Recharged

I have just returned from a youth leader retreat in the foothills of California, and it was INCREDIBLE. God revealed himself to me in so many ways this weekend. It was a time I truly felt His presence among me and around me. I simply cannot express the overwhelming sense of the Lord I felt this weekend. So much that I can barely put it into words that can be comprehended. Writing this, I can barely form a sentence at all, much less one that makes sense. But I will do my best.

First of all, God reaffirmed my decision for school, providing me with a mentor to guide me through life before I head to San Francisco, a broken and dark city, to pursue acting, a broken and dark career. I feel as though God has been pulling me to the city and so many things line up with that. The friends I met last year who lived in the bay, dragging me down there to hang out with them all the time. The opportunity I got to get to know the public transportation system so I can get around by myself. The mission trip I recently got back from, opening me up to the city in ways I never would have been able to see. All of these things for the past year have been preparing me to live there, and I never would have suspected that.

Coming into the weekend, nervous about how to interact with the students I would be leading, how to connect with them, and how to keep up that relationship when I leave for school, God just gave me so much peace. During an imaginative prayer session, God told me exactly what I would need to do to lead these girls, and He did it by using my sister as the original subject. He works in so many mysterious ways and they are all so beautiful. He revealed to me what I would need if I were to be successful not only as a youth leader, but for going to school in San Francisco as well. No other way would have gotten to me had I not been convicted this weekend by the Holy Spirit to start working for Him, simply because I love Him.

One of the most amazing times I felt the presence of God was through a listening prayer seminar. Our leader put us through exercises meant to strengthen our ear for the voice of God. One of these exercises was to have God reveal to me the lies that the Devil has been telling me, the names that he has called me that replaces what I hear from God. Some of those names were Stupid One, Impure, and Leader Astray. God simply showed me that these names are not His names for me, and that His are so much better. Then God proceeded to tell me some of His names for me: Beautiful Light, and Hunter. I could not have made this up, it was one of the oddest names I could have ever come up with, and at first I didn't believe it. I was like wait...God, really? Hunter?? That makes no sense whatsoever. What does that mean?? But God continued to drill it into my mind, so much that I said "Alright God, I'll play along. What do you even mean by this?" And He replied with the most beautiful answer that I could have never come up with. As if I was hearing it as clearly as if He were sitting next to me, He told me to not feel condemned by the friend that I couldn't get to, the one that I didn't feel I was as good of a role model as I should have been. He said, "You are a hunter. You will seek out the ones that need me and you will guide them to me."

God's love was just so prevalent this weekend. It was beautiful seeing so many people all with the same goal, the same heart, working for the same Almighty God in one room. It was a weekend I can never forget.