Hello everyone!
Sorry that it's been awhile since I've last given you an update of what's been going on in my life the past month. Honestly, there has been so much that has happened, that I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to write before now.
Before I get started with updating everyone on what has gone on the past month, I want to give God praise first. By the amazing grace and goodness of God, I am fully funded for my outreach phase! I owe nothing more for the school or outreach phase and I am so completely thrilled to see the wonderful friends and family that God has placed in my life to support me financially. If you were one of those people who donated towards my school and outreach fees, THANK YOU! You are more of a blessing to me than you will ever know, and every cent and dollar given from y'all was never too small. You are so loved and I can't thank you enough, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
So, it's been roughly about a month since I've written my last newsletter and I can't even begin to know where to start, but know that the most important thing you need to know is that God is so good! I think that this past month has been the most growth for me and I've been the most vulnerable in front of my peers here than I ever have before (honestly, praise God!).
For our school lectures, we have 11 weeks of speakers coming in for a week at a time, talking about specific topics. The first 6 weeks were centered more on ourselves and ridding anything in our lives and in our hearts that prevented us from fully surrendering to Him and to learn more how to love God and have a deeper relationship with Him. As we began to go into our last five weeks, we've been learning more on how to have a heart for the nations and for the lost ones in general.
Over the past few weeks since transitioning our focus from us and God to the nations, we've been learning how to worship spontaneously and using the Word of God to sing our hearts to Him; we've learned more about having a Biblical worldview; and we've learned about having a true desire to go out in the nations, but believing that the Spirit is with us to reach to those who need to hear His Word and His love.
It's been a crazy month in the best way possible. I have been learning more about the walls that I have put up around my heart that I hadn't realized were there in my relationship with God. For those who have known me this past year or have followed my journey through social media, you have seen my excitement in saying "yes" to going wherever God wants me to go, but I hadn't realized just how nervous I was to do that, especially when I am not sure exactly what God has for me next or where to go once our Discipleship Training School comes to an end. I realized that I wasn't necessarily scared of saying yes or going [side note: I have actually received a prophetic word about my life that was a picture of me being obedient to go wherever God wanted me to go and do whatever He wanted me to do, with absolute joy. I believe this to be 100% true for me and my personality - being a vessel for the Lord brings me a lot of excitement!], I was more scared that God wouldn't use me or use the talents that He's given me to give Him glory.
However, I'm learning more and more over the past few weeks that, first of all, of COURSE God wants to use me, and, yes, He cares about the desires of my heart and has given me the talents and gifts He has given me for a reason, but if my desires or my gifts prevent me from giving ALL of the glory to God, then it's fruitless. For those of you who know me, you know that I absolutely love to sing and I love singing for the Lord. Yet, I've realized that there are always some creeping thoughts from the enemy and my flesh that desire to have some glory for myself as well. I want people to know me and know that I am talented. Lately I have been feeling as though I am not good enough with my talents and I've found myself comparing myself to others with their talents and giftings, that I've tried to do all that I could for people to notice me and for them to say something affirming about my voice. Most of the time people haven't. And there are times when I notice that I am thinking about myself instead of thinking only of God, I try to refocus my attention, and a lot of times I am able to kick the enemy out of my head so that I can give God all of the glory. But there was a moment last week where I told God that if He wanted me to give up singing, I would do it in a heartbeat so that I can be sure that my attention is only on Him and that He is the ONLY One to Whom I give all of the glory.
I am constantly amazed about what comes up over the course of my time here. Things that have come up to the surface of my heart to the point where I break down in tears, are things that I never knew I struggled with. My struggle with giving God all of the glory in my music, and my fear of God not using me for the advancement of His kingdom are just two of many things that have surfaced but I have placed it at the foot of the cross and I am so thankful for this pruning and refining process. God is tearing down walls and inhibitions and is allowing me to become truly authentic with Him and with my teammates. I know that this is for my benefit as it's preparing me to go into the Philippines without anything holding me back and to use what I have surrendered as part of my testimony to reach to those who may need to hear it while we're on outreach.
Am I rearin' and ready to go to the Philippines in exactly 15 days? I'm honestly not sure, but ready or not, we're going and I believe that God is going to do incredible things for the people in the Philippines. What I am excited for is to see how God is going to move there and how He is going to use our team to share His love with people.
What you can be praying for myself and for my outreach team is to give us a peace as we're getting ready to leave soon for the Philippines. We're also feeling a little bit anxious as the enemy is putting lies into our heads about how we are not good enough or that we wouldn't be an asset to our team, so I would love for your prayers in this as well! It also turned out that each of us on our team has to write a 7500 word sermon to prepare to share with the churches we'll be at, and praise God I am finished, but I would love your prayers that the words I have written are all from God and that it's all based off of the truth from His Word. Prayers also that my other team members would not feel anxious about writing these sermons and that God would inspire the words that they write down, so that we can speak in absolute truth when we share in the churches.
There's a lot of talk of what are possibilities of what we will do in the Philippines, and it's not 100% clear yet, but from talking with my team and outreach leaders, we will be ministering in a lot of schools, churches, and going to orphanages to love on the children there in Manila. Continued prayers for preparation and that we would have a heart for the people in the Philippines would be so greatly appreciated and loved!
Thank you for following along and for interceding on my behalf through prayers! If you have any questions, please let me know and I'd be happy to talk more about it with you. My email address is l.s.benedict08@gmail.com, and if you would like to call me, let me know in the email if you don't already have my number!
On the walk with you,
Lydia Summer
PS - the picture you see below is a picture of me with all of my team in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to in my life (Waipio Valley).
