Adventure About My Mobile Phone

   Here's a cool, miraculous story: So, back in March or so the Lord gave me the gift of my first ever touchscreen phone. It wasn't the nicest one ever, but I liked it. It's a Samsung Comet: http://www.newphones.org/t-mobile-comet-entry-level-android-phone/

   Anyway, I had it for a few months and began to get REALLY addicted to it! I mean, I was on it ALL the time playing a game or something like that. It was not good; I fully admit to it. I even allowed it to take away from my prayer time! How awful. Anyway, when I went home in July, in the middle of my stay I heard the Holy Spirit say, "I should never have given you that phone."
My response was, "No! Don't take my phone away! I'm sorry!"
Then I thought, "Maybe that wasn't actually the Lord; maybe it was just me" and ignored it. Honestly, I didn't really know what to do with that anyway.
   THREE days later my phone went kaput. Literally, the night before it was working fine, then the next day it would NOT charge at all. It died. So, I took it to a store to get it fixed and the guy said it was the charge port and he had to order a part but that I'd get it back within a couple days. When I went back to get it, he said, "Sorry, we couldn't fix it. It's completely broken. There is no fix to this phone."

    I was so upset cause that meant I had to go buy a cheap phone again (which cost money) and I really liked that phone! It was so irritating. I knew right then and there that the Lord was disciplining me and He was the one who took it away, but I didn't tell anyone, I was too embarrassed.

  So, got a cheap phone and put the other phone into a drawer in my room. When I came up here I had forgotten to pack that drawer that had a lot of stuff I needed, so my mom sent me a box with it all, but I didn't open it right away. When my sister and I moved into our new house, she, our new roommate & I decided to go without internet in our house to save money. I didn't realize how much stuff I do online until I didn't have internet at the house! And since I don't have my own car it's really hard for me to make sure I'm able to go somewhere to check email, send email, update my blog etc, so I found out that with my TMobile plan (unfortunately I'm unable to get a free upgrade) I am able to go pay a small downpayment on a phone and then pay a small fee every month to pay it off.
   When I heard this my inital thought was, "Awesome! Yay! I can get a smart phone again!" With a smart phone I'd be able to hook it up to my laptop and use the phone's internet for my computer; then I'd be able to have internet at the house and anywhere else!
So, I went and picked out a phone. But as soon as I got it I felt my belly turn inside out. Anyone know what feeling I'm talking about? I started worrying, "It's not a huge amount extra, but can I really afford this extra every month? Should I really assume I'll be able to pay it?"
    The guy said I had 14 days to bring it back so I decided to take some time praying about it. I really really liked the phone! It was way nicer than the comet, but I couldn't shake the fear of having to pay it off. As I prayed about it the Lord said, "You can keep it, if you really want to. OR you can let Me give you one in MY timing." Soooo, I took it back.

    A couple days later from taking it back my cheap phone started dying!!! When I would open it, it would show a white screen. "What in the world?! What am I going to do?"  
See, it's not that I am someone who is completely unable to have a phone; I've gone without my cell phone before, on purpose. BUT here, IHOPU sends texts and emails a lot AND I don't have my own car so have to consistently find rides; so it's pretty much a need.
   So, that same day, I was opening up that box my mom sent me and I found the Comet that I had left in that drawer. I had a random thought (totally the Holy Spirit nudging me), "How awesome would it be if this phone worked again." So, I decided to try it, but before I did I prayed, "Lord, I am really sorry for what I did and for becoming addicted to this phone. I have learned my lesson. So I ask right now that You would fix this phone. That when I plug it in it would work as though it never stopped, in Jesus' name."

    Then I plugged it in and it started to charge!! And it charged fully and works perfectly fine now!!
Awesome, Wonderful, Holy Father!

   Here is a question to ponder: what is an addiction in your life that you may be putting before the Lord? Something that you are allowing to come in between you and your prayer time? Maybe it's not even an addiction yet, but something that could easily go that way. Movies? Music? Your cell phone? Video Games?
If anything comes to mind, I lovingly suggest that you put it aside; go cold turkey for a while and use that time for the Lord instead and just see what the Lord does in your life and the changes you will see!!


 I love you all. God bless you!
Prayer Request: Please pray that I may be able to pay rent by the first!
 

My House

Here's my new house that I'm renting. It's cute. Going to get a fresh paint job soon. :)

Kenzi, my absolutely gorgeous dog ;) ,in our backyard

The back of the house

Our HUGE backyard. YES, there is a chair in the backyard. That comfy chair I told you about had begun to mold from being outside in the rain, SO we put it out in the sun to dry it out and it worked!! :)

Back to School

   Well, folks, I'm a student again. AGAIN!! I honestly never thought that I would be going back to school ever again. Thinking about how I used to think makes me laugh. It has not gone the way I planned in any way, shape or form. LOL. Isn't that usually how it goes? That's why it's so important to follow the Lord and the path HE lays out for us and not our own; not work with our own strength. My strength just does basically no good.
    I started classes on Monday and they've been going pretty well. Surprisingly enough I'm actually enjoying them, (of course, it is just the beginning of school and we haven't had any tests yet.) My schedule is pretty busy, but I'll get used to it I'm sure. When I'm not in class I'm either at the prayer room or I have to practice guitar or keyboard. For guitar class we're required to practice 6 hours a week outside of class! I'm kind of amazed at that. That's more practice than I've ever done before and it's not the type of practice I've been doing. Usually I practice my chords by playing a song or I write a song and play it several times. But now I'm having to practice finger exercises, or practice going between two-three chords over and over and over. I kinda feel like I'm in that Hillary Duff movie, "Raise Your Voice", or any other movie where they go to music school; Except a HUGE difference is here in every class we focus on the Lord and we also have theology classes.
    For example, I have keyboard class on M/W/F and one of the things we'll have to do is play and sing through a verse... seperately, or just sing prophetically while we're playing (aka sing whatever the Holy Spirit gives you.) This isn't a new concept to me, but it'll be very new being made to do it in front of other people! Oh Lord give me confidence in You! I consistently have to remember that it's not at all about impressing anyone around me, but worshiping & praising Him.
   
   So, here's another lesson learned: during orientation we got assessed for them to decide which level of our primary instrument they were going to put us in. I said that whole week before, "I may not be great at guitar, but I've been playing for 4 years, they better not put me in level 1!"  Then when I got assessed I was so nervous I messed up things that I haven't messed up on in years, and... he put me in level 1. I was so upset by this that I almost cried (although my allergies were acting up and so my eyes were watering so several people thought I was crying anyway.  lol.) Pride comes before the fall. I ended up going back and asking him what they teach in level 1 and if he would reassess me in class so to see if I really need to be in level 2. Guess what? I'm staying in level 1.
    I realized afterward that I was so offended at being put in level 1, so obviously my heart posture was not right. I really think that it was the Lord who put me there, and now I'm okay with it. I realized it'll just cause me to have a better foundation and though he's going over things that my WONDERFUL guitar teacher, Claire Domingue ( http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Claire-Domingue/23888383824 ) had already taught me there are a lot of things I did not practice enough cause I didn't like it or wasn't good at it. lol.
So, Praise the Lord, I am going to have a better foundation in guitar which will cause me to be better in the end and hopefully have more confidence.

    Every M/W/F we also have our worship team sets. Every student of FMA from 1st yr 2nd semester up to 4th years are put on a student led worship team as a class, but it's pretty much run the same way the GPR (Global Prayer Room- link at bottom of page) is run. It's a 4 hr block with two teams and one team will play for 2 hrs while the other team engages with either worship with the word or intercession, then the other team plays while the first team who played sits down and engages as though in the prayer room. I was thinking that since it's my first time ever to be even on some type of worship team playing an instrument that they'd let me sit out and watch for a bit or sing as a group (background) singer before actually playing my guitar, but no, I got thrown up there the very first day to play my guitar. It was SO nervewracking!!
    Thankfully, the worship team leader of the team I got placed on is actually a friend of mine (Praise the Lord) and she was SO helpful to me; my other teammates were very helpful as well. But one of the annoying things was that one of the main chords she kept playing was a Bm, which is a bar chord on a guitar (for those who don't know what that is, I'll just say it's pretty hard to play until you get it down.) Unfortunately, I haven't got my bar chords down yet so I still take time getting to them and everything. Embarrassing.
   But, I kept drawing my mind back to seeing this as worship time and I LOVE worshiping the Lord with my guitar! That really helped, and in the end I actually had a lot of fun! Besides, everyone there knew I had never done this before so they all had grace for me. After our session, I was surprised by the Lord with a bit of candy: in our debriefing when I walked in our coach (who is a worship leader at the GPR- nervewracking to play in front of him, btw) purposefully asked me my name again and said, quite sincerely, "You did a good job, Susan." :)  I was rather shocked that he said that! Maybe he was just being encouraging, but it was such a nice thing to hear from someone I've been watching do this on stage for the past 6 months!

   Anyway, as I said before, I will be posting photos of my new home soon, but we're still unpacking, so I may wait until things look nice.
I love you all and hope you enjoy this blog!
May the Lord bless your day and fill it with all His joy & love and may you have fun with Him today.
Today, ask Him, "Lord, what do you think of me today?" And see what He says. Boy, does He love love love love you!!! :D

He is Never Late

    Here is my first blog ever, unless you count Facebook or Myspace... but I'm not. I feel like I always have so much to share about my goings on at the International House of Prayer of Kansas City (IHOP-KC) and so it's just much easier for me to blog about it and let you know that it's been updated (or you can even subscribe) instead of sending a mass email every month. :) I feel as though the past month was almost like a rest stop (though it wasn't very restful) and now I'm back in the race. The past month was crazy busy for me so anyone that I was unable to see while I was back in Houston I apologize. It doesn't mean that I didn't want to!! I miss you all very much and continue to keep you in my prayers.

   Getting back to Kansas City was a particularly interesting adventure! The Lord has been teaching me a LOT about waiting on Him and being patient and trusting. The past month I was raising monthly support, and, though I was able to raise some money (thank you so much to all my supporters!), by the beginning of August I did not have enough to come back to IHOP-KC for school (the Forerunner Music Academy), not enough to live on monthly, and not even a place to live when I arrived! I will completely admit that I was pretty much freaking out and yet consistently giving it all to the Lord. Sometimes, that's all we can do, instead of taking it into our own hands- not that I didn't try to a couple times. lol.

   I prayed about staying back at home and coming in January instead after raising some more money but that wasn't what the Lord wanted me to do. So, I basically had to decide to trust even more and I said, "Well, Lord, You're the One who told me to go, so even if it means living under a bridge. I'm going." This was something I had to repeat a few times. I must tell you though that He always responded with, "You're not going to live under a bridge, Beloved. I have a place for you."
Yet, when I got to Kansas City I still did not have a place to live. My mom and dad helped me get up here (getting more and more thankful for my parents every year) but my mother was going to leave a couple days after getting here and all my stuff was crammed in the back of our Yukon rental.

I was staying at a hotel with my mom, dog and bird and my sister was staying at a friends house. Before any of you ask, let me say that I prayed a lot about bringing my dog and bird. I even told the Lord that if He wanted me to get rid of them I would, but I knew He wasn't telling me that, and I was also willing  to (though I didn't want to) leave them at my parents; but I knew that He was asking me to trust Him for the whole kitten caboodle of my hearts desires; besides the fact that my sister and I had prayed together and got confirmation that we were to live together, in a house with my pets. So, I was not to give up just because this area isn't the most pet friendly place. Going through this has made me desire to be able to rent out to people and be a pet friendly place myself! lol.

  Anyway, so I got here, didn't have a place to stay, didn't have enough to pay for school and was just waiting on the Lord. My sister and I had knocked on every door possible and the only places we could go that allowed animals were 3 bedrooms, and we weren't able to afford that alone, but we didn't have a roommate.
At one point I was really freaking out, crying and asking the Lord, "What do you want me to do? What am I supposed to do?" Guess what He said:
"Nothing. Just trust Me."
So, the Sunday after getting here I said, "Ok then. I won't." And I didn't do anything anymore.

   That same day a friend of mine had given my number to someone looking for housing and that girl called me. I liked her immediately and I asked her some questions and was amazed to find that her answers showed that she had all the qualities my sister and I had prayed for in a roommate. So, we decided to meet up the next morning and see if we could go look at a house together.

In a whirlwind of Holy Spirit amazingness, we met up Monday morning, looked at a house a couple hours later and signed the lease that afternoon. It was so crazy awesome and the Lord just reminded me that He is NEVER late.
  It was such a God-thing: all three of us girls prayed that morning for the Lord's will. We prayed for favor with the Landlord and for many certain things to happen if this was the place we were to live. They all came true. The landlord had so much favor with us and even told us she had been praying for us (this is a house my sister had looked at in July.)
   So, we were able to get our house, but we didn't have any furniture. Praise the Lord that my wonderful mother bought us a couch cause we found one for a good price, but we didn't (don't still) have many other things.  We decided to focus on thanking the Lord for what we have and for what He's going to give us. A day later someone gave us a kitchen table. Yay! Also, I was thanking the Lord for the big, comfy chairs He was/is going to provide and a couple days later we drove by a big, comfy leather chair on the side of the road! It's a start. :)

  So, I was very ecstatic to see the Lord come through, yet again, with our housing/living situation, but I was getting nervous about paying for school. Half the tuition was due on Thursday!!  Then on Wednesday, someone told me that he would pay the part that I was unable to pay! So, we went and got it done on Wednesday; the day before it was due. Praise the Lord!! I seriously need to stop worrying about finances!

Anyway, dear friends, I am here at International House of Prayer with a very busy schedule as a student/prayer missionary!
I will continue to update you and be posting photos of my house later. I love you all!

Prayer Requests:
Please pray for furniture for our house and continued financial provision. I have to pay monthly installments toward school every month as well as my housing/utilities and other bills.

Please pray for the Lord to teach me a lot, for my confidence to grow and for me to continue to fall more and more in love with Jesus every day!