A Strange Type of Chemistry: January 2017

As of today...this girl is officially enrolled as a student at Hillsong International Leadership College! Super excited to be registered for classes, have my student photo taken, and prepare for my first week of school, starting Jan 30th. It's an exciting and sometimes anxious feeling but God's been reminding me lately to just live in the now. Not to worry about tomorrow because I only have enough grace for today. He knows what's coming and He will provide exactly what I need to get through it. Sometimes it's a minute by minute battle but deep down inside I know I can trust Him. So I will choose to submit every time whether I feel like it or not.

We are so close to being all settled! After a massive shopping spree at Ikea I have almost everything I need. Wifi was set up today (yay! we were running out of coffee money for the cafe wifi lol) and a fridge will be delivered to us on Saturday! We still need a washing machine but the sink works good enough for now and someone finally figured out how to work the dryer...too many switches and buttons for me haha.

Our apartment is right above a grocery store so not having a fridge has just forced me to eat healthier. Since the store is so close we just buy enough fresh food to eat that day. My diet has consisted of eggs (not refrigerated here), potatoes, tortillas, bread, honey, peanut butter, fruit, veggies, nuts and meal shakes (PTL for Advocare!). I've always loved eating healthy I just never made the time for all the preparation it entails. We have free access to a gym and a pool with our apartment so on the day we aren't doing a lot of walking (which hasn't been often) I'm able to get in a workout before bed.

Starting fresh has been a challenging yet inspiring idea. Sorta like cleaning house. It's good to do and the result can be very rewarding but the process is sometimes difficult. A few I'm determined to master and maintain this year: getting up consistently early (which also means going to bed at a decent hour), having a relaxed quiet time (not just trying to get it done in a hurry and cross it off the list), making and enjoying breakfast (part of the eating healthy idea), getting ready on time, arriving at school/church early and working out at least 5 days a week (even if it's just 10 minutes). So far so good but my real classes haven't technically started yet so prayers for energy and determination would be much appreciated!

Tomorrow (26th for me) is Australia Day! There are no classes scheduled so we are free until Monday. Well, sorta. I've decided to go to the Hillsong Powerhouse Summer Fest this weekend! It's an amazing opportunity that I think will help catapult me into 2017, spirit, soul and body. Check it out on the link below :)

http://hillsong.com/summer/nsw-powerhouse/

Well, that's about all the details I have for now but here are a few pics from the week...They're a bit mixed up so sorry about that!

My little piece of apartment 😌

Park between our apartment and the gym/pool

One of the many awesome workout machines!

First Sunday service 🙏

Two of my roomies...or flatmates as they call them 😉

So cool to have Taya (and many other talented people) lead us in worship on my first Sunday here!

My new home church away from home...but FFC will always be my "home" home church 🙌

Found this clock in a local mall and thought it was pretty cool

Ever had a rainbow in a sunrise?! Starting the day with a promise is pretty spectacular 💖

Breakfast!

Homemade stir-fry!

I just thought this Honey bottle was adorable!

On a bus headed to IKEA trying not to freak out about traffic coming the opposite direction! 😳

Hello friends!

I’ve decided to post a little more of this journey here on my blog. If you would like to follow, please do! As you can see it’s been a while haha but I will do my best to post at least once per week and highlight some of what life looks like here at Hillsong College and Sydney, Australia. Please feel free to comment and share with anyone who may benefit. It’s my hope to exalt Him above all else and show just how powerful, loving, bold, courageous, forgiving, gracious and kind our Father is. Thanks again for all the love, support and prayers. I miss everyone so much already. But even though you’re far away, God is continuing to use you in my life. Your prayers and encouragement is working in and through me as I start this incredible adventure!

How it began…

I was asked to tell a little of my journey leading up to this decision. It’s hard to know where to start but I will do my best to share a few of the key ‘God moments’ in my life and I pray it encourages some of you in the process. God is a personal God. We all have our own unique testimony that He uses to draw others to HIm. My hope is that the words below will magnify just how amazing He has been to me. Without Him I am nothing, but with God ALL things have become possible (Matthew 19:26).

I’ve never known life before Christ and for this I am so grateful. He chose to reveal Himself to me in a very tangible way when I was really young and has been my best friend ever since. Some had imaginary friends, I had Jesus :) Oh, the things we went through together. Some good, some not so good. Looking back I can see how He held my hand through it all and used everything to strengthen and grow my faith in Him. He called me to full time ministry at 17 and I spent 7 + years trying to figure out just what that meant. I didn’t know then, that ‘called’ didn’t necessarily me ‘now’. It meant His. I pursued many different careers and interests looking for that one thing that I was suppose to do, to no avail. Serving in a local church was deeply instilled in me from childhood and I am so thankful for this. So no matter what I was pursuing on the side, I knew my first responsibility had to be the church. Whatever team I was on, I was incredibly honored to play a part in what God was doing in and through the church and community. Now, that doesn’t mean that my heart was always completely pure when I would serve. We all have days but thank God His power is not limited by our attitude or motives. He can use us regardless of how we feel. Sometimes, us choosing to be faithful even if we don’t feel like it means more to God than when we do.

God brought my passion for music back full force about 6 years ago. I hadn’t played piano since I was a kid and I didn’t have money for one either. So God gave me a new idea…guitar. For a beginner, they were cheap and thanks to friends and YouTube, fairly easy to learn. I told God that I didn’t have time for both music and the career I was currently pursuing. I was so stubborn and set in a completely different direction but that was no challenge for Him. He simply took one passion away and replaced it with another. I was a little upset about it but I took the step anyway. Little did I know where that step would take me. A year later I started attending worship team practice at my church. About 9 months after that I was the lead and only guitarist on the team. I was scared out of my mind and honestly had no idea what I was doing lol. Somehow, someway, God used it.

Fast forward 4 years. Sitting in the Detroit airport, I started complaining. I listed in my mind, all the things that labeled me (by the world’s standards) a failure. Some of them weren’t necessarily bad things, but when listed with everything else in comparison to my age and what I thought God called me to, they sounded pretty ridiculous. I asked God if He’d forgotten about me, or maybe just misplaced me among the billions of people on this earth. The passions and callings I thought He’d put in me a long time ago sure didn’t seem like they were even close to coming true. Maybe I just didn’t hear Him right. Maybe I am just an ordinary person that’s meant to live an ordinary life. Maybe I just need to grow up and put away the dreams and get on with my life. God was pretty silent in all my thoughts until then. Interrupting my silly comparisons, He said as plainly as ever, “Well, what do you want to do?”. Ha, my response? “God, I don’t know! That’s a question for you not me!” Silence again, and so my complaining continued. “Ugh…why can’t He just tell me? Is that too much to ask? He knows the future anyway, it’s easy for Him.” I picked up my phone and started researching. I had a few ideas but nothing really stood out or awakened anything in me. Until I saw ‘Hillsong College’. “Well, that would be amazing but…impossible.” Silence broke again. “Well what would it hurt to see what it takes?” Hilarious…God, but ok. After I did some research and doors began to open, I started getting nervous. “I’m not qualified to do something like this. Who do I think I am? I don’t even know what I’m playing half the time and the only reason I’m a vocalist is because the mic is off…well it was until the sounds guys tricked me and turned it on without asking (true story).” More lists. Not my circumstances this time, but everything I thought would disqualified me from any opportunity in ministry. That’s when God said to me, “That’s right, you are a nobody and you can’t do anything (thanks a lot, God). What I mean is, that’s kinda the point. If you’ll trust me, I will do through you above and beyond anything you could imagine (Ephesians 3:20).”

I made a decision. “God, You know this is impossible for me, but if it was You who opened this door I’ll walk through it. If this is not what You have for me, slam it in my face and lock it.” The hardest part of this was that I knew God wanted me to plan as if it was really happening. A year of telling everyone I was going and not being able to answer all the ‘How?’ questions. I don’t like being wrong. I don’t like looking like a fool. I don’t like getting my hopes up only to have the rug pulled out from under me. All I could promise God is that, every day, I would take the step that was in front of me, even if I couldn’t see the next one. There were many things that looked impossible but He came through every time. Sometimes, to my frustration, not until the very last second. Nevertheless, He would show up, big time.

So through this journey I’ve learned on a much larger scale, what it means to trust Him. Also, to never doubt His voice. Even if it’s a faint whisper no one else hears and shows no promise of coming true any time soon, trust Him. When doubts or fear of the unknown seep in, I go back to His promises and remember that it was Him who made the impossible, possible. I don’t know what’s next but I can live in today, fully alive, and trust Him with tomorrow. He brought me here I believe He won’t abandon me (Joshua 1:5).

Lauren

Counting down the hours...