Seven girls from the church travelled to St. Albans for the Vineyard ladies conference. God blessed us so much and his presence was there in all of the conversations we had together. I remember after our first chat thinking "God, you’ve spoken to me already through the girls and the conference hasn’t started yet!"
We got around to talking about our names, meanings and what we would like to be called. We discussed how God can give us new names and someone said, “Wouldn't it be funny if this subject came up at the conference. Then we would know God was really talking to us”. I’d forgotten about all of this by the 2nd day until Adie, (the speaker), stood up and said, "I am talking about naming and names".
There was a collective gasp and open mouth moment from us and then God really had our attention!!
She talked about how important names are and how God can change them. For example Sarai – to — Sarah meaning "My princess, mother of nation". She underlined how powerful naming things in ourselves can be and how much of a blessing naming things in each other can be too.
We gathered as a group with each of us excited to name things they saw in one another… great courage, strength, compassion, the gift of friendship, mothers heart… as well as things we felt God wanted to develop in us. It was such an awesome time! Some things were surprising to hear but so encouraging.
This was an encounter God had ordained from the beginning of the weekend and we were all blessed. As you can imagine there wasn't a dry eye in the room as God touched each person. Women encouraging other women - what a sweet sound!
So my challenge to you, if you see something in someone, name it, speak it out. They may be surprised to hear it but they will be blessed!!!!
Niki McKenzie
0 comments:
Post a Comment