My story part 2: Limitless Festival

Here we are again, part 2. Before I start though, I thought I would let you know how an average day went because it might be helpful because of what and the way I'm going to be talking about it.

So, in the mornings it would be breakfast and all the youth leaders would have a meeting. About 10:00-11:00 everyone (except the 0-11 who had their own venues and sessions) would gather in the main venue, also known as the youth venue, to have a worship session and to be let known what was going on in the day. After we all finish worshipping together, the young adults(17-Youth leader age) would split from the youth(12-17) at about 11:15 and would go the YA venue for a preach and sometimes a little extra worship, while the youth stayed in the youth venue for their seminar.

In the afternoon everyone would go back to either their campsites or, if they were being catered for, the social area for lunch. From about 1:15-5:00pm there would be all sorts of activities and workshops going on, such as, creative, song writing, dance, band and kids’ workshops, but also sports activities, inflatables, swimming, roller skating, etc. All the afternoon activities were finished by 5:00 so that everyone could have dinner before the evening meetings at 7:00. There would be no altogether meeting in the evening, instead the young adults went straight to their venue and the youth to theirs. In the evening meeting there would be lots of worship, a preach and a call to respond at the end. The evening meetings were supposed to finish around 9:00, but sometimes they went on a little longer if God had different plans.

To make the days last longer, there were after hours, to me, these were always the best parts. In the after hours there was a silent disco, late night worship, a cinema, open mic and more. Every night I went to the late-night worship, except the last night because it wasn't on.

That is a summary of what an average day would be, now let's get on to the Jesus stuff.

Limitless Festival day 1.

The first day of Limitless Festival started in the afternoon because everyone has to get there to pitch tents, so on the first day it’s only an evening meeting. The first night, I think, was my favourite because it was the one that started the whole event and it is also the one that set me free allowing me to be filled with joy and praise for the rest of the week.

Let me first off say that the theme of the week was 'Trash Talk' the whole thing was about trash talking the devil and all the little voices in our heads, so on the first night in the Young Adults venue the guy preaching was talking about the past and one of things he asked right at the beginning was "Do you feel like you aren't going forward or backward? Do you feel 'spiritually trapped'?", and as I said in part 1, this is exactly how I felt and in the moment, it literally felt like he was talking to only me and no one else was in the room, but basically the summary of the preach was that we have to deal with the past, before the past deals with us, the past can chase us down and catch up to us and we can't move on until we deal, we will keep trying to run away from it, but it will catch us up if we don't face it today, but there is someone who is here to fight it with us, who will fight for us.

For me it was a battle I had been fighting for a long time. It wasn't necessarily the 'past' I was fighting, it was almost a battle of motivation or wandering if God was 'worth it', I of cause knew He was worth it, but I felt like my journey with Him was getting old and boring and repetitive and so I was kind of running away emotionally, from the responsibility of being a Christian, I was sort of afraid of getting too close to God. I knew this was a problem and I tried to fight it myself, I tried praying by myself, but not really asking God for help, I also didn't tell anyone what I was struggling with, I kept it to myself, just running and running, so when Jesse Willis (The guy preaching) preached about the past and 'The place of no escape'(The title of his preach) I knew it was God speaking right into me and that He was doing something inside of me, I will never be able to explain. When it was the call to respond, I went up for prayer, because I knew that it was time to let go of whatever was holding me back from God, it was time to let someone pray for me and time for me to be free, it was time to change, to finally allow God to change me. That night I was refreshed with a new desire for God, a new yearning. I was free.

In the late-night worship session, I gave it all to God, I gave all my praise and He refreshed me and sent His holy spirit. The rest of the week I was free and filled with a joy I can't explain.

Limitless Festival day 2.

We now had a full day to experience God. The morning worship in the youth venue was great, now feeling closer to God, I felt my praise was freer as well, if that makes any sense. Anyway, when we split of to the YA venue, the preach was spoken by a guy called Mark Ritchie, who by the way, is hilarious, but that's off topic. Mark Ritchie was speaking on trash talking fear, specifically fear when it comes to evangelism. My whole life I have struggled with fear, it is an ongoing war inside of me that God is helping me fight. Mark Ritchie was basically talking about the fact that we have a burning why inside of us, a need to do something, a need to bring the broken people to life. He preached on Mark 2:2-5 about the friends who lowered their paralysed friend through the roof to get heeled by Jesus. He was basically saying that it was the why burning in them that gave them the strength to lower their friend through the roof. We must have a burning why for God and his broken people.

This preach got me thinking about how all my life, I have felt God calling me to prophesy. He has always given me words or pictures, whether for me or for someone else. The thing is, every time I could work up enough bravery or confidence to tell these words or pictures to anyone, I would cry or go bright red and honestly, I hated it a lot. I disliked sharing things from God, I hated crying and being nervous and going red, but I also hated myself when I didn't share something God gave me because I would then feel guilty and disobedient and it would make me feel like garbage. But, you see, I knew what God was calling me to do, so I wanted to want what God had for me, but I found it too hard, so I avoided it as much as possible.

As Mark was preaching about having a burning why, I knew I needed prayer because I didn't have the burning why for what God is calling me to do, so I went to get prayer when it was the call to respond, I told the person who prayed for me what I needed prayer for and the prayer she prayed, the words she spoke over me to the Lord, were exactly what I needed. She prayed, from what I remember, something along the lines of "Lord help Phoebe to have a new burning inside of her for what you have for her, help her to have a burning why for you, give her words to speak over others and may it be easy, Lord at the beginning make it easy for her. Refresh her heart for you and her calling and let her burn brightly for you." The Lord stirred something within me through this prayer, I felt a fire light within me, I didn't necessarily know it or acknowledge it to start with, but it was there, the burning for the calling God had called me to, to prophesy, little did I know God would do something incredible.

In the evening it wasn't the preach that God used to speak to me. All the songs so far and all God was doing within me, the kind of theme or words God was speaking to me were just 'New Life' like, so far it was just God giving me a new life, a new breath, a new refreshment and way of seeing life. I felt God was telling me to share this, but I didn't want to, some part of me felt it wasn't right to share it, even after all that prayer in the morning, I was still making excuses not to share what God had put on my heart, excuses like, "God, I think this is just for me" or "There isn't a good time", "someone is singing", "The mic isn't free" Etcetera. This of cause, left me feeling terrible, I was praying and praying that God would help me to get it out, or to take it off my heart, that there would be another opportunity tomorrow and then I would share it or something like that. God had a different and better plan than I did though.

When it got to the end of the evening meeting, I didn't feel finished with God, I didn't feel like God was finished with me, so I made my way into the late night worship, not really knowing what to say to God, just knowing that I needed to be with him, so as I entered into the venue of the late night worship, I found a wall, slid down it, and just started to cry, not sob, but just cry, tears simply falling from eyes. I stayed there on the floor for a good half an hour, not really knowing why I was crying to be honest but resting in God's peace and forgiveness and knowing that the joy would come in the morning. After I'd had a good cry, I stayed in the evening worship having a good chat with a friend about life.

Limitless Festival day 3.

Today was filled with praise and thanksgiving. In the morning worship we were just declaring that we would always sing praise to God, even in the middle of the mystery. The YA morning seminar was done by Tim Alford, before he started talking though, we dove into a little more worship. Tim was talking to us about how we can use social media as a positive thing, and not as something that makes us compare ourselves or make us feel bad. I honestly, don't feel bad when I scroll down my social media feeds, and I'd also heard Tim Alford preach about social media at the Gathering last year, but it was a good reminder of how social media can be negative and positive. Tim's talk was a reminder of how, when social media affects us, it can then affect our journey with God, for example, if we're spending too much time on YouTube or scrolling down Instagram, then we don't and aren't spending enough time in our bibles getting to know Jesus. I know I am guilty of spending too much time watching things on YouTube or Netflix which is one of the reasons why I found myself pretty lost some of 2018. Since this preach though, I try to be off my phone or at least off Netflix or YouTube between 10 and 11pm, I am going to change it to earlier though when I go back to college. Tim Alford is very good at talking about social media and how we can limit our time to then spend more time with Jesus or simply taking time doing more of our hobbies. Tim's preach was also good at advising us on how to be better when posting on social media, so overall it was a good and fun talk.

This whole night of day 3 was incredible, just everything about it. First off, the preach was incredible, even though it didn't speak to me in any big way, it was a great time of God just teaching me and a great time of learning how to live that little bit better and closer to Jesus. He was preaching about ego and his title was "The battle for your soul is a battle for your ego."  He was preaching about how we have to develop and invest in our character in the waiting. One of the things he said was that 'ability can get us through the door, but character keeps us in the room'. There were so many things in this preach, that stuck out to me, not because of any major thing I was going through, but simply because they were things I needed to apply to my life, so another thing he said was that 'passion is nothing without purpose, purpose guides the passion'. One of his main points was that we must learn to exercise our courage, we have to face our giants 'scared is what you're feeling, courage is what you're doing'. This preach spoke to me in so many little and amazing ways, and what’s even greater, is I went into that meeting thinking, 'Oh I don't have a problem with ego, I don't think I'll be taking many notes on this', but it then turned out to be the one, I would say, I learnt the most from and took the most notes on, God always moves in the most unexpected ways.

Day 3 of late-night worship, for me, was so powerful and so incredible and honestly, I would say, the best night of them all. It started out with quite a few people, we were just praising, people encountering God in many different ways, I, myself, was down on my knees many times, just singing, praising, asking God for more. It was this night that I felt overcome by peace, I felt like shouting to the Lord and yet staying still with my mouth shut, all at the same time. I wanted to stay in the presence of God, bowing down on my knees and just listening to his voice, but I also wanted to jump up and dance around the room, even if there was no music, it was an incredible moment with Jesus.

Later, in the evening, it got so powerful. This guy goes up to the front and starts talking about Jericho, when the Israelite let out a shout of praise and the walls came down. Suddenly the whole room starts shouting, we all start screaming and shouting to the Lord, in the Lord's name we knocked walls down with a cry and a shout of praise. It was an overwhelmingly mighty moment, and, incredibly loud, but the power and presence of God that was in that room that night was so intense.

Now remember that I said in day 2 that I got prayed for so that I would want to prophesy and not hate it when I did it and that, to start with, it would be easy, well this night, I saw it in myself and God answered the prayer that I had been praying over and over in my heart and I managed to go up and speak in the mic about what God had put on my heart and I didn't cry, I didn't go bright red, I hardly even let myself get nervous, I just did it, it was easy. I had basically been singing spontaneously that "Faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains" and this then got me thinking that I want to have more faith than a mustard seed, I want to have enough faith in God that I would be able to move 12 mountains. The band then started singing "Let faith arise" and I knew then that I had to share my thoughts, I knew they were from God, and so I went up grabbed the mic and shared. As I walked back to my seat, I was so joyful, the Lord gave me a brave, courageous heart, I couldn't thank the Lord enough. The night carried on for quite some time, but eventually, we made our way back to the tents, were we then found out that the main venue where everyone meets in the morning had flooded, so we were a bit curious about what was going to happen the next morning. It was crazy rains that night, like I was in the tent talking to my friends and we literally had to shout to hear each other over the rain on our tents, it was crazy, but I did eventually get to sleep and it was a pretty good sleep at that.

Limitless Festival day 4.

Now the main venue may have been flooded, but that did not stop us from meeting together to worship God, the leaders were incredible and set up the morning worship meeting in the social area. The morning was incredible. You should probably know that pretty much from the second day we'd had weather warnings of very strong winds and storms, weather warnings so bad that other events had cancelled, but limitless festival was stubborn, we chose to not let the enemy win, the previous night, so many tents leaked badly, meaning that lots of peoples stuff got sopping wet and they had to sleep in the social area, my youth group all managed to stay dry, but there were a lot of people with big puddles in their tents. So, when it came to worship that morning, we worshipped loud with over 100 voices singing together as one. We sang of a great God that fights our battles for us and how the enemy had been defeated. There was a moment where we thought limitless festival was going to have to be cancelled because of the strong wind warnings, but thanks to everyone's prayers and the incredible team, everyone got moved to the cow sheds and the social area to sleep the next night. Basically, the wind warnings were too strong that it was against health and safety to keep everyone in tents, so we all got separated into girls in the social area and boys in a big cow shed. Day 4 was a bit of a crazy one because it basically meant that our morning seminars got moved to where lunchtime was because everyone had to get packing down their tents and moving their stuff around the site. For us ladies, because the social area still had to be used during the afternoon, all the girls of every youth that came, had to shove their stuff into one corner. For the boys it was easy, the cow sheds they were sleeping in may have stank, but there was a lot of space, so much space that it was used for the catering area for people who brought their own food. As well as having a different time for our seminars, the weather meant that a lot of the afternoon activities couldn't happen because some were outside activities, this also meant that most people were in the social area making it difficult to have inside inflatables on, all this made the afternoon a little boring, but the day was still good. 

Once we finally separated into young adults and youth, we had a woman called Rachel Gardner come in and preach to us about 'identity' and it was a good preach. For me it was a lot of just reassurance of what God had taught me over the last two years. In 2017 I got to a point where I really didn't like my body, but it quickly past when I started reading my bible more and found my identity in Christ. So, this preach was sort of a reminder that I can always rely on God for my future and best life.

Phil Knox came to speak in the evening, he is the guy that spoke on stereotypes and trash talking the stereotype that young people don't go to church. As I said at the beginning of my story (part 1) his main points were telling us to look up, speak up and step up.  There were so many things in this preach that were so enriching. I guess that all the preaches that were spoken over Limitless Festival were real eye openers for me, it’s like I'd heard it all before, but never actually listened and told myself that I needed to apply it to my life. This year at Limitless Festival, all of it has really stuck, and I feel closer to God and like I'm able to feel him and be with Him all the time, no matter what I'm doing. Everything that was spoken at limitless festival was inspiring, encouraging and enlightening, I learned so much.

The last late night worship, there are no words to describe this night, it was so, beautiful and wonderful and, uh, so empowering, there is no way to describe it, it was pure worship, the few people in the room singing of how wonderful and glorious the Lord is. The thing for me that night was just the utter peace that consumed me, I had hit a point where I was like, "Lord, what's next? I know there is so much more than this." I kept on saying or singing over and over, that there is still more, we can still go deeper, there is still more, Lord you're not finished yet. Because that was the thing, so much had happened, we had seen so many amazing things happen in this week and it could feel like we had reached the peak of what God had for us, but we hadn't, haven't, there is so much love and joy and so many more places to go, there is deeper water and deeper and better plans that God has that we are nowhere near, we have, not at all reached, all of what God has for us, so I kept singing to the Lord that I was not satisfied yet, I need more, I want more because Lord I know there is more. A peace and joy fell over me, a flame inside of me that would not be extinguished easily.

The late-night worship went on for so long, way longer than it was supposed to, there were only about 13 people left in the room as we were finishing. As they started finishing worship, I stepped to the back of the room where there were a few people sitting on the sofas chatting quietly or resting, I decided to sort of rest in the peaceful presence of God, so that's why I stepped to the back, but that left about five-six people at the front plus the 3 people on band singing praise to God. After worship, the band leader decided he wanted to pray with the people that were left worshipping. I was going to go over there and pray with them, but I felt the spirit keeping me at a distance for a bit, so I sat on a chair in the back, listening to the prayer from a distance. As they were coming to a finish in prayer though, I felt like I needed to share what this evening had been for me, so just as someone was finishing there prophesy over someone, I quietly walked over to the prayer circle and shared that the 'Lord hasn't finished yet, we may feel like we have experienced all of Him, but there is so much more of Him that we have not even began to see.' It's always a great encouragement when someone adds on to what you have said as well because then you know that it meant something, so one of the leaders in this prayer circle added onto what I was saying, that he too, felt similar, that 'this year is the year of revival, that there has been something happening in the atmosphere this week, in these young hearts, these young people, that they are going to stir up revival in their schools and homes and young people in general.' This is exactly how I had been feeling over the whole of this day, that God is stirring our hearts for the broken, for our non-Christian friends, for our family members, for our whole schools, that this is a broken world in need of a God. One of the things that Phil Knox was saying in his stereotype preach was that we have to trash talk the religion story and start talking about the relationship story. Having a life with God is not a set of rules telling you what you can and can't do, telling you what you have to do, but having a life with God is a relationship, it's knowing that He is always there, it’s being able to trust Him with literally everything, its having a love that will love no matter what you have done or will do, it’s having Him always stretch you and help you to grow, having Him always ready to listen, a Father with His arms always open, a king and saviour and a new way of life; Living with God is new life!

Limitless Festival day 5.

Today was a great, but sad day, it was sad because it was the last day, but that is also what made it special.

Morning worship was back in the main venue because they had managed to sort it out after it flooded. It was a wonderful time of powerful worship praising the Almighty before we went to our seminars. James Aladiran was speaking for our last day, he is an incredibly anointed speaker. He spoke about spiritual warfare, it was another preach, where it was not anything specific that spoke to me, but little things he said that I could agree on or know that I needed to apply to my life, a great preach full of ministry and learning. I went up on the call to respond because I know that I need to get out there and act, take hold of the sword, the word of God and use it in my battles. Using the bible rather than just reading it, is something that I struggle to do, but God is slowly teaching me how to not only read it but use it and let it teach me and show me how to live.

The evening was another excellent night of worship with the guy named Mike Nicholls talking about anxiety. I do sometimes get small anxiety, but I've never had a major anxiety attack or been majorly anxious. Mike's preach was more focussed on people who do have anxiety, but it was still great for people like me who only have a bit of anxiety. I didn't go up for the call to respond, instead I waved my arms around in worship for all the Lord had done this week. By the end of the night the whole room was alight with joy jumping around in worship and raising a hallelujah to the one who saves.

As I said at the beginning, there was no late-night worship on the last day, so instead I went to the silent disco. My whole youth group went to the silent disco and so did my friends, it was a load of fun. The theme of the silent disco was DJ requests, so there were some banger songs and then occasionally a song I had never heard in my life, but it was exciting and jamming and a good ol' party to finish off the event.

We slept one more night and left early the next morning.

Limitless Festival was such an indescribable event. I mean, I've tried to describe how immense it was, but I've hardly captured the half of it. I am so ready to start back at college. Since being home, I have done something every day to connect with God, even when I don't feel like it, I will read my bible or listen to worship music or colour in my devotional or written this, reflecting on what God has done for me over the years of life or I’ve tried to do anything to connect with and be with God each day. I am moving forward finally, and there are so many more storms to come, but with God I know the seas will come to a still. God is so so good and I pray for everyone that was at limitless festival this year that they will set their schools spiritually alight and that we would all bring revival in 2020, starting from now.

BeeBee

xxx

My story

Just been to Limitless Festival for the first time and boy oh boy has my life changed and rather than talk about each day individually or even talk about Limitless Festival at all, instead, I would like to tell my story. I would like to tell my story because the theme of the week was 'trash talk' and one of the preachers in the Young Adults venue got assigned stereotypes to talk about. He decided, in this preach, he was going to trash talk the stereotype that 'young people don't go to church'. His main points were LOOK UP, SPEAK UP, and STEP UP. One of his points in SPEAK UP was just to tell your story and say why it is different because God is in your life. So, he set us homework to go home after the week and write our story down, so here I am writing my story down, and apparently sharing it with whoever even reads my blog anymore.

I realise that I’ve never really written my story or told my story, my 'testimony' if you will, to anyone. I've written parts of it down, like things I'm going through in the moment and how God is working through it, but I've never told or written even a summary of my testimony, so I thought it would be a good idea if I did, not only for other people to read and see, but also for me, for me to see and remember what God has done in my life and how He has been in every situation and also so I can know for me, why I choose Jesus.

So here we go.

I have grown up in a Christian family, I've always been to church always had my dad working as a pastor, so I've never really known any different, but the first time I actually remember giving and committing my life to Jesus was when I was about 7, I was eating my breakfast in the morning and I don't even know what day it was, but I just said simply, "God I want you in my life, I want you to live in me". Now, my life was not radically changed in that moment, in fact I don't think I really even knew what I was doing or understood fully what God or who God was, I just knew that he was real and I loved Him, I can't really explain it because to be honest, I don’t remember it much, but that is the first time I remember giving my life to Jesus.

Anyway, as I said, my life wasn't radically changed, in fact it changed so little, that I felt like I had no relationship with God at all, so I basically, for many years, until I was about 9 or 10, I kept asking repeatedly for God to enter my life. I just kept asking and asking even though He was in my life, I kept asking and asking because I guess I didn’t really understand what it meant or ‘felt’ like to have Jesus in my life..

In 2010, I had my first year of Energi (you can read about Energi in some earlier and cringe worthy blog posts back in 2013 and upwards if you dare.)  At that point I was only 8, so Energi was a good opportunity for me to know more about Christ, meet new people, and be genuinely engaged more with Christianity and the church. It did help become more engaged, when I got home, I started reading my bible more and praying more by myself, in fact I even came up with a ‘secret place’ where I could have some quiet time with God. I had a great first year of Energi and wanted to return the next year and the year after that. 

Energi 2013 is when I got the gift of tongues. It was my last year of being a junior, which I was excited about because I felt too old for the juniors now and that I had got everything I could out of it. That year of Energi though, I did make some good friends, and make stronger bonds with friends from previous years. At this point in my life, I had a relationship with Christ, in fact before Energi 2013, I had been praying for the gift of tongues for a long time, and I asked to be prayed for at Energi that year and received the gift of tongues. My faith was strengthened, and I really started trusting in Jesus and his promises that year.

2013 was also my first year of the Gathering. This was honestly a great experience, it also allowed for me to connect with my youth group more as quite a lot of us went that year. The theme that year was 'compelled' and it was kind of about being yourself, don't take other people’s judgement and live for God. One of the things I really remember from that year, was when it was the call to respond after the preach, I prayed for someone from my youth group, as far as I can remember it was the first time I had actually prayed for someone, any who, while I was praying for them, they turned around to tell me "Don't let anyone ever tell you you're too young" and then we hugged and cried together. In that moment, I felt the holy spirit, and in that time of my life, I was really trying to fit in as an older kid, but that year of The Gathering really taught me to just be myself, no matter how young or old. As I worshipped that weekend and connected with God, I felt something change within me.

 One other thing from that year is, I started to fall in love with worship. If you didn't know this about me, worship is my favourite way to connect with God and hear him speaking to me, so the Gathering is where I first felt that worship was the thing I wanted to do all the time. I started listening to worship music a lot, people like Bethel Music, The Afters, Sidewalk Prophets, Mercy Me, etc. Worship music is how I connected with God in my every day. 

I was home-schooled, until I was 14 and went to college, so my life was pretty lonely without friends outside of church, but even with my friends at church, they were pretty much all older than me, I mean I had my siblings, but there siblings, so not really the same as friends. I had my child-hood friend, who I did love and sometimes hang out with still, but we started hanging out less and less as she went to high school.

The other friends I had outside my church were from Energi, so I only saw them once a year. One of my friends though, who I met my second year of Energi, we talked quite a bit, we emailed, sent letters, even talked on hangouts. We became good friends and helped each other through some tough stuff. I honestly thanked God for every little conversation we had because she was a real gift from God at the time. She was the first 'non-Christian' friend that I had and it was a great part of  my life being able to answer her questions about God, even though I did not know that much myself, only being about 11 or 12, it was a part of  my life where I had to be praying constantly that God would use me. I felt so young, but for God to use me to speak and pray into her life felt incredible and made me fall in love with God more and more knowing that He wanted to use me.

When I got to my teens, I started getting interested in taking notes in church during the sermons, I even started praying about absolutely everything, I mean everything! I'm talking, "Lord help me complete this level of snake" praying, I would literally pray about everything and anything. I also tried reading my bible more often. When I was about 13, I tried reading the bible right from the beginning until the end. Let me tell you, it did not work, once I got to psalms, I gave up and just started reading the New Testament. Which I’ll have you know, I have read the whole of and now trying to make my way through the old testament books, but not in order.

2015 was interesting. I had just turned 13, so it’s that awkward age of puberty and you're getting too old for some things and still too young for others. I still felt like the youngest out of my friendship group (which I was), I still got left out of 'older sibling things' in the house, I thought I was so cool, but let’s face it, I wasn't 😂. I felt too young for youth group because everyone would treat me like the youngest or the baby when all I wanted, was to fit in and feel wanted, and at the same time I was too old for Sunday school.

This time in my life really kind of knocked my confidence because I didn't really have any friends and I didn't really fit in anywhere, so I felt sad and lonely and maybe a little bit sorry for myself. God was always there though; I was still constantly praying to Him, hoping and trusting that I would make it out of this depressing lonely place. I knew he was there as well because in places like gymnastics, I still had a few friends, but I was enjoying it less and less because the good friends I had there, had left and the teacher that helped me develop left too. Eventually I quit, just before we moved, and I started college in September.

I thought as the 2016 rolled in, everything would change and things could start to get better, cos you know, new year spirit, revolutions and all that jazz, I thought "This year is going to be different, this year I'm going to be more confident, it’s going to be great, I'm going to read my bible lots, go on social media less... Blah, blah, blah" and yet, there I was 7 days into the new year, writing in my diary about how I wished perfect people existed and that I was one of them, also how I realised that I had social anxiety and pretty much hated speaking in front of lots of people and even being around lots of people.

The new year never goes how you plan it, but I know, that If I hadn't gone through all that I went through in 2015-16, I would not be where I am and who I am, today.

Even though the beginning of 2016 sucked, it was the year that I started to prophesy. It was Easter evening and we had a worship night, God gave me a few inspiring words to say, despite the fact I was majorly nervous and basically sobbing, I spoke in front of people, on a stage, in a mic, which are like all things I hated, but I did them anyway. Now not all those inspiring words I shared may have needed to be shared or even been from God, but if no one else needed them, then it was just for me to gain some confidence. When I think back to that Easter night, I do cringe a little, just because I know all of what I said, I didn't need to say, and sometimes I just hate myself a little the way I share things, but I know now that God had a plan. I don't know if what I shared that night meant anything to anyone, but I pray that it did.

Fast forward to July 2016, I still didn't really have any friends, in fact there were times I would cry myself to sleep, crying to God for a friend. In July 2016, Mum and Dad decided that God was calling us to Liverpool. God was working so much in this, If I knew everything that was going to happen in these two years in Liverpool back when we were first moving, I probably, would feel the same. You see when we knew we were moving to Liverpool, there wasn't loads I was going to miss.

I had just started to feel a little more at home in the youth group, but not loads; I did love Nantwich town and the whereabouts of where we lived, but apart from that, there was nothing really there for me in Nantwich, so the whole process of moving, I felt really at peace with it. God just set this peace in my heart, that I knew Liverpool was the next place for me, for the family, it just felt... right.

We moved to Liverpool in September, I started college in Reaseheath, this is when I saw God moving in my life, that I knew all my praying wasn't for nothing. When we moved to Liverpool and I started up at Reaseheath, I felt God's love just moving within me. In Reaseheath I found friends that were my age, that included me that listened to me and laughed with me. My friends also brought out a confidence in me I had forgotten or didn't even know about.

Reaseheath was a massive part of my life and even though I was only there for a year, I made some friends for life and learnt things that I would soon find very useful in my next year of college in Myerscough.

2017-2019 has been so much better, there have been ups and downs, but 2017 was a great year, it was the year I learnt and got filled of God's great everlasting joy and peace. As I said though there were ups and downs, for example, in 2018 and even a little at the start of 2019, I felt a little numb in my Christian life, like I wasn't moving forward or backward, I was just kind of stuck. You can read more about that if you read my 'How am I??' blog that I wrote back in 2018. 2018 was not only the year of struggle, but in November I had NCS, which is where I met many people who helped to boost my confidence and really encouraged me to push harder and not to give up. NCS is an experience that I will never forget because of how much it helped me, encouraged me and also for the friends I made there.

2019 is where we are now. It’s not the end yet and its already been crazy. Let’s start from the beginning when I was in college and stressed as heck! from January to about May is when I had to revise constantly for my exams and assessments. I was having a big old break down every single time I came home from college. Sometimes it would be alright and I would have a good day, a good laugh with my friends, and then I would come home and have to revise. When I revised, I felt like nothing was going into my brain, like I just didn't know anything. I did pray about it every night, crying to God to make the information go into my brain and to make it a little easier for me, which he did, I just didn’t know it until the exams. It was hard to pray lots, when I'd get to college, it was like I was in a whole different world, I would be praying as I walked into college and then I would get to my first lesson and my brain would get busy and forget to pray. 

At the beginning of college I also didn't have many friends, I was by myself a lot, which was also a thing that made it quite hard because I had no one to distract me from the stress of the work, no one to talk to that might understand it. There was a point at the beginning when I came home some days and would talk to my mum and dad about my day and then just be like, 'I don't want to do this anymore, I want to give up, it’s not fun anymore.' But God was good and kept telling me to push on, no matter how much I wanted to give up and stop, God pushed me to carry on, and so I did, and it paid off.

About February time, two wonderful girls were so kind to me and we started to sit together in lessons and then lunches and then always. Soon I was calling them my best friends. Without them I don't think I would have made it through college last year. They were there when I needed to talk and they also related to my situation because they were feeling the pressure and stress too, we all talked together about how hard we found the course, but together we made it through and I'll let you know now, that we have all officially passed as of a few weeks ago.

After college, I've got to admit I felt free, and probably a little bit too joyful that it was over. The Lord was with me through everything last year, through all the stress, the tears, the midnight revision sessions, through all of it. I couldn't, still can't, stop thanking him for not giving up on me when I felt like giving up. While I was distracting myself from the stress with TV shows and Netflix, he was with me, calming me, loving me, fighting the battle that I was giving up on. 

The summer has been so much fun. I would say that I grew closer to God every day and have spent my summer wisely and in the presence of the holy spirit, but that would be lying. No, in fact, the start of the summer, I spent a few days thanking Jesus for all he had done for me, and then I got bored. I find it so easy to get bored of reading the bible every morning or praying basically the same prayer every morning and hoping that 'today' I will go deeper with God, 'today' I will be different and spend more time with him. Every day I tried to be more present with God, but it was hard to find new things to do, hard to find new ways to connect with God, so when I got bored, I would go on screens and sit in my bed all day, doing nothing with my life. Then I would come to pray at night, as I always do, and feel really guilty and tell God 'tomorrow will be different' which, sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't. Anyway, I still would read my bible, and pray sometimes, but I got to the stage again when I felt like nothing was happening, I wasn't going forward or backward, as one of the preachers called it on the first night of Limitless Festival, ‘Spiritually Trapped’.  One of the things I prayed for regularly at this time was that I could just move forward, or just go somewhere, I prayed constantly, waiting and waiting for an answer, which I knew eventually God would, I've learnt never to stop praying for something, but I didn't hear anything from God for a while, until now, until Limitless Festival!!

My Oh My how incredible limitless festival was! It was our first year and it couldn't have gone better, (Well maybe it could have weather wise, but we'll get to that). Now I'm thinking, this is already a long talky post, so maybe, I'll do a part two for Limitless festival.

So this isn't a finished story, but I'm thinking this is so much to read all ready and if you got this far without getting utterly bored, then I majorly applaud you, but to be honest I wasn't really doing this for anybody, I was kind of just doing this for me, but I hope that for anyone who has got this far, that it has inspired you or at least given you something to do.

For now,

BeeBee

xxx