Are you ready for your "suddenly"?

Last Saturday we had our first Sanctuary meeting for the year.  The title of the message was "Are you ready for your "suddenly"?

Let me start by putting this message into some context.

At the end of last year, God gave me a vision of a tornado of fire in a room.  It was tearing up and consuming the whole room and yet I did not feel any fear.  I knew it was the Holy Spirit and that God was showing me that some "tornadoes" were going to come into my life to throw up everything.  The process would consume the parts of my life and character that needed to cleaned up to prepare me for the upcoming season in my life.

Picture from hdwallpaperia.com

I felt compelled to share this message at the brunch and so we took a closer look at tornadoes which was eye opening and brought a greater understanding of what God is saying in this season.

This is the video we watched:

We observed the sheer power of a tornado, it's impact on the Earth and the period where heaven is quite literally connected to Earth through this destructive and yet beautiful natural phenomena.

In summary, we considered the following:

• A tornado not only signifies change but a moment when God touches down on Earth to make an impact and shake our foundations.
• A tornado is visible to all but not all will be prepared.
• Meterologists can recognise the signs - they are trained to see the signs but they cannot predict exactly when or where it will hit.  Hence, a tornado occurs "suddenly"!
• If you are tuned into seeing the signs, we will prepared but if we fail to tune in, we will be caught off guard

The tornado will come and it will be sudden but the question remains:  "Are you ready for your suddenly?"

In my next post, I will share the rest of the message as we consider how "suddenlys" can occur and how to live life after your "suddenly".

Big Shoes to Fill

I love this picture.  It makes me smile for 2 reasons - firstly because it reminds me of Babygirl.

Babygirl has always loved shoes and this appears to be a trend that will continue for the rest of her life.  She has an eye for high quality shoes and thinks nothing of stopping a complete stranger to tell them how marvellous their shoes are.  The picture reminds me of the many times I have watched Babygirl try on my shoes and attempt to strut around my bedroom.  When I arrive home and find my shoes in a dishevelled heap, I know that Babygirl has been entering herself with a private fashion show in front of my mirror with my shoes being the key highlight of the whole event.

The second reason it makes me smile is because it reflects how I am currently feeling about 2017.  As I mentioned in my first post for this year, 2017 is looking like it is going to be a big year for me.  Whilst, I know what is ahead, I think the reality of it all has only hit me over the past week.  I've been battling butterflies for the whole week and to be honest, I can't remember the last time I had butterflies!

Actually I can - I just took a look back through my blog posts and I believe that the last time I documented butterflies was 2011 (how sad am I?!).  But my main point is that I am juggling a challenging combination of emotions - primarily excitement and hope with a huge dose of sheer terror.  I can't disclose the details of the project I am referring to yet but I will as things become more concrete (annoying I know!).  Anyway, back to the picture!

It sums up how I am feeling - I feel like I have big shoes to fill.  This year is a year that I am being challenged to grow up and step out into the next new phase of my life.  This is a phase that I have thought about and dreamt about for years and part of me can't believe that it's here.  I am also struggling to digest just how big a step it is and as I pray about it and try to tune in to what God is saying, I find myself quaking at the thought of what He is asking me to do.

I know that I'm not the first person to be thrown by what God is asking them to do and I know I won't be the last, but I am doing my best to respond appropriately.  In my mind, my response is somewhere on the spectrum between Moses and Mary, mother of Jesus.  These two characters show the realities of how we can respond to God's requests.  At one end, we have Mary who whilst initially afraid at the sight of the angel was quick to respond with the gallant statement, "Let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).  At the other end, we have Moses who enters into a lengthy discussion with God about the pros and cons (ok - primarily the cons!) of sending him to face Pharoah (see Exodus 3 & 4 - yes, 2 chapters - it was a long "discussion"!).  Whilst my heart seeks to be like Mary, in reality, I am probably positioned a bit closer to the "Moses" end of the spectrum, but I find comfort in that regardless of the different initial responses from these 2 characters, they both went on to obey God.

And this takes me back to my over-sized high heeled shoes.  I know that I'm going to do what He is asking me to do, but I can't help wondering how shaky and tentative my first steps will be.  What I do know is that if I focus on following His directions and remain determined to be obedient to His call - it is only a matter of time before I'll being strutting and striding down my own catwalk!  Although between you and I, I think I'll always feel like the shoes are still just a little too big!

Until next time,
Cece xx

Daring to Dream Again in 2017

For those of you who know me in real life, you will know that I love to plan.  I am a planner through and through, and I love spending time planning, developing and working on projects.  This teamed with my mild obsession with stationery means that I own a ridiculously large number of notebooks and have tried almost every planning system going!  If you would like to know how I plan my life and keep myself organised, please ask in the comments and I will write a blog post or perhaps even film a video.

Anyway, I have digressed a little - I love to plan.  People who plan are not just people who like to organise but fundamentally we are dreamers - our plans involve looking at what we want to see in the future and organising the steps to get there.

Last year, I planned and led a mission trip to St Kitts - the planning started one whole year in advance.  The plan involved putting together a team, coordinating flights and accommodation for the team, arranging training sessions, organising prayer meetings, liaising with churches and developing an itinerary for the 2 weeks.  It also involved ensuring that the team knew what their roles & responsibilities would be on the trip, as well as ensuring that our host church was kept up to date with our day to day plans throughout the trip.  It was exhausting, stretching and awesome - I loved it!!!  There is very little that compares with the satisfaction of seeing something that started as a dream in your mind come to life.

These pictures were taken on our penultimate day in St Kitts.  We are enjoying one of my most favourite views in St Kitts at the top of Brimstone Hill (we went up there to have our final debrief for the trip) - I remember thinking "You actually did it Celeste!".  I could not believe that what had been a dream for almost 10 years had finally come together and I was now sharing parts of St Kitts I loved with people I had bonded with in a new and special way as we "wrapped up" our mission trip!  It was an overwhelming moment!

So I love to dream and I have always prided myself on being a dreamer but recently in a discussion with a friend I began to realise that I had closed down my dreaming ability in certain areas of my life.

Daring to dream is exciting and exhilarating but when you are having to wait for the dream - you can start to become reluctant to get your hopes up.  As someone who automatically starts to dream as soon as a new idea crosses my mind, it can be difficult when you have been dreaming, planning and mapping out your future in faith and you get to the point where you start to question the whole process because it hasn't happened yet.  This laying down of hope can be a dramatic decision to stop dreaming, or a gradual fading away of enthusiasm and focus until suddenly one day, you realise that you have lost hope.  The interesting thing about the gradual fading process is that you can still appear to be on the "faith" walk  - you continue to say all the right things, but when you look deep down you know that the hope is gone and you're not really standing in faith any more.

So my recent discussion has led me to look at going back to dreaming and hoping in those areas again.  It is a challenge and as I can still remember how painful the disappointment felt.  But I know that God is challenging me to go back to walking in some crazy faith, so I'm going to go for it.

This blog post is a special shout out to all who have become weary in waiting and stopped hoping due to being beaten down by disappointment and delay.  Maybe it's time to get back on the faith walk - will you dare to hope again?  Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  - faith starts with hope so are you willing to get your hopes up?

Let's make 2017 - a year of hope!  Dare to dream again for with Him all things are possible!!!

Until next time,
Cece
xxx

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!  It is 2017!!! 

There have been many commentaries towards the end of last year, outlining how terrible 2016 has been - Brexit, Donald Trump, War in Syria and celebrity deaths filled our TV screens and office chit chat.

For me personally, 2016 has been a whirlwind year!  That's part of the reason why I have been so absent on social media this year.  Having decided that I was going to"go for it" and push hard for 2016, I found myself consumed with key projects and found little time to sit in front of the computer to blog or my camera to film.  I would love to say that 2017 is going to be different but as I sense it is likely to be another big year for me, I can't guarantee that there will be much improvement.  However, what I can say is that I have missed keeping in touch with you guys and so it is my hope to be get back to blogging and filming on a more regular basis this year.

I wanted to drop by to say hi and wish you all a happy new year and also do a basic debrief of 2016.

As mentioned in my previous post, the mission to St Kitts was a huge project that was completed last summer.  It was life changing and I still hope to share with you a series of diary style posts to take you on the journey at some point in the next few months.

Other highlights of 2016, include a job promotion, the Sanctuary Retreat, the Sanctuary hosting monthly events, the Colour Conference and a breakthrough in being consistent with my prayer life (I'd like to share more detail in a future blog post on this point).

Towards the end of 2016, I went through a rather low period where I really struggled with my desire to fall pregnant.  In some ways, it felt like I had returned to the start of my journey where each pregnancy announcement was unbearable.  I found myself talking to God a lot and struggling to understand why I felt this way.  I had wanted to share it on here but feared that I would sound ungrateful or moany!  The reality is that the struggle is still real but thanks to God I am feeling much better and more positive about the year ahead.

In terms of goals, my overriding goal for 2016 was to develop habits that would sustain me, and whilst I have made some progress in certain habits, there is still some work to do.  For this reason, I am carrying over the goal from last year and continuing to focus on developing key habits.

2017 is looking like it going to be a big year for me and I am hoping to be able to share more of the journey with you via my blog and YouTube channel.

In the meantime, happy 2017!  I pray that this year will be a great year for you and you will be able to withstand and overcome any challenges that may come your way!

God bless,
Cece x