So I just got back from New Wine Kids Leaders Conference 2010 and am trying to process everything that's going on in my brain and thought a good way to do it would be to write it down in blog.
I'm going to be honest and vulnerable and allow you to see in to my heart and where I'm at in a hope that it will also bless you and help you to see what an amazing God I have.
Have you ever felt as though everything in the world is collapsing around your reality as you know it? That was last year for me. I was hurting, angry and alone and didn't want to have anything to do with Jesus. I didn't want to be close to someone who allowed me to hurt so deeply and allowed me to go through so much pain.
I had depression. Something I still find hard to say and don't tend to tell many people about. I still hate the word and the stigma that surrounds it but I refuse to be ashamed of it any longer. Depression is NOT feeling sad. It is not moping around feeling sorry for yourself. It is not by choice that I would have felt the things I felt or thought the things I thought about myself. Do not EVER think that people who have depression are weak. They most certainly are not. In fact they are the opposite. Those who I have seen and known to go through depression are some of the strongest people I know. Never underestimate them.
During this time I was also doubting my degree. I was doing primary teacher training and I was pretty damn good at it. But something didn't feel settled - something still didn't feel quite right and as though everything in my heart wasn't clicking into place. It turns out God had completely different plans for me and it is funny to read my previous blog and see some of the things I was thinking at the time.
To cut a story short I became a children's worker running a charity 2 weeks after having finished my teaching degree (trust me - that is a very short version!) It was certainly not an easy decision to take the job. No matter how I felt God tugging and calling me there were still all the options and questions and people I was letting down. I had spent a lot of my time and energy and health completing this degree. But I did it. I took that step of faith. Was it easy? HECK no!!! I started before the summer and was a mess. I was emotionally and physically exhausted having got through one of the most difficult 18 months of my life and was doing something completely new and different and hard! But I did it. I did it by adopting the Denney work your butt off mode!! But I did it in my own strength. Not in His. Which meant that the doubts came. Why was I doing this? Why had I made all these sacrifices to do something which completely overwhelmed me and made me feel like I was completely out of my depth?
That's when I went to New Wine this summer. I had been randomly asked to be on stage team completely out of nowhere for the 5-7s. Had completely not realised what I had signed myself up for at the time!! I was absolutely p.e.t.r.i.f.i.e.d!!! But loved it. I remember messaging my Mum and saying it felt as though I was finally doing what I was born to do. The only thing was - I just didn't understand why. Why me? Why would God chose this absolute mess to do his works and stand in stage in front of 500 kids and tell them about how much he loved them - when she didn't even believe it for herself?
I came back to work in September and things started to niggle away at me. I had managed to get this far amazingly avoiding God quite nicely. It was something I told other people about, something they needed in their lives but I needed none of that love stuff thankyou. I knew God didn't love me. I was too angry at him. The walls I had built around my heart when I had been depressed were still standing very firmly around my cold heart. I didn't need God and his love thankyou very much I could manage quite well without it...but tell 100s of children about it. There's something not quite right there. Telling people that God loves you but not thinking it for yourself.
So this conference. I get there with completely the wrong perspective and reasons behind going but God still decided to use it more than I really thought He would. It was different to how I had expected it to be - I had thought that it was going to be almost going to uni for children's workers but it turned out to be more like a retreat and actually what I really needed! When I got there I was tired and quite unwell and what I hadn't realised was the reason why I was ill was because I had been working my butt off to get my ministry going and into"Kate Denney" shape! It began with lots of crazy holy spirit stuff. That's where it started...God was trying to get me. But I was having none of that thankyou - I didn't want any of that emotional stuff - it was what I had put so many barriers up against. So I went for a wee. I laughed on the toilet - haha no thanks God - what a bunch of weirdos - I'll sit here thanks, don't need anyone praying for me - everythings fine at the minute, Ive been working hard and things are looking good. HA! God thought different...I later that afternoon went to a seminar about the Holy Spirit. She did an exercise with a drum where we stood up and marched to the beat, thinking about something we were trampling under our feet - something we were fearful of. That's when it hit me. I was scared - so so damn scared. I no longer lived in depression - but I lived in the fear of it.
God reminded me of something someone had said in one of the talks. God is sat on his thrown and our life leads up to it. But what we do is we look back at our past and the things we fear from it because even though we're not in it any more - we have to keep our eyes on it. Just watch it and constantly fix our eyes on the things we fear to make sure we keep a check on them, by doing this we back up in to God treading carefully as we go. No. This is so not what God wants for our lives. He wants us to turn our back on those things and RUN face forwards into his arms.
I so have been doing that! Keeping my eye on my depression, walking backwards to God but keeping watch on the things I feared.
That evening the Holy Spirit was moving again. All I could do was get down on my knees. I was freaked out and scared by the things going on around me but God just kept whispering in my ears...It's just you and me, Kate. It's just you and me. As I knelt there I felt so lost and began to realise my fear, my sin, the cynicism and bitterness of the way I had been living and the anger and distrust I still feel towards God. Then behind me someone laid their hands on me and began to pray all I needed to hear. God loves you - you are his special daughter who he has created - take off the burden on your shoulders. I wept. It's all I could do! Jesus got me. It's almost as if he had to break my heart so that he could get back in it!
The next morning in the worship session we sang "Blessed be your name..." and God just showed me a pathway in my life. This song had been my baptism song. I listened to the words and he just spoke to me about everything - I looked back on all I had been through and how I had got to be where I am. It was like the anger started to fall away and I sang - I sang with everything in me "Blessed be the name of the Lord, Blessed be your name" despite the suffering, despite the pain. Blessed be your name.
God told me to breathe in good things of him and breathe out those fears. I breathed in Him. I breathed in peace, freedom and love and dispelled fear.
Since that moment I have felt so emotional! My heart has been torn open and suddenly tears of joy and pain have returned! I have tried to not fear emotions which I had labelled and feared as being weak! I came home and wept on my housemate, telling her what I thought God was doing only for her to be excited! I was like ummm hello - emotional wreck here and she was like YES! JESUS! Amen! haha! Another of my housemates confirmed in me what I had been thinking. I have lived with her for around 4 or 5 weeks and she comes to Kidz Klub where I work and preach the love of Jesus to the children and she said she felt as though I believed it and said it to the children but would come home and not believe it for myself and become cynical and bitter towards Jesus. That trully hit me. That's not me I sobbed - that's not who I am.
I love Jesus. I always have and have always tried to cling to him but it was like I've been holding his hands by the tip of my fingers but been turning my face away. Do I feel any different? Not dramatically - no! I haven't suddenly got this new sudden jumping around shouting Jesus and reading my bible and praying every second of the day. But my heart is beginning to break. It's a process of healing and restoration of this girls very coldened and broken, ashamed heart. But I know with every fibre in my being that God is with me. He is faithful. And no matter what the road that lies ahead entails. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
