Catalyst Summer Program

This is my journey and look into my heart and my relationship with Jesus this summer season through Catalyst Training School in Tacoma, Washington. You’ll have to forgive since words have never been a strong suit of mine and give me grace as I attempt to put the amazing workings of God into mere words. The program itself focuses on training in prayer, restoration and missions. To build up the kingdom of God that he has called us into and jump head first into a season of healing and faith in Him. In my case and the metaphor that I’ll often return to is; my adventure up the mountain. Since we often see summiting a mountain as a triumphant accomplishment, my faith often never sees a summit, rather just swaying from left to right gradually going up. It is with a hopeful heart that this is a season to summit that mountain, only to be able to see higher mountains to strive for. A personal relationship with Jesus should never be one with complacency in the swaying but rather a hunger to constantly want to know more, hear more, and do more with Him in you, to reach new summits.

Starting it all off the week was labeled “Freedom Week,” and rightfully so since it hones in on Gods original design for us and who He’s created us to be as well as identifying ‘strongholds’ that hinder our relationship with Him because of past injustices and pain. Through many tears and prayers God worked within my heart to bring up the areas that have been harden as life and the enemy had come only to steal and destroy. Light was brought to the area of darkness in seeing how much of a hold ‘self-sufficiency’ had within my mind and heart. Having the mentality that all I really needed in this world was myself, and that in worst come to worst situations, I would be able to take care of myself. Seeing this was rooted from my past of being adopted and not knowing if I would have a future in my first 5 years of life so in my head, all I had was myself in this world. If you know anything about me, this is a HUGE revelation since I constantly struggle with trusting other people. What I didn’t know is this also was how I viewed my relationship with God. I had never put my whole and complete trust in Him just in case the worst of worst situations had come up. I have been blessed so wonderfully with the people that surround my life and the people God has placed in my life to help me. Seeing this now, I’m so thankful for all who have put up with my stubborn heart in being so closed off for years. I broke off the spirit of self sufficiency within my life to open up my heart to be vulnerable to the people God has placed in my life and to Him as well. That being a mess is okay, and relying on community only makes me stronger. Do I still have work to do within myself daily? Absolutely. Healing only comes to those who seek it out, so I strive everyday to light up the areas of my heart that have been dark too long. And it is with knowing Gods original design for me that helps motivate me to become a daughter worthy of her Heavenly Father.

When we began to focus in on “Hearing God’s Voice,” since He is a God who is alive and speaking, we are able to hear from Him. The first week we were able to remove some of the major strongholds that prevent us from hearing from God clearly. In complete transparency this is an area of my faith that I have often struggled with. I hadn’t grown up being told God speaks to you, so when people started talking about God speaking to you then and there, I bailed. I shut down because I couldn’t “hear” God and then I felt rejected because what seemed like everyone else was able to hear from him, I couldn’t. We were practicing on speaking original design over people and usually my mind is racing with thoughts and chaos, but when I tuned in to hear from God it was the first time my mind was blank. Completely silent. As a person that strives for perfection naturally this all was frustrating because I thought it meant something was wrong with me. That God was mad at me and wasn’t talking to me. That then turned quickly to anger letting my thoughts consume me, I began thinking, “What kind of Father ignores their kid and doesn’t talk to them?” Looking back now it all seems ridiculous but at the time it truly was heart breaking. About ready to quit and leave the school and summer program early I sought out some of the staff to tell them all what was going on. Basically after an intense prayer session, ugly crying for what felt like hours I got revelation. Let’s say my relationship is like a house, and my front door is completely open to God and everything he wants to do in me. Mi casa, su casa! But even with that complete openness if you looked around, I also had my back door opened. It was my Plan B. As a just in case God decides he doesn’t want in anymore, I had an escape route. Let me share a secret with everyone, GOD DOESN’T LEAVE YOU. He never doesn’t want to not be in your life anymore. Getting that picture, praying that my back door is forever slammed shut and bolted closed I was in a sense recommitting my all to God. (We all have to die to ourselves completely, in my case sometimes more than once.) From that moment, we went back to praying over peoples original design and well, I heard God loud and clear for the first time. Why I ever doubted is silly! Because now knowing His voice and how he speaks to me, I look back at all the times he’s spoken to me and I laugh because I really could hear God all along. Yet another part of my mountain was climbed and conquered and I began to fall in love with Jesus in a whole new way.

Instead of seeing my relationship as a one way street where I tell him what my prayer requests are and hope he fixes some of them, I for the first time in my life saw it as a relationship! That He’s someone I can have conversations with and ask for him to speak into my life, daily! I began falling love with the small ways he shows His love for me throughout the day, and how even my smallest prayers are heard. I started seeing my relationships with the people in my life as blessings and began to have a new appreciation for well, everyone. It’s a crazy thing to have the revelation of God’s love because it seriously transforms your heart and you cannot have experienced it. God’s love is so radical, so all consuming and so incredible it’s over whelming, but you never stop wanting more!

Then seeing salvations this summer on our local outreaches, it showed me God doesn’t stop seeking after His one sheep. Seeing healings take place in front of my eyes showed me Gods power is everywhere and He wants us to brag about his love and glory and use us to touch people’s lives. Being taught how to evangelize to complete strangers and actually impact them with my words in a two minute encounter is seriously the coolest tool I have up my sleeve. Being taught that each of our stories has power, and is so important! That we shouldn’t be kept from sharing our testimonies because we haven’t had a hard life! That its just a way to share how much God has protected and blessed us! And if we have had hardships, then sharing how Gods saved us from it. Seeing how God, the Almighty loving and saving God, has transformed and saved my life and being able to relate to anyone in some part of my story in any encounter I have is something that even helps remind me daily of how awesome God is! I get to share about a God that saves because he once saved me! WOW! I have a confidence that I didn’t have about sharing Gods love story and I have the tools to be able to share to anyone, anytime, anywhere, seriously, that’s so cool! Being able to go out and minister and just love the one in front of us is probably one of the biggest highlights of my summer because I felt like I was being able to be used by God exactly how he wanted to use me in those moments!

This summer, in Tacoma, Washington, I had heart surgery. God picked me up from my mess of life, all my broken pieces and took his lost sheep to Catalyst Training School because He wanted me back. He scraped out all my garbage that was preventing me from hearing him, he pushed past and broke down all my walls that I had built up to keep the world out and struck my heart. He took out my old crummy broken heart and replaced it with a brand new one, a new one full of light and joy! He brought that light and joy back into my life where I thought darkness would forever remain. Okay, this sounds dramatic but its so true! I was living in lukewarm Christianity, completely complacent in attending church every Sunday, and blaming God if something was going wrong in my life, praying for him to fix it and giving myself credit when everything was going right. I was living a self sufficient life that kept everyone I loved at an arm distance away because I only ever felt like I had myself in this world. God, seeing this and being the jealous God that He is, didn’t want that. So He did what an almighty God does, he intervened and radically changed my life and I’m thankful for it. I was saved because of it all over again. I can’t ever undo what’s been done this summer. I can’t unsee God working in multiple peoples lives and hearts this summer and watching them grow deeper in their faith. His presence and love can’t be unfelt. I can’t not hear Him and know that’s Him speaking to me. I can’t change my heart back to being broken and gross, and nor would I ever want to!

I jumped head first into a season of unknown, into a summer committed to a summer full of prayer, restoration and missions. In digging deeper into my relationship with God, I experienced summiting my mountain. And now, I want more. Because that’s the funny thing about a surgery, you can try to forget it happened but a scar will be your constant reminder of what happened and you always have a new heart beating stronger and louder because of it. I climbed with intensity after God and our mountain this summer. And well, after reaching the mountains summit, you can try pretend to forget what happened, but you can never forget the view and you can’t escape the feeling that you want to go higher. The point I’m trying to make is simple. God continues to save us from the world, from our busy planned lives and from ourselves all the time. He never stops pursuing us because He wants ALL of us. After this summer, I want more of God just as much as He wants more of me, and I wish daily I had more to give him, and that’s what he wants, so now daily, I give Him my all. To be used by Him, and to be loved by Him, to start climbing our new mountain together with full intensity, ready for whatever he has for me and trusting he will make my path clear, however narrow it may be.