03 Back to School but moving forward

Meanwhile, I was just about to complete my first year of the Eastgate School of Spiritual Life (ESSL). The timing of this strange condition was not lost on me. That it began soon after I began this spiritual course in October 2020, was no coincidence. The spiritual growth I was experiencing at this time was and continues to be intrinsically linked with this health condition.

I have been a born again Christian since my university days and I am now in my fifties. Early fifties, I hasten to add. But that journey has significant highs and lows and lacked the consistency that is conducive to spiritual maturity. I had the type of personality that loses confidence when it see the waves and becomes uprooted by the cares of the world. Religion, guilt and unworthiness were woven into my life tapestry. Six years at Eastgate were steadily unpicking that week by week.

I found acceptance and freedom.

Freedom quickly became the hallmark of my worshipping experience at Eastgate but I struggled to grasp the reality of it in my daily life. Something was still missing. If my Eastgate experience was the steady dripping of God’s truth for me, then ESSL was a full on burst water main. I was seriously getting soaked in the truth of God’s Kingdom reality in me to facilitate a heavenly environment. And it was intensive. Eight hours weekly on Fridays was intense, but I barely noticed because I was so thirsty. Even social distancing, mouthing and humming worship songs and zoom sessions did not limit the impact.

I started to not only embrace my God given Royal Identity – thank you Dave Webster, I was starting to live it out. I began to live my life as a Royal Daughter of the King, unconditionally accepted and loved, without clutching onto guilt and failings like you do with luggage at an airport. Though I always knew this was my truth, it was not really a consistent daily lived experience for me. Rather, it ebbed and flowed according to the storms of life.

Pete Carter has an incredible gift of expounding scriptural truth in such a way that the revelation feels like no one ever thought of it that way before. My eyes were opened to the blessings of Kingdom Culture here on earth in a new way which did not include jumping through hoops to be even a teeny bit good enough. Pete did a lot of teaching on faith and I began to understand it as meaning trusting in God. Did I truly trust God? Did I really understand what it meant to completely trust God? What did trusting God look like in my life? These questions began to be woven into the tapestry of my journey in ways I could not imagine at that time.

Discovering that expressing our worship and encountering God through art, cooking, dancing, writing are acceptable and good – thank you KW. Understanding biblical theology with real life application, as well as appreciation for film analogies and Johnny Cash references – thank you DC. Connecting with scripture in numerous ways including audio Bibles and YouTube – thank you KC. Learning to develop my prophetic listening skills has been both fun and a blessing – thank you IN and SV.

My gratitude and thanks to all the ESSL team and my Courageous Connect Group buddies. The funny thing was that I was already doing many of these things that were being taught but I never truly believed that my efforts were good enough.

There were countless memorable sessions that first ESSL year but one that impacted me a lot, was the one that Dave Webster did in April 2021 on making declarations. That weekend I not only wrote out my personal declarations but also ones I longed to see fulfilled in my family and community.