Welcome to my blog!
(This is for the weekend September 30- October 2)
Like I said before in my last blog entry, I had the amazing opportunity to attend a Vida Nueva Weekend this past weekend. I meant for yesterday’s entry to be about the experience, but I got off track and wrote about the lesson learned instead! Vida Nueva was a life changing, and very interesting experience. It was nothing like a retreat I had ever been on. It was purely focused on our relationship with God. There were 3 days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday was “die day” where we metaphorically died to selves, and nailed all of our sin, unforgiveness, and whatever else to the cross. (For whatever reason I didn’t want to nail them to the cross, so I crumpled up mine and threw it in the trash; they were written and concentrated into paper hearts) The second day was “rise day” where it focused on us rising with Christ, and our identity in Him. It is a great joy for me to say that I am a daughter of the King of Kings, I am loved beyond all human reasoning and understanding, and am constantly pursued after by God, who is, “enthralled with my beauty,”. He loves all us so much, so intensely, so crazily, just amazing love for sure! The thing is, I heard people say this to me a million times. Mothers, friends, family would say “I love you” but I barely believed them. So when people would say to me, “God loves you!” I tried my best for their sake to trust it, but I never really felt it, understood it, or experienced it until this weekend. The thing is, nothing happens coincidentally, or by accident. It wasn’t an accident that I got sponsored to go to this weekend. It wasn’t an accident that a weeks leading up to the weekend I was meditating on Matthew 6:33, and it wasn’t an accident that when I got to Vida Nueva, I learned that our God-given theme for the weekend was Matthew 6:33! This blog is a reflection and my testimony of that. I knew God wanted to write for Him so I started my blog Thursday, and He confirmed that me doing my blog is His purpose for my life on Saturday. Over the weekend, I took advantage of being in God’s presence and asked Him multiple questions. He spoke to me also on I think die day, when I was having some difficulty letting go. He said to me clearly, “You are not meant to hold these things. Give them to Me.” I feel like my soul recognized His voice and surrendered, and that was extremely beneficial, because then I was able to let go of everything and let Him in. Even though God had showed me and proven to me in a million different way that the one He opened my eyes to is exactly who He wants me to be with, I asked while deep in His presence yet again if that he was the One for me, and of course to no one’s surprise God said yes. Also on this day, we were in a wonderful, beautiful way reminded who we are in God’s eyes. We are His daughters, and He loves us so powerfully, and He would do anything and everything for us. He even gave up his greatest possession, His son, for us! He loves us so much. I always heard the Crucifixion story and thought, “well, then this is all my fault. God must hate me, because of my sin His son had to die.” when that’s not correct at all! God did that out of love for us, not to make us feel guilty. (guilt doesn’t come from God anyway, conviction does, and those are two very different things.) So once I got past that, and once I was empty, I was truly able to understand the why and I got to experience God’s love. Onto the last day, Sunday. Sunday was “go day”, meaning now you know that Jesus died for you out of pure love, and now you know you are a daughter of the King of Kings, and you are now filled with the love, joy, and peace of God, what are you going to do about it? Share it, of course! This has always been a challenge to me, but after VN I was able to understand why it so natural for some people. When you’re filled with the love of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, you are just overflowing. You have so much love in you that it comes out in all the words you speak, in all of the animals you pet, in the hugs you give your mom and brother, it just won’t stop. You have to share it, and best of all, you want to! It just comes naturally. I felt amazing Saturday, Sunday, a little less but then right back to it Monday, less on Tuesday, and even less today (Wednesday). The thing is, like my youth leader told me, “life just kind of hits you.” you are back in reality and away from the shelter of VN. At VN, there were no clocks, no cell phones, no distractions. The outside world did not exist. So it was easy in that way to focus in on God entirely, and be filled with His presence. Now coming back home it’s, “Oh I have a dog, oh I have to do the dishes, oh my Grandma called, I need to write my friend back, I never finished that piece of art, the couch is a mess, I have a test coming up soon,” etc.. But even with all that, I know I’m changed. I know I’m different. Anxiety may be bothering me, but what I learned at VN does not change. No matter what, God loves me, no matter what I am a child of the King, and no matter what I have the choice to fight satan or let him win. I have to run after God with everything I have. I have to stick to encouraging people, read my letter, stay in my Bible, spend time with Him daily. It’s a daily challenge and I do not expect perfection, however, “His mercies are new every morning,” and I expect progress. I expect to keep getting better. VN took 5 years of therapy off of my shoulders, it was that incredible, but readjusting to real life, and getting to know God in a deeper, more meaningful way (cause I know, feel, and believe in the Love that is there this time) is a whole new process of its own. Living this way is going to completely different, because I am completely different. I feel so ready now, to just be alive really, because living experiencing how much God loves me compared to just “knowing” like I did is like the opposite sides of the universe. Incredibly different. But it’s not like they let us go home empty handed! We left VN with pages of notes, lots of encouraging letters, and an overwhelming group of people who want to love and support us, and have promised to pray for us. VN was a once in a lifetime experience, and if someone offers to sponsor you, I highly suggest going. It is not a light weekend, let me warn you, but know the person who wants to sponsor you is doing so out of love, and they more than likely have had God put you on their hearts to sponsor in the first place. So overall, I enjoyed my VN weekend. It changed my life permanently for the better and made all the difference in the world. God will never, ever leave our side, and He is always loving us, always for us, always near us. He is right here for you, anytime, anyday, anywhere. Forever and ever, no matter what you have done or where you are in life, know you are His, and you are LOVED!!! Melody
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Melody C.God has given me the natural talent as a writer. I felt Him encourage me in the direction of using my natural skill in writing for Him, instead of investing in skills that were basically going to waste. I have been writing my whole life. I love to answer questions, give advice, and share experiences. I hope you enjoy it, and I pray that God speaks through me and to you. If there are ever any typos, please ignore them. They will be fixed as soon as I notice them. Archives
February 2019
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