My teacher Jonathan on day during worship prayed for me and kept getting the word Esther, and how she (and all the other girls) went through that 12 months of beauty treatment preparing to see the king and how it was build up to see him. So what he was getting at was that the first few weeks of this bible corse was my "beauty treatment" (aka. getting my heart prepared) to receive what God had in store for me. Now I didn't know what that really meant or how to apply it to my life / relationship with God, I have been having a really hard time finding that intimate relationship with God ever since this school started. I am able to get really amazing revelations from each book that we study and I felt myself getting closer to God's heart every week but still throughout the weeks I felt something lacking or at least that is what I though it was. In the back of my mind I knew that something big was going to happen in Esther week, I just really felt like God was going to show up... he did.
So I am just going to go for it with trying to explain what God did, this is a really big deal for me and it is my heart that sharing but I feel that it is important to tell you because it plays a big part into what God has called me into which I will explain more in the next blog about Jeremiah.
Our speaker for the week was an amazing staff member named Helen, she started off talking a bit about her life and how God has moved. The point that she was trying to make really clear through her life is that God is the author of our lives, that he is the one orchestrating how situations can play out. She talked about how her parents met and that it was more then a coincidence, she talked also about how both of her parents have passed away and she went into a bit of detail about being able to talk to her dad while he was on his death bed which of course lead me to think about "what if I was able to talk to my dad before he died" and I started to feel myself getting upset so I tried to put up the wall against it (as I do when it gets to hard) but it wasn't working this time, so I just got angry and bitter. I went through the rest of the day bitter and frustrated and right after lunch I was able to talk to my my cousin Kayla (she just saves my life here and there!) and as we talked I started to see slash understand that a) I was upset about my dad b) a lot was going on, which tends to get overwhelming. We talked about everything that I was feeling (dad and school) and I left the conversation feeling good (watched a little dane cook and it was all better!!). Then feeling like I could get through the day my teacher went through a test that I wrote the week before and I did worse then I thought (not bad just not as good as I thought) but honestly after that it pushed my over the edge again, realizing that I was good at nothing - I could hardly make it out of the class room before I broke down and cried (the "can't breath" kind of crying) so I took off the the prayer room and it felt like I couldn't even keep myself together, I was so mad at God for bringing this up but so broken at the same time. The only thought that was truly going through my mind was this is so inappropriate and I just couldn't understand why God was bringing up my dad in such a intense way.
I have this routine with this situation in my life (my dad stuff), I get upset break down, allow God in and talk it out with him for a bit but then kind of just get over it and move on. There are times that it is more powerful then others, but honestly I try not to go there too often because it is to hard. However God was taking it to a whole new level this time, asking me to go into detail about why I was so upset. I wasn't understanding why he was doing this, I mean of course I'm upset my dad died and I will never have an earthly father (not that it has ever felt like I had had one, cause I was so young), yet God kept pushing asking me what I was upset about. As I started to think about that I started to realize why it is so hard for me, I have know idea who my father as the man Bradley was, I know nothing about his character. As I am getting more upset God is saying ask me - what do you want to know? So I just started writing anything I could think of, I could tell you all about my mom the details of who she is on many different levels (of course she is my mom!) but I have nothing that I could tell you about my dad, and that kills me. So I just wrote every question about him that I had down and ended up with a page (each line full) of questions ranging from; how did he take is coffee? To how did he find the strength to say good-bye to his wife and kids telling his ten year old son that he was going to be the man of the family and still love you?
I sat there with this piece of paper with the questions of the details of my dads character, I knew that God wasn't done with me yet but I wasn't sure what to do so I went on with my day (at least I tried) but it was like I was still sitting in what God was doing and in what had just happened. Going into the next day (tuesday!) our speaker got us to write down the moments in our lives where God was orchestrating it, this is how it went for me (the revelation God gave me); my dad and mom get married and move to Calgary from Ontario only because my dad was the one who needed work ~ the reason the moved across the country = dad. In Calgary the pull up to a set of red lights looking over the city and my dad sees the beauty it and decides that is where he wants to live ~ place where we lived = dad. My dad builds our house and meets the man who lives across the street and he ends up bring my dad to the Lord who then lead my mom the Lord (which then we were all born into it) ~ the way God was lead into our lives = dad. The impact of my dads death on my family is huge, we have been able to see God provide for all of us, but in my life it has truly made me who I am today ~ my relationship with God = dad. I was never able to see the reason or how God was going to "use" this in my life/at all, but this all of a sudden put in together in a away that I had never seen before. The purpose of my dads life in the Kingdom of God was fulfilled in the lives of his family, for me (the only account i am able to speak on) the impact of my dad has yes made me into the person I am today, but even more then that it has shaped me into the woman of God that I am becoming. I don't think I am truly able to explain the sensitivity of my heart towards my heart and even God, I am passionate, loving, caring, excited about life, and many other heart lead things but this all leads out of a heart that has been broken and mended back together through the love of Christ.
As God started pointing out certain characteristics in me but mostly in my relationship with him, long story short he said When I see you and your heart towards me, I see your fathers heart pretty much meaning that my relationship with God coincides with my dads relationship with him when he was alive. I use to get so mad at God all the time when I was younger, all I wanted was a moment with my dad, it didn't matter in a dream or whatever else that is what I longed for as child. I would go to bed thinking so hard about my dad just hoping that if I thought about him before I went to bed I might just dream about him - it never happened. I would get more angry with God because he left me with nothing to hold when missing my dad got to much, everyone else at least had more then 5 memories (lasting only a second each, and 3 or which are when he was dying) I would tell God that it just wasn't good enough - I needed more. Well he gave me more, he has brought my dad and I back together under the call of his Kingdom, God had this huge plan for my dad if there was no sickness but since that is what happened my dad was only able to take his call (in living for God/his kingdom) so far. That is where I am able to come in, because my relationship with God is so much like my fathers relationship it is now like I can pick up where he left off - not in a physical way but in a spiritual way, in serving the Kingdom. My dad would have been someone relatable and easy to talk with, he was a carpenter-he was simple and real but most importantly in love with God. That is what I want out of my life, so I am honored and overwhelmed at the opportunity to step out into this calling and I will give it the respect that both God and now also my father deserves .
I know that this was long and I'm not sure if my heart has been able to come across the way I want it to, it is just such a hard topic/story to explain over writing. But pretty much Esther was a huge week for me and little did I know that God was only getting started....
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