new season, new anointing

i re-opened my blog to write for the first time in over a year and looked through the shamefully short list of entries, but was incredibly blessed to look back on the written record of my spiritual landmarks in the last 2 years - the beautiful and the ugly, the heartache and joy. it's so strange to see what i wrote even just two years ago; i feel like an entirely different person. who can say whether the changes i've gone through have been good or bad, but i know that God will ultimately finish the good work He started in me.

there are so many things i need to sort through from this past month or so, but they're very nicely sectioned off in my head so that's the way i'll write about them..

family group
has easily been the most discouraging, the most difficult, the most draining, and the most heart-wrenching thing i've ever gone through. i definitely wasn't prepared for the hurricane of emotions i felt like i was fighting off all of first semester. i would be so thrilled when a freshman said they would come to bible study, only to be incredibly disappointed when they didn't show; i felt so inadequate to be serving these people that i just wanted to give up; i realized that i am so unable to love people the way God loves them because i lack the patience and the perseverance; in short, serving has shown me that i am nothing without God. and in retrospect, i think that's exactly the place God wanted to bring me to. during OIL, i felt God speaking so powerfully to me through the song "God is Able", reminding me that i had forgotten who i was serving - that i was not serving an incapable God, but the Almighty and eternal God who is capable of doing more than i can even ask or imagine. i had forgotten that God is actively moving in people's lives without me even asking for it, and that His work is unstoppable. i felt the burden of failure lifted off my shoulders as He reminded me that my work cannot bring others to salvation, that it was never my responsibility but His, and that the lack of "results" i had seen from my family group was not a failure on my part as a servant but rather simply His timing and His plans. and i felt like i had been set free. as soon as i laid all this down before Christ, i felt overwhelming joy and contentment and peace, and was saddened to realize that i had been missing this for the better part of my last two semesters. but this newfound hope and trust in His power only has truly changed the way i view family group and serving. i've been trying to pray faithfully and intercede for my family group as best i can, but there is no longer this anxious feeling within me asking myself where i have failed as a servant or what else i need to do better; there is only full trust that God is completing the work in their lives and refining them step by step, just as He is doing in my life. all my frustration seems to have just dissipated, and i've been finding myself more filled instead with thanksgiving to God for what He has done - and all the ways i've witnessed Him working. and He has been working so visibly, through me and around me; and i realize that if He had used me before i realized how broken i was without Him, i would have been so prideful, but now i can so clearly see that it is only by His power that i am able to do anything at all. i've seen so much fruit and answered prayer in the last weeks that i'm just amazed by Him.

worship
this past retreat was my first GCC retreat singing with the band and i think going into it i had a rather resigned attitude about it - that i would try my best to serve others through worship ministry, but that i would not feel free enough to be blessed myself. i've always felt restricted worshiping in front of others because it's so vulnerable, but this retreat something changed. i'm not sure if it was because i was already experiencing a personal revival before i went to retreat, or if it's because God wanted to change the way i saw worship ministry, but i felt a fierce joy in worshiping with the church and nearly no inhibition. i think it was the first time i felt privileged to stand there, the first time i didn't wish i was worshiping somewhere in the back corner by myself. a big part of that was a whisper i felt from God telling me to feel how much He loved His people, and as i listened to my brothers and sisters so passionately worshiping the Lord, i felt like He was telling me how beautiful that sound was to Him.

prayer
something i had been praying for during OIL and the weeks before retreat was for God to fill me with His Spirit, as i realized that i couldn't do anything without it. during retreat, i suddenly had the urge to ask God for a second anointing (the first and only vision i've ever experienced was related to this image) and i asked for an anointing of His Spirit. i'm not sure for what purpose God was putting this prayer request on my heart, but as Pastor Joe prayed for me, he began to pray for me for this exact thing. he prayed for a second anointing by the Spirit, for the heart to be an intercessor, for me to see the answers to my prayer, for empowered prayer, and for a new season in my walk.

i'm really thankful for the way God has brought me into a new season of my spiritual journey. i feel like i've crossed over some kind of bridge and i'm excited to see how He will speak to me and move in my heart. i see so many areas of myself that need to be redeemed and transformed, but as He leads me, He is changing me and growing me. all i need to do is follow..

"You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows." - Psalm 23:5a