I had a Revelation

Hi all,

I'm loving YWAM so much. I think I've met my people here....

Honestly, I've never felt more comfortable with friends before until I came to YWAM. All the ladies and gentlemen I've met in my DTS have shown me what real friendships can look like. They have also shown me what a friendship is like when you're all pursing God together. It changes a friendship. I've never been so vulnerable with people before until I met these awesome people. And I feel like I've known my new friends for years and its only been like 2 week. They're family now. 

I also get the pleasure of enjoying the beach and all the awesome things Mexico has to offer. Like Mexican blankets. I mean come on people Mexican blanket are so colorful and awesome.

We also get the pleasure to have AMAZING speakers every week. This week we are talking about the Father Heart of God. Our speaker is crazy good. I can really connect with his way of teaching. He loves to tell us about real life stuff. Like situations he's been through or his friends have been through and he bring it all back to the Father Heart of God. I just can connect with how passionate he is. Anyway, I've been having trouble in  lecture feeling like God wasn't speaking to me. Last week I just felt like God really wasn't speaking a revelation to me but holy moly He did speak a revelation to me today. One part of todays lecture our speaker talked about two things that satan takes away from us the first being our identity and the second being our relationship with God. I wrote that down in my notebook and continued to listen to the speaker. I didn't really process what I had written down until I sat down with my one-on-one. My one-on-one (Sky) asked me what had stood out to my during lecture today and I immediately thought about the two things that satan takes away from us, our identity and our relationship with God. I started talking to Sky and processed that for such a long time I was letting satan rule my life. I allowed satan to take my identity away and I allowed satan to distort how I viewed myself. I have struggled with self esteem since elementary school. Since than I allowed satan to tell me who I am and how beautiful I was. I allowed satan to tell me who I am and I allowed him to rule over my self esteem. As I was saying this to Sky I was also processing all the times I allowed satan to tell me who I was, I was processing how much of my life I've wasted on trying to convince myself that I wasn't beautiful or I wasn't worth it because satan took away my identity. I also allowed satan to take away my relationship with Christ. I always thought there was a God, but when I would really try to think about God I always felt doubt. I always allowed myself to believe what the devil was saying about God rather than trying to combat the devil. Sometimes the devil can be so convincing. I've experienced that for a big chunk of my life. Today, though, I felt God finally grip me and say,"Lauren, you see, you allowed the devil to take Me and your identity away from you. Change. Start new, you're a new creation." What a stinking revelation. After I realized that I'm not going to allow satan to dictate who I am anymore I felt such a relief. Like I can finally start to build my confidence IN CHRIST. I feel new. I also feel like its finally time for me to be baptized because I'm ready for God to take a hold of my life and change me for the better. I'm so thankful for YWAM and that I had the opportunity to finally have a revelation in Christ. THIS IS AWESOME!!

Also just soak in how cute the DTS team is...can't wait to amazing things with these people! 

Talk to you all soon, 

Lauren