God is blowing my mind right now!

Ok....Honest truth, I have NO clue where to start. Because....
a) My fingers can't type fast enough
2) My brain is bursting with things to say
III) I CANNOT stop giggling and talking a MILLION miles an hour telling stories. (poor Renee...)

I am overwhelmed.

Or, in the words of Claire "Jesus is BLOWING my mind right now!"

Or the words of Tim Chambers, *spoken in an awesome Tim-voice* "Yah, God. You're GOOD!"

ha.

Ok...moving on.

This week absolutely blew my mind.

I don't care what anyone says, we have an amazing team of people. After Tim spoke on spiritual gifts I was amazed at how my view of my teamates changed. When i looked at them, i really felt like I saw them in a different light. Not focusing so much on how they function in our team.....but more on what kinds of gifts God has blessed them with. and it was AMAZING to see everyone grow in those gifts over a period of 4 days! God.....is blowing my mind! =)

After this week, I have learned so so many things but on thing that I've really grown in is learning to be obedient to God's voice. Tim talked about how every church service should include spiritual gifts being used....and also about how when we keep spiritual gifts to ourselves, or don't share a word that God has given us, we are actually hurting the church. Because God has given us something to contribute, to edify other people, and we are keeping it to ourselves. When he said that, I was immediately like...."Oh....my gosh. WHAT the heck am I thinking!" I mean....Honestly, I find myself second guessing (fairly often) when God places a word of knowledge on my heart or nudges me to do something. I sometimes convince myself that I've just made it up in my head....ignoring the pounding of my heart in my chest. Whoa. NOT OK.

At that moment when Tim said that, I felt so convicted! After that moment, I was challenged multiple times with speaking out the sometimes odd or crazy things that God would place on my heart. But it never failed to be what SOMEONE needed to hear. I even approached a girl that I felt like I needed to pray for, not knowing what to say, and before I knew it, I'm crying out to God and sobbing....And I was like, "Dude...these words are NOT coming from me." I mean, I don't even know what I said. But the second I opened my mouth, God gave me the words. It was incredible.

That was just a small example of what God did this weekend. It AMAZED me how we would spend all day doing things...and have parties in the evening, and every hang-out time turned into an intense worship and prayer session with people being touched and lives being changed. Only by the grace of God does that happen! One night I was just looking around the room at all these college-age kids worshiping their guts out and it just hit my how incredible of a sight that was! I mean, honestly.....no one wanted to play games.....or hang out....or go somewhere, we were all in agreement that worshiping God was more exciting than any of those things. How often does that happen?

The entire team was just incredible. We all clicked in a crazy way. I have never seen so many man-tears in my life! It was awesome! I mean....God shook people up. In an intense way.

Last night, we stayed up until 4am.......*Yawn* We had an amazing talked (Initiated by the boys) about how the guys can relate to the girls in more of a brother/sister kinda way. It was really cool. We, of course, felt honored that they cared enough to ask our opinions about it and I think they really appreciated our advice. It was an amazing discussion.

Afterwards we spent literally hours going around the room and saying positive things that we noticed about each person, one at a time. It was so amazing to hear what people had to say! Everyone was really encouraged by it.

Then we had a time of talking with just our own teammates and discussing things we learned and also things we need to improve on. That was REALLY good. Josiah and I got some things off our chest. (Praise God...) Chris was really encouraged by what God had done in his life. (He is LITERALLY a different person. His entire face changed. =) lol) And Dillon and I also worked through a small problem. Basically it all boiled down to a need for better communication, and more importantly, Scheduled team worship times that are HIGH priority instead of "whenever we have time" Because.....whenever-we-have-time means.....Never. =)

Leaving today was a little sad. But, also exciting. Because, the changes that we each made are so intense that I KNOW our team is going to be stronger because of it. We all learned so much about ourselves and each other. Today I found myself sitting on the couch looking across the room at Chris, Dillon, and Josiah...and just smiling because I was SO proud of them. They REALLY are amazing men of God and SO in awe of God's love for them....and hungry to receive everything that He has for them. It's pretty incredible.

On the way home Chris and I talked (for literally nearly 4 hours)
And we discussed the top three things of the week. Here's what I decided on:
1) God faithfulness revealed and proven over and over again!
2) My new awareness and appreciation for the spiritual gifts that God has placed in me and is continuing to grow.
3) This new community that I am a part of! Dillon and I were talking about how insane it was when we were hanging out with these people. I mean, it literally felt like this group and setting was what God was intending when he described the church. Just....so much passion and zeal to seek God in every single aspect and at all times! Insane.

God is blowing my mind right now! =)

*sigh*

I can't wait for our next training week. It's going to be a blast. And while I really do love all of the other people on year teams in the US.......I wouldn't trade my guys for ANY one of them. I feel like my appreciation and love for them has been multiplied by a trillion this week. I just can't WAIT to see what God is going to do in and through them! They each have such unique giftings. And together, the 4 of us WILL DO amazing things. And what's even cooler- is that it's NOT because of us. Nope, it's not! =) Jesus....did it all.

In worship this week one thing that kept coming back to be was just how in AWE I am that the GOD of the UNIVERSE chooses ME to speak to. AHHH!!!

"Who am I that you would be mindful of me?"

I mean, really, think about it? That's intense stuff....

Anyways, It's 1:30am...I haven't gotten nearly enough sleep lately and I have a full day tomorrow.

But AHHH I could go on and on for hours. But...I'm going cross eyed sitting here. And anyone who knows me knows that that's a PRETTY big deal....since I can't cross my eyes...

Oh man.....God, WHAT do you have planned!?!?! Something huge, I have no doubt.

So exciting, I could just dance. =)

I'll probably blog more tomorrow.....cuz I'm sure there are things I left out. I'm just kinda on overload right now. But it's OK! I like it. =)

Love you all.....

P.S.
Christmas is right around the corner! =)