By Hilary Wood
So...
the scene begins a little over a year ago, full steam ahead to Redding,
California to attend the School of Supernatural Ministry, or so I thought! I
was so desperate to go and after two previous attempts to get a visa I thought
that this was my time! But, it wasn’t meant to be and I got rejected again.
I journeyed
deeply into sadness and doubt of whether I had actually heard God clearly
before as I so thought He had told me to go. I was baffled as to what was next
as I had given up my job to attend the school. I knew that I was being led to a
ministry type school somewhere but I had no clue where...
Then,
in May, God unleashed the crazy, beautiful creativity that only He could think
of via Songs of Praise!!!
My
friend’s Dad (who never usually watches it) was watching the program one Sunday
evening and it happened to be the same evening that Kathryn Scott was on, walking around Hope and Gloria! From that moment on I was captivated!
I
immediately contacted Causeway Coast Vineyard to see if there was a course that
I could attend and to enquire as to what the shop was all about!
So I
went through an interview and got a place on the Encounter School of Mission and was
to be the first Women’s Ministry intern!! Even now it blows my mind looking
back to where God has led me and I often can’t believe I am in Northern
Ireland!
By the
middle of August I was driving up to Liverpool from Cornwall to get the boat
across to Northern Ireland, feeling as though I was in a whirlwind and not
wholly sure as to what the year was going to look like!
As I
approach the end of my year here, wondering what the future holds, I have been
reflecting a lot on what it has all meant to me and all the ways I have been
transformed both through my internship and Encounter!
It has
definitely been an amazing, life changing year where I have been stretched
beyond what I thought possible or comfortable with. But in hindsight it has
been the most amazing, beautiful healing time with a safe place to learn and
develop. With giants of the faith surrounding me and cheering me on helping me
to walk into who He created me to be.
Both CCV and Hope and Gloria are
definitely incubators of life and dreams, a safe place which have allowed and
encouraged me to be the colourful person He created me to be. Realising that I
have so much to give and bring to those around me! Then being able to enable
others to also walk into their unique calling and identity, helping them to
realise they are allowed to be them!
I have really learnt that God loves to
work within the unexpected. When things were not going the way I had hoped and
dreamed for, His plan all along was to bring me to a place where he has wiped
away my tears and healed up my hurts from the past. But more importantly I had
to choose to not live in sadness and disappointment anymore. I have learnt that
it is so important to trust Him in all things, give Him space to move and work
through the often uncomfortable hurt parts of your life and He will do
beautiful things out of it.
It has
taken me 33 years to come to a place where it’s sinking in that God likes how
He created me to be and created me for a unique purpose... I am royalty, I
bring hope and I’d better start living like it!!
It’s
been a crazy ride, but an awesome life giving place to be!
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