Be Careful What You Pray For...

I want to get back into blogging regularly again. Looking back on my posts from earlier this year, I think it was really good to get my thoughts on God and stuff written down like this. Now that I'm back at university and attending my church again, with student communities starting again soon, I'm hoping I'll have plenty of things to write about! But today I'm gonna write about some things I experienced near the end of summer.

There's a saying that goes like "be careful what you pray for, because you might get it". It's an odd one, and one you might not fully appreciate until what it's talking about happens to you. And it happened to me in the last week of summer. I'll recount that now.

So as my blog has been recounting a bit, 2013 has been a 'year of fear' for me. Not in that I have had a fearful year, but that this is the year God has been pushing me gently towards getting over my fears. It started with FOMO, which I documented quite thoroughly with this blog. And I got there, in a lot of ways I am over my fear of missing out, and that makes me so happy! I've come so far from even the start of the year. And I think if I hadn't have gotten over that fear, this could have been a very difficult summer for me, due to some circumstances regarding friends, but thankfully, FOMO did not keep me from having a good summer. I enjoyed myself regardless of what I was missing out on, and that's amazing! I also started to get over my fear of a certain person (who shall not be named for their own sake), having truly feared them for years and years and years. When even being in the same room as this person was once so uncomfortable, even painful, for me, I can now quite comfortably sit and chat and even have a laugh with them. Painful memories are being replaced by good ones, which is fantastic. I'm not sure anyone could comprehend what a massive step forward that is for me. God is good!

With those two fears, both once major strongholds in my life, becoming a thing of the past, I started wondering what God wanted me to face next. Something kept bringing me back to 'failure'. It seemed to be what I feared most at that point. I thought to myself 'maybe I should ask God to help me get over my fear of failure', but something kept holding me back. Guess what that something was... yep! It was fear. I thought to myself, for these other fears, it's always got worse before it got better. Right before I started to get over the fears, I would find myself very bitter against the things, or really the people, who brought on the fear. And for that while, the fear was heightened. And so I was scared about what would happen when I asked God to help me get over this fear. But, I knew I had to do it. And so I prayed, my heart beating fast, 'God, help me get over my fear of failure. I don't what's going to happen now, and I'm scared, but I trust you.'

That was when everything fell apart. 

The morning after I prayed that, I got a phone call from my boss. He didn't want to keep me on anymore, despite me thinking I was going to have the job until at least December. That was upsetting, to say the least. It was the perfect job for me, but I failed it. I was almost brushing it off as coincidence until I got a letter in the post a few days later; a letter that told me I'd been kicked out of my university because of problems with an essay resit (leaving out the complicated details of why this happened, because they're not that important, all you need to know is that this was a total surprise to me). 

What. 

Just like that, all I knew seemed to crash around me. A few days earlier everything was fine, I had a job that was perfect for me and I was getting ready to head back to Edinburgh to begin my third year of studies. Then all of a sudden and out no where I was unemployed and degree-less. I have never felt like such a failure as I did that day. I cried out to God constantly, 'Did I ask for this?! Is this your answer?! I want to face my fear of failure but not this way!! I hate this, God!! Please fix this!!' I begged forgiveness for my failure, I just wanted to be able to go back to university, I couldn't fail like this, I couldn't fail my parents and my friends like this, not after everything. 

I spent a week living in constant terror of what was going to happen, my gut aching and heart pounding, trying desperately to contact my university to sort out what went wrong and see if they would let me back in. In the middle of that week, I had to move back to Scotland, not knowing if I'd be returning home again shortly or staying on. Though my friends were amazing (looking at you especially Michelle and Patrick) and did their best to keep my mind off it, any time I started thinking about the uncertainty of my future I verged on crying. It was a rough week. I certainly felt the failure I had been feeling. 

I'll cut to the chase, many phone calls and e-mails later, after my case being seemingly passed from person to person to person, about a week after I got the letter I found out they were letting me back in. Praise God for his goodness and mercy! And now what? I'd be lying if I said this has helped me get over my fear of failure. It gets worse before it gets better right? I'm pretty sure I'm even more scared of failure now. But I don't subscribe to coincidence, God had to let me feel that utter failure for some reason, and I'm hoping I find out that reason soon. From experience, I pretty sure it's going to help me. Just right now, I'm still living on the edge a wee bit, and I definitely need to pray more about this to work it out. And I've certainly learnt a few extra lessons along the way anyway! I'm not there yet, but I know I'll be able to face this fear soon. There's a reason for everything, God is up to something, and though I don't understand it yet, I will some day. I'll just say it again - Be careful what you pray for, you might just get it, but not in the way you expect.

Back in Edinburgh

Woah, this has been a pretty long post, thank you for reading this far! It's not like me to blog about something I'm still struggling to understand, I usually like to write it all out once I have my eureka moment and discover what God has been teaching me. Not today I guess. I think I just wanted to write it all out, get it off my chest a bit. And now I've done that. I think it's time to return to prayer about my fear of failure, and see what God's up to. For now, I'm just going to be grateful that I'm here in this beautiful city, studying what I love once again. There's definitely a reminder here that God gives and he takes away, and I'm very grateful for what he has given right now. Even if that's all I'm to learn from this whole crisis, that's a pretty darn good lesson to walk away with. Thank you God!

Hope everyone has a great year, let's get stuck in.

Jo x

FUSED 2013 - A Quick Recap

Well well well, it's been a while since I've done a proper big blog post here, hasn't it? It's been a pretty busy summer, but that isn't really an excuse. I guess I just haven't had much to say until recently. But that changes today, because today I'm going to write about FUSED. If you know me well, you'll know that for the past four years I have been a leader at a summer scheme in my home town called FUSED. This year, as well as helping out with the Adventurers (kids age 8-11) most days where I worked previously; I had the privilege of actually being a co-section leader of the Swifts (the youngest group) along with my best friend / adoptive big brother Adam Leahy. Leahy is a fantastic guy and a joy to work with. And I hope he's not reading this right now or his ego will inflate like a balloon and he won't let me hear the end of it! We had a fantastic team to  boss around  work with, big shout out to Zoe, James, Megan, Hannah, Cara and Jenny. These guys exceeded expectations despite their young age (most of them were around 16) and were great leaders, both Adam and I felt so blessed to be working with such great people. 

They let us two be in charge, whoops.

Adam Leahy

The fantastic 'Swifts', leaders and kids

If you don't know exactly what FUSED is, here is a video I made to explain it. Incidentally, this video is technically my first ever film under the name 'Joyful Mourne Media' which is exciting, but I'll blog about that more later - 

FUSED 2013 from Joyful Mourne on Vimeo.

I'll just let that video explain what goes on at FUSED. But in writing I can get down to the more nitty gritty stuff. FUSED this year was crazy. Each group has two sessions a day, usually in the afternoon and evening. Swifts, however, has only one session a day, in the morning, allowing me and a few other leaders to take part in another group as well. Three sessions a day was exhausting, I hardly had time to stop and think, but it was good. I would have hated to miss out on helping out with the Adventurers this year, so it was great to go back there with the usual team. 

And the kids, oh how I love those kids! They are so enthusiastic and excited to come back every year which is such an encouragement to see! They clamber over you and give you odd nicknames (a new one for me this year was 'Kangaroo') and attempt to get piggy backs and draw you pictures and they are just the best things ever! This year they seemed more curious than ever, kids that seem so young and innocent ask such hard hitting questions that leave us humbled, and it's just crazy to see how hungry they are for learning more about God. Over 20 youth gave their lives to Christ this summer at FUSED, which is so exciting!! I know numbers shouldn't be something to focus on, and I can tell you that that is not what we focus on, but it's still wonderful news and I am so excited for them all. Keep those kids in your prayers as they start their new lives with God! 

I always find FUSED a very humbling experience. There are days in it every year when I feel like absolute crap, if I'm honest. It's a fortnight of spiritual warfare, when I can always feel like I'm being attacked at my weak points. But I always come out the other end stronger. FUSED is not only great for those kids, but it's a great experience for the leaders too, and I thank God for that. Having been as a youth before I was a leader, it's great being able to watch the programme grow from its early , humble beginnings to something so much bigger. I encourage you to support it in any way you can, whether its becoming a leader next year or even just keeping it in your prayers. FUSED is a beacon of hope in what have been a dark and scary few months in Newcastle, Co Down, and I thank God for it. 

Living on a Prayer

Well, as of about 24 hours ago I am back in Northern Ireland for my summer holiday. Second year of university is over. We're half way there! And now I've got 'Living on a Prayer' by Bon Jovi stuck in my head. Anyway... looking back on the year, it's been pretty crazy! I payed bills for the first time in my life, that was very scary and grown up and I didn't like it at all! I made a few films with university, one of which I'm pretty proud of and you can watch and read about here. I took lots of photographs too, and wrote a good few essays. It's been a big learning curve in university, I've discovered what I'm good at and what I'm not good at, which has been a very interesting experience. I did lots of fun stuff like go to the zoo, visit people in England, take a surprise trip home, host a messy flat party, go to other messy flat parties and lots more stuff! Hmmm... what else did I do? Oh yeah, I started going to Central, a church in the centre of Edinburgh, and there I got convinced to sign up for Potential, only the best fellowship I've ever had... like ever!! 

Now any one who knows me well knows that I am a very sentimental/mushy person. And if you didn't know that, well, you're about to find out. You've been warned. 

When I first signed up for Potential, I have to admit I was skeptical. It was an all girls Bible study, and yes, the Bible is great, but all girls? That's a bit risky, eh? We all know what girl groups can be like, there's all the potential for cliques to emerge, for cat fights to break out etc etc. It seemed only natural! Like many I imagine, I personally have not had a good history of being in groups of girls. I'll not bore you with all the details but I have pretty much always found myself on the outside of groups of girls, never quite sure where I stood, feeling pretty left out. So when I signed up for Potential I assumed it would be much of the same story. To use the phrase made famous by Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit: I have never been so wrong!

As soon as I turned up on the first week I knew that I was going to get along really well with these girls, but still for the first few weeks I waited for the cliques to emerge, for groups to start making friends around me, but to my delight, it never happened. Very quickly we became a giant close-knit group of friends, who were constantly encouraging and building each other up. We studied the Bible together, prayed for each other, and had an awful lot of laughs at the same time! I was welcomed into this group with open arms, and always felt so loved whenever I walked into that kitchen every Tuesday night. And I wasn't the only one! Any of the other girls I talked to about their experience of it agreed that they loved this fellowship. One thing I loved about it was that girls who only turned up once or twice were treated no differently from girls who had been every week. That's brilliant. Turns out not all girl groups have to involve a negative experience, in fact, they they can be quite the opposite!

I'm very grateful for Potential and all the girls there right now. Through all that support and community,  I believe I have grown a lot this year, in both confidence, maturity, and my faith. I've begun to face a lot of my fears, some I didn't even realise I had before, some that have been really dragging me down for years and years. But all that is starting to get better! Without them I don't think I would have had the courage or determination to get up in front of 400ish people and tell my testimony and get baptised. I feel I have a lot better of an understanding of what God wants me to do with my life, and I'm slowly beginning to sort myself out, to start changing for the better, so that I may do that. 

To the Potential girls reading this right now, I guess I just wanted you to know how grateful I am for you. You guys are are amazing, God is doing awesome things through you all! You all have become very important to me. Keep being those wonderful ladies you are. I love you and miss you! Thank you for a great year and I'm excited for starting a new one with you all as my friends!! Now trust me, I could write pages and pages more on how great you all are and how much you make me laugh and how you've helped me etc etc but there's only so much cheesy stuff I can write in one post before I just turn into a massive block of mozzarella or something. So I'll leave it here. But yeah, I love you guys. Thank you.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5:13