Outward focus.

Today I went down to the lake beside my billet's house in Nova Scotia and spent some time with God. He reminded me once again of how big his plans are and how little my problems are in comparison. Lately I have been struggling with taking up offence and hurt for gossip said about me. It really affects me, but to the point where I believe it. God is reminding me that I do not need to dwell on or believe what others say about me behind my back, he is the one who will judge all hearts in the end, including my own. Instead of trying to please others on this team, I need to try to please God first. I can't be perfect but I can try my best to serve God wholeheartedly with all my actions. As soon as I stop worrying about pleasing others the pressure is off, God gives grace to those who ask and he will smile down upon me even if I mess up or make mistakes sometimes. Jesus I want to be more selfless so I call upon you to transform my heart, fill it with joy, and make even the difficult tasks pleasurable.

This is not about me. It never has been. So why am I focusing so much on what I want to be and am not?

Turn my focus outward towards you once again. May your kingdom come, your will be done, in my life as it is in heaven.

Tess

More excerpts from Tour.

This past week has been really hard on our team. Tour has reached a point where we are starting to get frustrated with each other and with the things that come along with tour such as the long van rides, fast food runs, no privacy, little sleep, and spending every day with the same people. Our attitudes have been tested many times and we have not always passed the test so positively.

The need to die to self is only increasing and many of us are struggling with giving up and surrendering things to serve others that we haven't had to before. But it is necessary in order for us to function in unity with one another and it is a difficult lesson we are learning.

I mentioned to one of my friends a week or so ago that I might want to speak but I was terrified. Turns out he told the Tour leader who then asked me if I would do it because he thought I was capable. It took me a few days until my hesitation ceased and I finally agreed. As I planned my sermon I could not find an illustration or analogy to use so I prayed for one. Right there my prayer was answered and I knew what I would use. My message was based on the verse John 13:34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” I chose this verse because it was simple enough for kids to understand but also challenging for adults as well. In the first part of the verse it talks about loving one another as God has loved us. I used the famous 1 Corinthians 13 "Love is patient, Love is Kind." to explain that in order to have unity we need to be able to give the same sacrificial love that Jesus gave to us. In the second part of the verse I explained that Jesus tells us that people will know that we are his disciples, we are followers of him, we are his children by the way that we love one another. This is the illustration I received during prayer...

Growing up doing music was something that I was extremely passionate about. Music gives me the opportunity to communicate some of God’s truth in a way that words cannot. It expresses passion and emotion and reaches into our hearts. Each instrument makes a different sound and contributes its own voice. In the same way we are each given a different voice, a different mix of giftings and strengths to share God's love with one another. In this way our love is like a song that goes out into the world and sticks in peoples heads and hearts by the thing we say and do. However just like in a band even if one instrument is off timing or out of tune it messes up the whole mix. (I got the music team to play the chorus of How He loves with the guitarist and pianist playing out of key to visually illustrate this) Whenever we gossip, or boast, or are rude, and self-seeking (we do what we want first before others) it is like a wrong chord or an out of tune instrument and it affects the whole mix; it affects all of those who love God and doesn’t give a message of God’s love.

When I spoke the message this thurs a few funny mess up's happened but I think it went pretty well for my first time. The hard part came afterwards when I said something to someone else and realized that I wasn't practicing what I had preached in that moment. A whole deeper level of conviction comes along with preaching and it really challenges you to live out exactly what you tell others to live out. I'm not sure if I am going to speaking more but I am glad that I got the experience.

Tour is testing me and teaching me to be a more patient, humble, and kind person but it is good and I am glad :)

We leave PacificLife for Cranbrook B.C tomorrow, then to Montana on Wednesday. I'm not sure I will sleep tonight because I am THAT excited =)

1st Unity Lesson Learned. Communication not Isolation.

Tonight was our first tour performance. We tried to capture the laughs of each moment as we entered our squished 10 passenger van with anticipation for the moment to come. Things were fun, we made many silly jokes about mis-pronounced lines (ahem personable) but behind the scenes a tension started to grow in the little sarcastic comments inserted throughout conversation.

Our first show went great, except for the few medias errors Rob claims were a "test". The real greatness of it all in regards to our team however did not coming during the performance but afterwards in my opinion.

I'm going to be real honest right now because I know alot of people will identify with me. At the beginning of the preparation for this tour I started to believe I wasn't needed and wouldn't be accepted. I'm just a backup singer with a few lines I thought, what good do I have to contribute? I let that lie precede the truth that I had a very important spiritual and emotional role to play in that team that no-one else could. The key to my problem lay in this though, I didn't want people to know I felt that way so I mostly just kept it to myself. My lips were sealed. Tonight after ministry time it flooded to the surface when I saw the other four girls praying together and felt like they didn't even care or notice that I wasn't with them. Lie #2. (they had looked for me when they started the prayer but I let my self-pity get in the way and told myself that they hadn't even remembered me.)

Tears fell down my face but I wiped them away quickly. The rest of the team will think I'm insecure and weak if I tell them I feel this way though. Lie #3.

I isolated myself from the socializing afterwards and sat in the van listening to the loud conversation but not participating. The lies inside of began to grow even more. Now I was actually creating the situation I was trying to avoid. I knew that I had to speak out and share how I was feeling or things would get worse.

So I rallied up the girlies and sat down and communicated exactly how I was feeling. Turns out they were all feeling similar things. We may not speak or play or sing like someone else but each of us is important and we wouldn't be able to do the tour without each other. We addressed the harmfulness of sarcastic comments and cutting each other down. The tongue is a powerful tool used to communicate. It can be used to communicate two things, love or resentment. We should spare our tongue when the comments will not build someone else up. However this does not mean that we should stray away from conflict or avoid it all cost. Bringing up conflict and issues we have with one another in love often builds in each other humility and character. A fear of offence is not biblical. In fact Jesus was anything but scared of offense (we see this when he turns up the tables in the temple). As long as it is done in love, and we are willing to accept the a word of correction ourselves, communication about these things will bring us closer together.

Proverbs 10:17
17 He who heeds discipline shows the way to life,
but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.

Isolating ourselves from conflict and not talking about our feelings to each other is often what causes division. People begin to pity themselves and start thinking false things about others because there has been no communication.

When all five of us began to open up and share about where we are struggling, repent together and encourage each other in our strengths we began to see real Godly unity being birthed. Those who are strong are not able to help those who are weak if they don't know whats going on, if there is no communication and lots of isolation.

I have a feeling I know exactly where I am supposed to go next year...but part of me isn't ready to believe it or trust in it just yet.

moving forward.

Dear God

I feel like a blind man

walking into the future

I cannot see

Dear God

I know you have great plans

Your holding the blueprint

of my history

I don't want to sound cliche

but there's no other way to say

I know that you will catch me when I fall

I know you'll be the light that guides my way

And if I make mistakes and disobey

Your grace never lets go

I am called.

Today in chapel Josh talked about how calling changes everything. He shared the story of Moses and the burning bush and spoke about how God calls most people in their alone time spent with him. Thus we can often get in the way of our calling by not making time to spend time with God and listen to him about what he is speaking into our life right now. We can get distracted by the other things which seem to be important but really aren't instead of focusing on the things that God has told us we are called to.

At the end of the sermon he asked those of us who remember being called to reflect on the first time we were and to look at our lives now, asking the question, Am I walking in the calling I recieved?

I have never written down my calling story, I'm not sure why, probably because it was so much better to tell in person. But I am going to now. I want to remember it for years to come because it changed my life. Drastically.

I am going to start from Grade 11. This year was probably the toughest year for me in terms of walking away from God and surrendering to temptation. I experimented a bit with alcohol, swearing, going to party's, dancing dirty at school dances etc..yet I was still going to youth group at the time. In some way I felt that what I was doing was justified because my parents had protected and suppressed me for so long.

In my second semester English honours class I had an intimidating teacher who was very strongly against christianity. He would insult religion and especially christians ranting about how they were brainwashed into believing some fairytale in front of the class constantly. He would take verses out of the bible and twist their meaning saying that they were only stories and were not to be taken literally. I remember him saying that "those who fall away from their faith, usually fall the hardest." and thinking to myself that he was definitely a subject of his own words. Now this guy was a big blonde german professor with scary facial expressions and whole lot of brains, whenever he would beg someone to argue against him I was terrified. There was no way that I could ever speak without him humiliating me in front of the class. I remember going to the bathroom in the middle of one of his rants and crying my eyes out because I was so confused and offended by what he was saying. Everything inside of me yearned to be able to speak out and prove that this Jesus I believed in was not just a story, but I didn't know how.

My Grade 11 year was filled with a life's climaxes of hard times at home and the start of a process of discovering who I was, what I believed, and what I wanted to do with my life. I participated in a science-coop program where we had to do a 3 week practicum. I did mine at an animal hospital and left thinking that I wanted to be a veterinarian.

I entered the summer as a doubt-filled and confused Christian. Was this God I believed really real? or was he just a story like my teacher said? In the 6 weeks I spent working at Timberline ranch God proved himself to me over and over. I made a decision at the end of the summer to never live a lukewarm life for him ever again.

This decision changed everything. My Grade 12 year was spent growing in my relationship with God and learning how to live fully for him when I was surrounded by people who weren't. As my relationship with him grew I found the faith to share him with some friends and stay strong in the midst of temptation. After my graduation I thought I would go to Uvic sometime in the next year and study science. I applied for the school, paid the application fee and got accepted.

I went back to Timberline in the summer, this time to participate in the 11 week bursary funded program called S.W.A.T. My roomate was none other than Joleen Harder, a Pacificlife Bible College music program attendee. One night when we were talking about our schools it struck me that I had always had a desire to go to bible college. Her program sounded super cool and I thought about it, but didn't seriously consider it. yet. As the summer went on I kept feeling this call, this pull to go to her bible college. I'm sure you can see where this is going. So I asked God "If I'm supposed to go to this bible college then what am I supposed to study?" I mean I liked missions, I liked youth, and I liked music. It was hard to decide. On week 7 I left the camp to attend and sing at my aunt's wedding. After the reception and late into the evening this young woman who I did not know came up and complimented me. Even though she was terribly drunk, God was speaking to me through her. As she was telling me that I should pursue my singing and that I had an amazing gift God was telling me that he gave me that gift to bring him glory. I knew in that moment God wanted me to study music and that I was going to do it at Pacific Life Bible College.

What I didn't know was that it was what he wanted me to pursue with my life..but I'll get to that. So a few weeks go by once I'm back at camp and I'm still having a difficult time setting this decision in stone. It happened so quickly and my parents don't really have a clue. So I end up sending in the application for plbc a week before classes start and receiving an acceptance letter 3 days later.

After my parents said yes, (they were a bit surprised but agreed) the question wasn't am I going to this school? what I am studying? but became how am I going to pay for it? I found out that all my scholarships from highschool would work for Plbc except for the single biggest one from CoastCapital worth $2000. To CoastCapital, Plbc was not an accredited school. When my mom phoned in a second time to ask if they could make an exception something miraculous happened. The man in charge of delegating the scholarships was on a vacation to Italy and a woman was in his place. She thought I deserved the scholarship and said yes with a comment like "If the (other guy) comes back and says no, there is nothing he can do about it because I've already ok'd it." Now get a load of this. If that wasn't enough, all the scholarships I received, plus the half tuition my parents paid covered my whole first year almost to the dollar.

(I found out my second year that I was not eligible for student loans) so I probably wouldn't have been able to go to school if it hadn't been for God providing that scholarship.

My first year at Plbc was life-changing. I learned so many valuable lessons and grew in my relationship and knowledge of God so much. I realized that I was exactly where I was supposed to be and that proclaiming God's truth through music and in ministry was something I wanted to do with my life. In the summer afterwards I did an internship down in Seattle for 11 weeks. I got to serve in all the different areas of the church and loved it. I remember asking God to confirm that I was where I was supposed to be once again but feeling like I wasn't getting an answer. A couple weeks before my internship ended I counselled at the Seattle district foursquare highschool camp. It was a life-changing week for my girls and for me that was filled with many tears and laughs and God-not-coincidences. I wanted to go to this Holy Spirit workshop since the beginning of the week but it conflicted with counsellor meetings. One day I was really struggling as I felt that I didn't get words or pictures or visions for people from God but wanted to. As I was praying with a friend the man who leads the workshop walked past and invited me to come help at his workshop. Now you gotta understand that all these things that I was struggling with were what people who helped at the workshop functioned in. I agreed reluctantly and went to the workshop the next day. As the leader, Matt, stood at the front asking those who wanted to experience more of the Holy Spirit to stand up I knew that I was one of them. During our prayers one of leaders who I had never met before in my life came up to and spoke words over me that I will never forget. At first he spoke words of worship and joy over me. He told me that I had a beautiful heart of true worship and an amazing joy that came from God. Then he told me that I was called to sing. I started bawling. There was no way in the world that he could have known that, it was absolutely from God. I hadn't sang at all in front of people earlier in the week and worship was always so loud that you couldn't hear anyone. I had never even seen this guys face before apart from this workshop. He continued telling me that he saw a vision of me singing in front of a huge crowd of people and wearing this huge amount of joy. Then as he went over to the next person the other leader (Matt) who hadn't overheard any of his words over me came up and told me that I was supposed to sing a prophetic song right there in the middle of the workshop. I did it. Then Matt came over to me again and sent me to pray for this girl. I didn't even know her but yet as I was praying God was showing me all these things about her past, her home life, and lies that had been spoken over her. She was sobbing into my arms as I prayed for her. I remember feeling so alive and thankful that God had used me to speak to her his words of truth.

For the rest of the week God was giving me words and visions for people left right and center. It was scary stepping out in them because what if I had heard wrong? but everytime they were confirmed.

As I am writing this I realize how clearly God was working in my past to bring me to where I am now. Each of the circumstances I have been through has shaped my dreams today. I have dreams to give youth the tools to defend their faith. I have dreams to see Jesus heal broken hearts, communicate truth, and bring those wandering away from Jesus back to him through music. I have dreams to raise up uncompromising leaders who are passionate for Christ and so much more.

There is only a few more weeks left of my second year at Plbc. I am graduating soon and not sure where I am going afterwards. But I know this one thing. God's got an amazing call on my life. I need to hold onto the promises he has given me and not let myself get in the way anymore.

Tess