Happy Birthday To Me

Hello family and friends!

I realize it is totally not cool that I haven’t posted more blogs lately and I’m sorry, but I am super excited for you guys to read this one! One, because the Lord continues to move my heart in such awesome ways and two, because I am a 23 year old writing this! Haha

In all honesty I was a bit nervous the closer the day of my birth was approaching. I always get so spoiled by family and friends back in the states. I mean come on who else has got their car sticky noted completely for their birthday? Haha I was afraid I would be overwhelmed by how much I would think about everyone in Texas so much. And believe me friends, I missed everyone a ton, but I still felt your presence so closely in my heart as I experienced my first birthday out of the states. There is no other explanation for how great my day was besides that our God is just that good. So here was my birthday, Herrnhut Y.W.A.M. style!

So keep this in mind. Our speaker for the week, Dan Bowman spoke a lot on how personal the Lord is and told multiple stories about how the Lord wants to provide us with even the smallest things that make us smile and how it is all about loving God. During lecture the day before my birthday a friend nudged me and was like “you better start praying for what you want for your birthday!”. So I did. I asked for a few small things. I didn’t tell anyone any of the things I prayed for. I got every single thing I specifically asked for and then some.

I woke up like I do every morning when it is still dark to do my work duty. I listened to my podcast series I am currently going through about the book of Genesis. I swept and mopped the floors. Threw the trashes, put the dishes away and wiped down counters. Then I was baracaded in my room by my flat mates as they took over the kitchen. So, I turned up some Lecrae and got dressed for my day. Finally, I was “allowed” out of my room. With my eyes closed they led me into the kitchen. I opened my eyes to all of my flat mates along with an extra was crammed into our tiny kitchen. I couldn’t hold back the tears as they began to sing happy birthday. I’ve only known these girls for a couple of months and they did all this for me! A homemade birthday sign hung from corner to corner of the kitchen and the table was set with waffles, scones, Nutella, fruit, drinks and CINNAMON ROLLS! It was awesome! We never use our waffle maker to actually make waffles. We usually toast bread in it because we have no toaster haha. AND, one of the things I specifically prayed for was a cinnamon roll! I had no idea they were doing all this. It was great having a family breakfast before lecture! They all signed a card and wrote birthday wishes on a hand illustrated birthday card. It was blowing my mind! I read birthday wishes in German, Spanish, English, and Irish! It took me a bit because translation was required haha They also gave me a Muppets chocolate advent calendar. Apparently chocolate advent calendars are a big deal here? I had never seen one haha. You get to eat a piece of chocolate every day of advent. I thought it was the coolest thing ever! Haha We finally rushed out the apartment to start our walk to the castle. We were running a bit late, but I didn’t mind at all. I was content with my beer stein filled with chai latte and walking through the beautiful leaves of the forest as the SUN SHINED brightly through the branches. The last couple of weeks have been filled with gray skies and have been super cold. I prayed that Jesus would let the sun shine for my birthday ;) Sometime during the walk home I thought to myself oh my gosh it would be so awesome if they played Lecrae over the speakers in the tent today! Then I thought, nah that would never happen. Hardly anyone here even knows who Lecrae is, much less like it enough to allow it in the tent. We swiped our cards in and snuck into the tent. We had an awesome intercession time with the entire school praying for Florid M.O.T.A. (A new Y.W.A.M. base in Florida is coming soon. You should apply! Haha) At the end the entire tent sang happy birthday to me. It was quite awkward actually haha One of my friends even tweaked her back as she attempted to pick me up on her shoulders haha. We were released to go to our photo track time. I lingered a little longer talking to some of the music students. As I began to walk out of the tent a Lecrae song began to blare over the speakers in the tent!!!!! I turned, dropped all of my stuff and danced it out with a few friends haha Present number two from God. Haha I took my shoes off in the shoe room and walked up stairs to our photo room. We dug into some photo editing stuff in Photoshop. The day before my birthday I thought to myself. “Oh, man Tabea let me have a sip of here London Fog, that would be so good to grab at the café tomorrow.” As our photo lesson finished one of my friends on staff turned to me and said “Hey Allie, do you want a drink from the café? Anything you want.” I am sure I had a very dorky grin on my face as I hesitated and then said yeah I asked God for a london fog! She smiled and laughed and said “Good. I asked God what I could get you for your birthday and he said a drink from the café”. Present number 3! Haha YES! I thoroughly enjoyed my drink as I sat in lecture. Before we started we had to turn to the person beside us and talk about a few things that God had been teaching us that week in lecture. So I discussed with a friend. Then we talked about what we wanted to learn more about and wanted God to give us more revelation. I said I want to be more confident that I am His daughter and learn more about hearing God’s voice and how he speaks to me specifically. So we begin lecture. The speaker says, we are going to talk about decision making and about hearing God’s voice. Cool, another present! In the words of Dan Bowman, “Go God!” haha. Throughout the day I got chocolate, candy and wonderful notes wishing me happy birthday! We even had my favorite castle dish for lunch! =) I was a bit of an emotional baby the entire day. Tears came when I saw my mom’s facebook status, a few friends sent me an awesome Voxer message and my daddy sent me the sweetest text ever! I definitely felt the love from back home all over social media and through text messages. Later that night I had such a great time having dinner at a friends house with ice cream for dessert!

I may sound lame, but it was seriously such a magical day. haha I am in Germany falling in love with God and am learning so much about appreciating the smallest things. I think I was smiling constantly the entire day! My heart was so happy. So the biggest thing I prayed for, besides that my mommy would magically appear in Herrnhut waiting at my doorstep with a big hug, is that He give me a deeper revelation that I am his daughter. I’ve learned that knowing who we are in Christ and that our identity is completely found in that I am a child of God is where the genuine peace, freedom, joy and authority comes from in our lives. So I am constantly asking for more! The more I know who God is, the more I know who I am and the more I can share with others! I was expecting a huge breaking point moment where I was weeping on my knees and just so overwhelmed with God. Yeah that didn’t happen, but I was definitely rooted deeper in His love through all the smallest things on my birthday. Before dinner one of my friends prayed and said “Jesus, you celebrate our lives every day as if it is our birthday, but thank you that today us as your creations we can come along side Allie and celebrate with you”.  Our God loves us unconditionally. We can’t do anything to make Him love us more and we can’t do anything to make him love us less. He just loves us. He boasts in us. The creator of the universe brags on us when we take steps toward Him! How cool is that?! He has given me this revelation filled with joy, peace and confidence that allows me to walk in this insane freedom! So yeah, I had a wonderful birthday =) haha

I am excited for our last few weeks of lecture and the little time we have left in Herrnhut.

REJOICE my friends. We have an awesome Father who loves you more than you can dream of.

The day I received my birthday packages from home! =) I was one happy girl! 

My flat mates at Love feast =)