Tetelestai

This week has been the rockiest I have ver experienced. On a daily basis I have gone from hearing God really clearly, to feeling like I have hit rock bottom. Every night I had to remind myself that hope would come in the morning. God has a funny way of preparing you for things. This weekend I attended the Passion Conference in Atlanta. It wasn't until the second day of being there that I realized that not only were we having sessions in the very room where I had been saved, it was also my spiritual birthday, January 17th. It amazed me all weekend that just as I was most looking for solid ground, He would bring me back to the place where it all began, where I knew I had something to stand on.
If you are wondering, "tetelestai" is the greek word that Christ said while dying on the cross, translated into English as "It is finished". The coolest thing about this word is it's tense: perfect past progressive, that means that the action is done and the effects are still taking place. As I learned from a song I wrote about last post, "it is finished" did not just mean that Christ's life on Earth was finished. It meant that He had finished Satan, and taken down all of the demons, and that all of my fears, and insecurities, and worries were finished too. This is what Loui Giglio spoke about on the very first night, and it was a wonderful reminder about what I heard from God last week.
All of the worship was amazing and powerful and it was wonderful. But I had a song stuck in y head all weekend that they never played, but all the same I sang it non-stop. If you haven't heard Good Father by Housefires, go and listen to it now. It is such a wonderful song, with a beautiful picture of God as a good Father. Over and over again, God kept pointing out lyrics of this song that said this or that about Him, and it was something that I could hold on to.
All of the speakers were wonderful, but the one who really got to me was Christine Caine. And, to be honest, the main point of her message wasn't what really hit me. (Now don't get me wrong, she spoke powerfully.) But as part of the beginning of her message, she talked about the calling of Elisha, and she started a little ahead of that story to talk about how after Elija had just killed 300 Baal profits, he received a message from Jezebel that was so discouraging that he turned and ran. She talked about how people now will still get messages from the depths of hell to discourage them from that God is doing. I quickly realized that that was what my last week had been. Every time God would speak love, the devil would speak hatred. For every "I love you" there was a "you are not good enough" and for every "I am with you" there was a "you are alone". After running from Jezebel, Elija went to a mountain, and then comes the story of the earth quake, the wind, and the fire, but God was in the gentle whisper. This brought me back a one to the Good Father lyrics, "I have heard the tender whisper of love in the dead of night, and You tell me that You're pleased, and that I'm never alone."
This was particularly comforting because I really did feel like I hit rock bottom this week, but the constant flow of love and hope at passion was undeniable.
This brings me to the thing that I have felt the most for the past week: alone. It was either that I really felt alone, or that I simply felt like there was no one I could tell that I was feeling so unloved. So, God blessed me with two wonderful things: three roomies who I know I can share anything with, and a wonderful family group that I could not have asked for more from. They said at the beginning of our first community group that God had placed us into these families by His will, and that He had a plan. He most certainly did. These eight people were all a perfect combination.

(Teniqua isn't pictured because she didn't want to lay down on the ground)

Who knew that I could meet brand new people and love them so quickly. They were all wonderful, and exactly what I need. We were people who met for the first time with the mindset of where are here to talk about Christ, instead of at home where you meet and then reach that point. I went from feeling very alone to feeling like I had just the right people there with me. It was so wonderful and really unexplainable. 

The love and the friendship and the fellowship and the good news flowed from every direction and hit me when I needed them most. 

the final lyrics to Good Father are "Love so deniable I can hardly speak, Peace so unexplainable, I can hardly think, yet You call me deeper still into love." 

All of my fears, doubts, and insecurities are finished, while they still may temporarily hurt, I know that they are ultimately Tetelestai. 

"You're a good, good Father, it's who you are, and I'm loved by You, and that's who I am."