The Old has gone, the NEW has Come!

The pictures say it all...Those who are in Christ are a NEW creation, the old has gone and the NEW has come!

Day of Arrival at Mercy
Feb. 16, 2009

Day of Graduation from Mercy
July 23, 2009

It is hard to believe that just one year ago today I was just beginning my journey of "life after Mercy"...and what a journey that has been! I walked out those doors expecting certain things to happen this year and all I can say is that the LORD has not met each one of those expectations, yet He has exceeded anything I could ever ask or imagine. Looking back, I would not change anything about this year, because although there were some challenging times for me, I know He used each one of them to teach me, to refine me, to draw me closer to Him in the process. This year can actually be summed up by that one simple word: PROCESS!

Exodus 23: 29-30 says:
"But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land."

How beautiful is that picture...the Lord is just so patient and so gracious! He knows if He gives it all to us at once, fixes it all, says it all, reveals it all, well, then the land becomes desolate and the animals too numerous...LITTLE by LITTLE (a process) He will drive them out until we have increased enough to possess the land! This blows my mind. This year I have learned that in every situation, every struggle, every victory it always comes down to how it is a process. Even just doing life...it is a never-ending process. But how incredible that the Lord allows us to experience these processes and through it He is just further making us look like Him...He is getting rid of the extra junk we so easily carry on our back when He already died to take it away. He is refining those areas of our lives, both obvious and hidden, which hinder us in bringing glory to His name. He is doing so slowly, because if He did it all at once, He knows it would be too much to bear. His word says He never gives us more then we can handle. He is a gracious and loving Father...He protects us by not allowing the desert to suffocate us nor the wild animals to devour us. Though at times, it certainly feels as if the very things He intends to protect us, to refine us, to make us look more like Him might just kill us. Often, even His word is like holy sandpaper. At least this has been something I have found.

Honestly there were points in my life this year where I questioned His goodness, I doubted His plan, I was angry and hurt by Him. At times, I even felt abandoned and left hung out to dry. Like a patient laying wide open on the operating table, my major organs fixed yet still He is digging around pricking and prodding in every little corner of my insides. At times the pain just seemed unbearable and never ending. Like one blood vessel is mended yet five more are still leaking...and of course any accredited doctor isn't going to close up a patient after simply fixing one of the of six vessels...so open I layed, just clinging to the Truth that I knew despite the pain I felt; there would come a moment when the pain would lessen, then disappear and the wholeness and peace I would experience would far outweigh all the hurt of the surgery I endured to get there. The Lord WILL finish the good work He began. LITTLE B
Y LITTLE He will drive it out of us! Little by little, He will equip us to possess the Land. That's for sure. And in this process, we are never complete, never finished until the day we come face to face with the King Himself in heaven. But what a blessing that we get to experience a little bit of heaven here on earth...He intends for us to experience life, life to the full...He rejoices when we finally pass the test, press through the pain and struggle, submit to the refinement process and then, then He finally gives us the victory, the grace really, to go in and possess the land! Praise God.

Through this year of processes, I have been so blessed to experience the beauty of overcoming different sin in my life, hurt in past, circumstances that suck, feelings that deceive and so forth to get to go in and take the land that He has given me. There is nothing like it. But really I must say that it is in the desert, in the fire, on the operating table that I learn what I need to know to "posses the land" in each one of those areas of my life which He has refined. It is the process that makes me more like Him...it is the times when I feel I just can't handle any more of whatever He is doing that I am changed by His unfailing love for me, a sinner saved by His abounding grace and mercy. That is when the transformation occurs. And without that transformation, without that operation, there would be no freedom in the promise land, no relief from the pain. But He who the Son sets free is FREE INDEED! This year has been about refinement yielding freedom, and freedom bearing fruit.

This year has been a process, but what a beautiful one it has been. I am not where I want to be, but praise God I am not who I was! I will continue to submit to the process, not the product! Even if it kills me!

This year my prayer is to see myself as and live as the new creation I am in Christ. The Lord has shown me that when I look in the mirror, or when I see myself through the eyes of others, I am no longer that girl in the first photo. In Christ, I am a NEW creation; the old has gone and the NEW has come.( 2 cor 5:17) I am learning what it means to be a new creation....to actually see myself as the girl in the second photo...I mean I have been her for a year now, but most of the time I think I still see the old girl, I think other people only see the old girl. But praise God I am no longer defined by my past. I am no longer Courtney, troubled girl with all these issues who will never be effective for the Kingdom. I am a beloved daughter of the Most High King and He chose me before I was a born and set me apart for a specific purpose. The Lord is teaching me how to be made NEW in Him in every aspect of my life, areas I have never even thought of. How to live everyday as a New creation, how to walk submitted to Him, conformed to HIS image and likeness. He is just so good. He completely blows my mind everyday and I am just excited for another year of learning and being refined, chopped away at, just to be made more like Christ...to experience more freedom and wholeness in my life, everyday.

Praise God for Mercy Ministries and the good work He began in my life there. At Mercy, I met Jesus and fell madly, deeply, passionately in love with Him. I learned how to pursue freedom from many life-controlling issues which had brought me to the brink of death. At Mercy, I learned how to live. This process of being refined, of healing and wholeness would not be where it is today had it not been for what the Lord did in my life during my Mercy journey. A year ago, I thought graduation from Mercy was the finish line, when in fact, it was just the beginning.

And so the process begins again...I don't know what this year holds, but I know the One who holds it! And I know He has a beautiful plan for my life which far exceeds anything I could ever ask or imagine.

Bring on the process!

Australia 2010: A Choice to Make, Death or Life?

Well here I am, a bittersweet moment for me to writing this. It feels like for months now I have been writing about, praying for, fundraising for, planning for, anticipating this trip and now here I am sitting down to write once again, but the anticiaption is replaced with pure awe at the goodness and beauty of the God I serve and the perfection of His plans. It makes me wonder why I ever doubt, ever worry or ever desire to figure things out on my own; He is just so perfect and my mind truly could never conceive His ways or His love for me.

There is probably enough to write an entire book about this past month of my life spent in Australia, however right now I just want to focus on one story in particular. This story is particularly near to my heart because through it the Lord showed me exactly why He placed me on this trip. I can honestly say that if I was in Autralia for the past month for no other reason then this one young woman, that was more then enough. Gratned, the Lord did hunderds of incredible things in ministry, in the individual lives of my team members, in my personal life, set up divine encounters, and birthed a specific God-given vision for my life. However, none hails in comparision to what He did in the middle of the outback, in a small aboriginal village called Bre...

The entire reason i chose to go to Australia to begin with was becuase of thier incredibly high sucicide rates...I felt an urgent call to go to this nation b/c the Lord gave me a vision of how for many of the people there, it truly is a matter of life and death...they have a choice to make. With Deut. 30:15 flowing through my mind, I knew the Lord gave me this vision of ministering to someone who was on the verge of choosing death. I knew He had called me to speak the words of LIFE to this individual or group and tell them there is another way--there is hope and freedom in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. To help them realize they have the choice to choose LIFE or death, but that LIFE is so worth it, a choice that I had to make in my own life at one point.

After a couple of days of settling in, we headed out on a 15 hour drive into the outback to go spend 10 days in a small and broken aborginal village called Brewarrina. In Bre, alcoholism, drugs, and sexual immorality are all norms for most of the people in the community. There is also a lot of bitterness towrds white people as a result of past hurts.

Specifically, the Lord sent me to Bre for a divine purpose which was made clear over my time there. On our first afternoon in Bre, we had the youth centre open and most of the kids were running around and having a blast. There was one girl, however, who seemed a bit older and was just sitting alone in the corner. Instantly, I was drawn to her and the Lord began speaking to me about her life. I knew she had plenty of hurts and heartaches and somehow i knew that I could relate to her. He literally spoke words, His words, through my mouth to her from day one. We instantly conected and she just began telling me a lot about Bre and its history and her family life and so forth. Over the next seven days, I continued reaching out to her and spending every mintute of the youth centre time talking to her and listening to her. I also got the privalige of getting to know her 5 younger siblings who came as well. The night before our last night, two people from our group shared testimonies whcih was followed by small group time. In small groups, we were talking about how everyone has a story to tell. I turned to Amelia and said Amelia, I know you have a story. She just kind of shook her head and smiled. The next day (our last day) we went and sat down to say our last goodbyes. She turned to me and looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Courtney, I want to tell you my story, but I cant say it to you. Could you give me paper and i will write it?" So I went and got her paper and a pen and she went outside and wrote it. She came back 20 mins later and handed it to me. She said not to read it until she left. I begged her to let me read it before she left, though I already knew what it would say bc the Lord has shown me, yet I wanted to be able to talk to her about it more since she didnt know that I knew. This is the letter she wrote to me....

6/29/10


Hey-
Um well ever since I was little, I felt left out, like my dad would play with the others, and I remember me just leaning over the side left out.
I pretty much wish I was dead most of the time. When I lost my aunty it felt like I lost everything she was someone I can tell stuff. But you’re the only person I can tell my story and I wish you would stay.
Every now and then I wish I wasn’t born, it’s like why am I here? I still do and I think it will never go away. I would like to thank you so much for everything I will never forget you, you will always be in my heart. I even sometimes say I hate everyone, even my mum and dad.
iLy. Xoxox Amelia.
Thanks for everything.
P.S. I don’t think I would like to see you after you read this cause its shame and start crying.

After reading this, I instantly found tears falling onto my cheeks. I went up to her and asked her to come outside with me. We walked out into the frigid night and she just put her head on my shoulder and wept. I said a few comforting words and gave her a minute. Then she looked up, but refused to look me in the eye. I put my hand on her chin and lifted her face until our eyes finally locked. Then the Lord literally just put the words in my mouth...I couldnt even tell you all that came out, but I know that morning I had memorized Jeremiah 1: 5 in my quiet time, and i know the Lord gave me that for this very moment. I told her " Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." She continued weeping. I shared with her how there was a time in my life when i felt hopeless and purposeless. That i always had this emptyness inside of me that i tried for years to fill with all of these different things, but nothing ever satisfied that emptyness. Enstead, all those things led me down a path of destruction to the point where I didnt want to live anymore...how I was once at the point where she was at now. Then I got to share how the only thing that is desgined to fit inside that empty hole is the love of Christ. I got to continue to speak Truth into her life and tell her that she could break free from the generational bondage passed down from her parents and that the Lord has good and beautiful plans for her future.I got to tell her she could choose LIFE!
Today we are facebook friends and I have gotten to continue to pursue our relationship, just like Christ has so relentlessly pursued me with His love. I have a total faith and peace that in the oncoming days and weeks Amelia is going to come to know the indescribable love of our incredible Savior for herself. The Lord did some incredible things over my month in Australia, but this moment, this precious girl...this is why He sent me to Australia this summer. So really, I cannot put my gratitude into words for your support; this young woman's life was spared because of the incredible plans of the soveriegn loving God that we are so privalged to serve. Wow. He just blows my mind.

Here is a picure of Amelia and I on our last night in Bre, her new bible in hand.