Week Two Update

The weekly update on what's happening here in New Zealand: it is rainy and cold. Evidently it rains like all the time during the winter. There were a couple of nice temperature days, but now it's back to being cold (or at least Morgan's definition of cold). You can tell how cold it is based on how many layers I have on. I love my house and roommates a lot! We call ourselves The Brick House Grannies because a) we're the group of the oldest girls b) we're usually in bed by like 9pm. We call each other family at this point- we really do life together. We actually just had a family game night playing Life, and it was a blast!
I'm not sure if I've introduced her to this blog or not, but this is MiMi, the kitten. She actually belongs with us here at the house (we have a family who lives here with us, and she is their kitten). She absolutely loves attention, and curls up in my lap every time I'm outside. This picture was taken after Jasmine grabbed her from outside and put her in my lap as I was curled up reading in the living room. MiMi promptly laid down and went to sleep, and managed to "punch" me several times with her paw during her nap.

This was the rainbow from Sunday. The cool part was that I had a conversation with Hannah the night before on how rainbows were the symbolism of God's promise never to flood the earth again, so then I saw this magnificent rainbow! It was awesome!

This was our first week of lectures, and it's been interesting to say the least. Before I go into all of that, I encourage you to watch this video by Brene Brown on shame, as what I'm about to say it tied to that subject. We actually watched this video as a family this evening after Life. I've seen it before, but it was so good again! A good reminder.

The overarching theme for the week was Repentance and Lordship, but we spent a ton of time on repentance and lies of the enemy. There are 6 main strongholds that affect most people (of course there are more. These are the main overarching, most people have, kind of deal): self-hatred, passivity, shame, rejection, envy/jealousy, and fear. Yes, after praying about the list, I found that I have all 6. It actually didn't take prayer- I knew straight off the bat. It's a tough pill to swallow. There is a lot of hurt from my past that has yet to really be dealt with. After watching Dr. Brown's talk again, I'd probably say that shame is the overarching stronghold that likes to fuel the others, not always though. Shame is a nasty beast. I have lived in a place of "I'm not good enough," which was enforced for me in a variety of arenas. On another day, we prayed through the strongholds. Then, the speaker had us stand on our chairs (it was actually very empowering) and allow God to speak to us individually to replace the lies that we are believing about ourselves related to the strongholds. To hear God say "You are deeply loved, you are chosen and cherished, you are My daughter, you don't have to strive. You. Are. Good. Enough." Man, that started to cut to the core of my being. It hit those hurt places and have begun a good work there. Those aren't words that I have heard often, so to hear them and just begin to accept them is huge for me. I have lived life in a very closed off walled off fashion, so prior to that moment, there's no way I could have accepted it. I might just have to stand on chairs to talk to God more often! ;)
God is teaching me too personally a lot about vulnerability- the degree of transformation you want is equal to the degree to which you are vulnerable. You want life transformation, you have to be vulnerable. Trust me, that wasn't a teaching I wanted to hear. I don't like to be vulnerable. But Dr. Brown said it perfectly- vulnerability isn't weakness. I have spent 23 years believing that it was (and I've seen this TED talk before! More than once actually!) Vulnerability brings innovation, creativity, and change. The key is that it has to be real vulnerability. It can't be faked (I'm real good at faking it.). Real vulnerability is when I have to sit down with a friend and say, "Hey. The enemy fed me the lie that you weren't going to love me, and so I distanced myself from you. I realize that was a lie. You will love me for me and I can't wait to see what God had in store." Yeah, I had that conversation today. It's humbling. But yet it's freeing incredibly freeing. Real vulnerability means that I let God and people in, take an emotional risk, and find incredible freedom there. It's. Awesome.