honest. No one likes to be vulnerable.
So, this semester has been harder than I could have ever imagined. I have been dealing with a challenge in faith, a challenge in friendships, a challenge in self, and well... just challenges. Well, my recent (ok... not so recent, just current) challenge has been in my self. Now, I know most girls have probably faced this little demon: Body image. If you haven't, put your guard up, because that challenge is coming. I blame it on the devil using the media's "thin mindset" against us. Well, I have a history of dealing with this little demon in not so great ways. It's one of my downfalls that until now not many people know about. Anyway, it's recently been a challenge for me to climb. And, to be honest, I wasn't doing such a great job in climbing that mountain. When life gets hard, I tend to run. Why? I don't know. Anyway, so I may not have been doing a good job of climbing the mountain, but I was doing a perfectly great job of running from it. However, in running (physically and metaphorically) from this challenge, I was also running from God. A little lesson that you should learn from me: You can't outrun God, and you can't hide from Him either. It just doesn't work. God is the perfect seeker!
Alright, a couple of months ago, I signed up for the Hillsong One Day Conference. At the time, I was super excited and could not wait for the day to come. But, since I have been trying to avoid confronting God, I was not so sure how I felt about it when the day arrived. I really did not want to get up at 5:30 AM so that I could get on a bus for an hour and a half at 6:30. I also was not so sure about going alone. I kind of wanted a friend to be there. (Being alone ended up being the best thing that could have happened. It was just me and God for an entire day!) However, there was the bigger part that really did want to go and didn't want to lose that $30. :) So, I got on the bus and arrived at Paradise Community Church (where the conference was held) about an hour and a half early. It was either be that early or be late. If you know me, you know I can not stand being late! So, thankfully I arrived early, because my wristband still had not come in the post. I got to the registration table and explained that to them. At first the response was, "No problem. We'll look on our list. What's your surname?" So, the devil REALLY did not want me at that conference. My name was not on that list. They then called the conference headquarters and it was not in their system either. On top of that, my confirmation email was automatically deleted by hotmail and my mail had decided to completely reset itself about 2 weeks ago causing me to lose all of my emails. (The volunteers were all looking at me like I was completely crazy or trying to get in for free. Either one wasn't good.) So, I had no proof that I had signed up. At this point, I was ready to give up and was actually on the verge of tears (come on... I had been up since 5:30 and had been on a bus for over an hour!). However, I decided on one more try. I tried to look up my bank account to see if the purchase was online. Well, I was so flustered that nothing was going right that I failed to read the print that it is "caps sensitive". So, it would not allow me into my account for anything. Thankfully, I calmed down and read that before giving up. I was then able to get into my account and show them that I had paid for both the day and night. Whew! That was definitely not easy. Listen here devil, God's bigger than you! (THANK GOODNESS... Because I certainly was not).
Ok, so I was meant to be at this conference. Every single thing spoken in the sessions seemed to apply to me. Like BAM! BAM! BAM! The first speaker Casey Treat (from Seattle, Washington!) basically said what I had been avoiding straight out: "Get comfortable with yourself, and enjoy who you are; it is a better witness." Seriously? Are you kidding me? were the two thoughts going through my mind. Casey also said that you are anointed to be "You" and no one else! Yep... I could go on and on about how absolutely wonderful ALL of the sessions were, but you just can't understand it without being there. So, God completely broke me down and built me back up again. I am revived and have no doubt that these next 6 weeks are going to be completely amazing! I can not wait to experience them!
I'm going to leave you with one little thought that I loved from the conference. Actually I loved a lot, but that would take hours to write. Ok, I take that back. I'm going to leave with 2 thoughts. :)
#1Bobbie Houston (one of the pastors of Hillsong) gave the analogy that God sees us as a garden. God tends to the garden of the Church and with Him as the tender, that garden is going to explode with life in the darkness! God sees us as a GARDEN! I don't know about you, but I think gardens are absolutely gorgeous and one of the greatest creations God could have ever made. I could honestly spend a whole day sitting in the garden smelling the flowers and just admiring the beauty.
#2 We are in a BLOOD covenant with Christ. Jesus Christ shed His blood and has covered all our sin with it. That puts us in a blood covenant. Well, there will always be bloodsuckers that will try to suck the blood out of you. (This is where the analogy comes. A leech is called a "bloodsucker". Well, do you know how to get leeches off of you? Shake salt on them. They can not live in salt and will immediately back away.) Well, we're in luck, because Jesus said in Matthew 5 that we are the salt of the earth! So, when a bloodsucker tries to suck the blood out of you, just "Shake some salt on them, and say 'My God is bigger and is able!'" My day was absolutely amazing, and I could not have spent it any better way. So, I'm going to go to bed for now, but I may post a few other things from the conference as I go over them some more. :)
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