Hahahahha, so today was such the most wonderful day I have had in such a long time and you know why? Its not cheesy, its not cliché, it is completely true…

…Its because I spent all day with Jesus J

I woke up and He instantly asked me for my attention and my time. So much recently I have been finding it hard to obey Him in this, in the little things, but praise Jesus, He is persistent! He just pursues and pursues us, He is so jealous for every single bit of us but is so so gentle in the pursuit of us! Holy! So He asked me for my time which I reluctantly gave Him and then He asked me out to coffee J what a wonderful coffee we had! I came back and have been learning Portuguese, thinking bout Mozambique but more importantly, have learned the glorious value of turning OFF ones phone! Not silent or vibrate, OFF so that He can have ALL my time! Who cares who calls, what the time is, what people want to know? For those few hours I am His and He is mine, exclusively. Then I spoke to a beautiful sister of mine in Mozambique who is so anointed and she and one of the boys there prayed for me and commissioned me for my time in Pemba when I go (She is even gonna put a good word in for me!) but in the midst of all of this the greatest thing? The greatest thing has been merely resting in Him, having a relaxing day, not needing to strive and work at being with Him, merely getting out the way so He can be, so that we can walk together, hand in hand. For now, He has not given me permission to make more money through a second job because He is jealous for my time and attention which is so wonderful but such a massive step of faith as well! Hahahaha, I love it! What would Gideon have thought when God reduced and reduced and reduced His army? The same as I, I am sure!! But God will be glorified, not me! People will look at me and no longer say ‘what an achiever!’ but will look at me and say ‘what a generous God!’ I will boast only in Him, He will be glorified through my life and I will at the same time come to realize that even if I do nothing at all ever again, He will still adore me!!

He provides, He calls us to Himself, He teaches and directs us but more than all of that, He curls up next to us and rests with us, teaches us peace in the midst of it all, takes our hand looks into our eyes and say ‘honey, I’ve got this one’ and we can dance and rejoice and praise because He is trustworthy and True!!!

Finalmente, quiero escrevo em Portuguese porque gosto demonstrar meu progresso! Portuguese es uma lingua dificil mas O Deus ajudar-me!

Please pray if you get a second because I am taking great leaps into the unknown in faith and I have total peace about all that the Lord is leading me to in both giving and giving up, but either way it is still a faith step and therefore need prayer support to guard against all the enemy will no doubt throw at me because I am a threat to him! Oh yeah! Hehe. There is so so much that I want to write here, so much that God has taught me, is revealing through the scriptures, however I shan’t because He is teaching you each equally necessary and important things and it will urge you to push into Him and His word and His presence. I sit here reading this laughing cos it sounds so unlike me! The words that you read are such a poor representation of who I am, the mistakes and problems, struggles and battles I am daily facing, apathy, laziness and reluctance and yet as I said, He is so gracious! As I learn to embrace refiners fire and the dross comes painfully bit by bit to the surface, He cleanses and purifies and this time of spiritual ‘pregnancy’ and preparation continues!

Something has/is definitely changing and shifting. For once, I am not going to sit and psychoanalyze it. I am going to just live it, show it, learn it, enjoy it and glorify God by the wonder of it. There is so much now I merely know or am living within that I will not understand or remember in years to come, the thing about journaling, is that sometimes you have to realize how unimportant what you have to say actually is…the world will go on with or without us. So although writing and journaling is so important, if we go without saying it all, its more than ok.

Hehehehhe, none of the above I expect to make sense but I wish to write it merely so I can read it back ad remind myself who God is! Woooot! He is so glorious and wonderful and there is so much more I need and want to give up in my pursuit of Him and His glorious presence. Hallelujah. Praise Be to the Lord our God, til the end of the age. Amen x

Isaiah 26

3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you.
4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord the Lord is the Rock Eternal.

8 Yes Lord, walking in the ways of your laws we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night, in the morning my spirit longs for you…
10 Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the Lord.
11 Oh Lord, your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame. …

17 As a woman with child about to birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in your presence O Lord.
18 We were with child and writhed in pain, but we gave birth to wind. We have not bought salvation to the earth; we have not given birth to the people of the world.
19 But your dead will live
Their bodies will rise
You who dwell in the dust will wake up and shout for joy.
Your dew is like the dew of the morning, the earth will give birth to her dead.

20 Go my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while…

Truly truly truly this passage is beautiful and captivating as well as challenging to the core. All I wish to pick out is the two things that are striking me even as I read this and write. Firstly, it will be the sight of the zeal of God for His people that will captivate those who live in upright lands. Those who live in the West and have been shown much much grace, it will be the sight of Gods zeal that will captivate them. What does that look like? How do we get there? How can they see how much He loves us?

Secondly, we must stop trying to do things in our own strength. Is it us that brings salvation? That does the work? Can we heal anyone at all even if we try really hard? Can we persuade God and manipulate God by the deeds we do and the effort we put in? No no no no its all about GRACE!! Can you imagine giving birth to nothing after hour upon hour of labor? And yet that is what we are spiritually doing! (And yet read the promise in there about the dead rising, new things...) It is the grace of God that brings salvation, that brings judgment, that brings healing and deliverance, grace grace grace! Yippee!

So what shall we do? We shall go, shut ourselves away and spend time with Him. Curl up on the lap of our father because He will not leave us orphans, we are adopted and we have access to His house and His presence. So let us go, shut the door and spend some time. The rest is His, not ours.

Overcome

I dance with Him, I sing, I lie at His beautiful feet, I kiss them with the kisses of my mouth, my cup is overflowing and yet more and more I speechlessly praise

How beautiful, how lovely, how glorious!!!! I wanna be a laid down lover, I wanna be kissed more by Him, more intimacy, I wanna be a dwelling place for Him. Not coming and going, but a resting place, a resting place, a dwelling place of Him.

Oh God oh God oh God, yo uare so beautiful! I am so in love, I am so in love.

hehehehe

Oh......I am so so undone.

I praise God always praise Him praise Him praise Him

Through the pain and the tears,
through the breaks in the clouds,
through the times of sheer joyI will praise HIs holy name.

Adonai
Elohim

Psalm 62
1-2 God, the one and only— I'll wait as long as he says. Everything I need comes from him, so why not? He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, An impregnable castle: I'm set for life.

3-4 How long will you gang up on me? How long will you run with the bullies? There's nothing to you, any of you— rotten floorboards, worm-eaten rafters, Anthills plotting to bring down mountains, far gone in make-believe. You talk a good line, but every "blessing" breathes a curse.

5-6 God, the one and only— I'll wait as long as he says. Everything I hope for comes from him, so why not? He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, An impregnable castle: I'm set for life.

7-8 My help and glory are in God—granite-strength and safe-harbor-God— So trust him absolutely, people; lay your lives on the line for him. God is a safe place to be.

9 Man as such is smoke,woman as such, a mirage. Put them together, they're nothing; two times nothing is nothing.

10 And a windfall, if it comes— don't make too much of it.

11 God said this once and for all; how many times Have I heard it repeated? "Strength comes Straight from God."

12 Love to you, Lord God! You pay a fair wage for a good day's work!
-The Message

11One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving. Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done.

He can provide
He will provide
He will direct
He does love
He is safe
I am His forever

I will sing to the Lord all my days!

I wil sing and make music,

My heart will be glad all of my days,

I will glorify the Lord.

Like a fire in my bones,

like a fire in my bones,

is this love for my beloved.

I am the pearl, He is the pearl, I am the pearl!!!

Wowzer, SO much has happened today! This week has been SUCH a battle which kinda sucks cos Amanda has been here and has bourne the brunt of it, God I still dont understand why she sticks with me but I praise God til kingdom come that she does cos Lord knows I need people around me like her, as do we all! I am so so blessed. Anyways, yeah, so it has been such a battle for a number of reasons but mainly cos I dont like to die quietly and I asked God to kill me. I suppose I have felt like I lost everything that God gave me in MOzambique, I suppose the feeling was that it had slipped away, that the clouds I had asked God to remove were back and the break in the clouds that was His presence was becoming more few and far between once more. There is nothing that makes you more desperate, more hungry, more upset, more broken than frustration and the feeling of failing. I felt like I had lost everything and yet it is even just as I write this that the revelation hits me, I have lost nothing,

I have merely gained back all that God gave me the ability to lay down.

What He did in Mozambique was not give me something that I have lost...

..He took something from me that, the longer I have been here, I have chosen to take back.

Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Senhor, forgive me. Take it back. Thankyou for hearing my prayer to make me totally dependant on you, thankyou for this fire, thankyou that I am in the thick of you stripping me of everything, of everything I have ever leant on, to you, thankyou for removing comfort blankets, for stripping my neurotiscisms in my natural flesh, for stripping away my routine, for stripping away the need to plan, keep stripping! More fire Lord!!!! It hurts so so bad, sometimes it feels like it will kill me but if its for your purposes which I know it is, then let it be!

LET IT BE!!!

I am reminded of a dream I had a few weeks or so ago. It was amazingly random and involved but it ended up in us having this moral battle with another team to determine who would win. The other team were comprised of people from big churches and amazing theologies etc and they gae this awesome sermon, thoroughly emotive with visual aids etc to convince the judges. They smugly grinned at us as one of us got up gingerly to deliver our message. And the representative from our team merely stood at the front and just said "down....down...down....down...down....down..." they were gving us such crazy looks and then we explained ourself...lower and lower still. Thats the direction God wants us. So our prayer is down...down....down. I awoke. Whether we won or not meant nothing, I knew it was my prayer and it is my prayer. I am far far far too proud. So down and down and down I pray, Lord make me lower and lower still.

I spoke to Brenda today, one of my two spiritual moms, mainly about the fact God kept me up most of the night last night to pray for her after a conversation with her in a dream and a vision for them both. Then, without knowing nething about my plans, she confirmed to the LETTER next year, confirmed what I should do and made me realise that I, due to lack of faith, had watered down the promise of God over my finances for which I have repented very quickly! She confirmed that I will be going long term next year into missions overseas for good, that I will probably have a training year and then God will take me in a random direction and I will be off! That I will probably be working for Iris and to be prepared cos after Holy Given she cant forsee me being in England much longer than a 10day or so stretch. We also realised it is NINE MONTHS between now and when I go to HG school and that this has to be a time of preparation, as a mother to be would prepare; prepapre body, mind, house, finances etc for what is to come. In terms of finances, I had watered down the initial promise of God, I will NOT be in debt when I go onto the missions field. I will have no strings attaching me anywhere. In the physical it is impossible, so YAY GOD! an opportunity for more glory to Him!!! :)

hallelujah.

I got the opportunity to worship today, to pray, to share with a friend and encourage her also to leave everything of comfort and come onto the mission field. I watch with wonderment and awe as God puts piece after piece together in front of my eyes. I ask for help with finances and I get the most perfect accountability partner, I ask for direction, I get direct accurate and precise prophecy from people on the field itself, I ask for Him and I get hunger, I ask for singular dependance, I get killed.

My prayer now? I want to see His glory. Exodus 33 is my prayer.

15 Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?"
17 And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."
18 Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."
19 And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

If God's presence does not go before me, I will not go. I want to see His glory, I need Him to be my before and behind. I need Him to be my everything and show every single step of the way. I want the idea of me doing something off my own bat to be as crazy as the idea of the Israelites in the desert wandering away from the pillar of fire and cloud from around which their food came and from which their direction was given and their God was manifest. I want that to remain my prayer. I wanna be His laid down lover, His handmaiden. It hurts, but I pray for more, more fire. I wanna be pure, I wanna be ready, I wanna be His.

Glory and honor and majesty and power and strength, belong to you Lord, belong only to you. Amen

Oh and I had a vision of someone dancing serenly in a meadow with the sunlight beaming on their face as they worshipped, but what was revealed to me which had never occured to me before, was that a meadow is comprised solely of what one would consider all types of weeds!! KINGDOM OF HEAVEN!!!!!

wooooop!We need to bring them in for banquet! We need to embrace those "weeds" of society! and we need to be able to feel the sunlight beat on our faces when surrounded by those situations that feel like weeds! this is such a two fold vision but makes so much sense, HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!

Bowled over by His grace, humbled by His patience, broken by His forgiveness.....speechless by His love.I asked to hear His voice, the thunder clapped outsideI asked to be cleansed, it began to pour with rain in the midst of droughtI told Him He should leave me and hate me and that His grace and love surely must stop here....He spoke through a friend before I even finished the words....

God of grace, I turn my face................ To You I cannot hide........................ My nakedness, my shame, my guilt............ Are all before your eyes.................... Strivings and all anguish dreams............ In rags lie at my feet...................... And only Grace provides the way............. for me to stand complete.................... And your Grace clothes me in righteousness... And your mercy covers me in love............. Whenever I disobey you....................... Or fail to to your will...................... Whenever I lack self control................. I come to you and stand still................ Begging forgiveness.......................... Your life adorns and beautifies.............. I stand complete in you

Noone whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame Ps 25:3a

I cannot understand, I do not have the capacity for the faith He asks of me, and yet I know what I need to do,

obey

trust

depend

love

worship

wait

see

Thankyou abba