Hearing God's Voice

The second week of lecture was rather intense!!! The topic of the week was hearing God's voice. On wednesday the speaker, Donna Jordan, asked us to write down anything that could be hindering us from hearing from God...things like unforgiveness, false statements against us, sin, all kinds of things...I had a page front and back. On thursday we went out to Gideon's Field for a bon-fire. We actually put those things in the fire...at the foot of the Cross. It was an extremely frustrating process for me, that did not really help me to feel free like it was intended. The rest of that day was hell...the enemy was attacking me from every angle...my self-worth, whether or not I should be here, all kinds of things. On friday we were given a classmate that we were supposed to ask God what He wanted to tell that person through me, and we were to ask God about yourself as well. When I asked God what He thought of me I could hear nothing of Him...only garbage. When I asked Him about my classmate, Esther, He gave me the words to tell her. So we go back to the group and we have to share with everybody what we got for the other person. The guy who had me said that he got that God wanted me to slow down and trust His timing. I thought that was applicable so I went and got the paper from him and went back to my chair and started to tell the group what God gave me for Esther. Donna stopped me and said "wait, I think He has more for you." So she asked God what He wanted me to hear through them. The first thing that she said was that I was not to be called Bushby anymore...she asked what my full name was and I told her Christine Hope...she said she felt that God wanted me to be called Hope! (2 of the leaders here had said that day or the day before that they did not feel i should be called Bushby anymore) Of course I immediately started crying, but my classmates had heard so much...it was like popcorn all over the room....2 people had a vision that I was standing on top of a hill as a conquerer, someone had a vision of a feather floating from place to place and impacting those places, but making my home in Christ, that He was my shelter and protector...someone had a vision of a yellow rose (which is a symbol of Hope), someone said that they felt God saying that I carried so much pain and that He just wanted me to let it go (she was probably the 8th person in 10 days to say something to me about letting go w/o being prompted)..someone else had a vision of a walnut cracking and growing into a beautiful tree...someone else said that God wanted me to know that I was supposed to be here @ this DTS and that I was important part of this school....IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!! It was amazing to see how faithful God is...when I could not hear Him for myself about myself He prompted my classmates to speak to me! WOW!!!