Dear Friends and Family,
As many of you know that the past couple of months for me have not been easy. This school year has brought many new challenges and obstacles that I “get” to endure, as well as many personal losses that I have had to grieve. Because so much has happened this past season I feel like the best way to keep moving forward is to surround myself with some awesome people. Sooooo I have decided to go back to Ministry school! I will still be working for my same awesome company Drayer Physical Therapy and working at my local high school but I will be adding Bethel Atlanta School of Supernatural Ministry to the mix.
At the beginning of the year I wrote down three words that I wanted to claim for this year.
Restoration
Rejuvenation
Replenishing
These three words may be similar but to me mean very different things.
Restoration may be defined as: the return of a hereditary monarch to a throne, a head of state to government, or a regime to power. So to proclaim restoration over my life I want my strength, power, and identity back into alignment with Christ’s Kingdom.
Rejuvenation may be defined as: the action or process of making someone or something look or feel better, younger, or more vital. So to proclaim rejuvenation over my life I want to be more alive than ever before.
Replenishing may be defined as: fill up again. So to proclaim replenishing over my life I want to be continually filled up enough to be able to pour out continually.
After coming back from the Race I felt very drained, lifeless, and my identity was very shaken. It was a year long missions trip! Some people can relate if you’ve ever been on a short missions trip. It sometimes can be a bit messy and can take you a good month if not more to get back to normal if it wasn’t a good experience. So if you can try to think about a week experience vs. a year of that feeling than to say that I have felt drained for a while has been an understatement.
Don’t get me wrong the Lord has blessed me in many ways on and off the Race but I had never really felt like myself coming back from the Race until a couple of weeks ago. I wish I could describe the exact feeling of what the past almost 4 years has felt like but to put it as basic as possible it would be as if you were looking and listening through scratched up plexiglass instead of perfectly clean glass. With plexiglass you can still see if the outside is sunny and kinda see beautiful colors but the details are blurry and it’s very hard to hear clearly if someone is behind it talking. However with glass you can see clearly all colors, shapes, and what is going on outside as well as hear pretty good but if it’s muffled you can read lips so it’s all good. That’s kinda how the last 4 years has felt like I have viewed life through.
Since I’ve been seeing life through plexiglass for a while, I decided at the beginning of the year that devoting time to taking care of myself and learning what it means to be mentally healthy is a big part of what restoration, rejuvenation, and replenishing looks like. When you get home from the Race you’re not quite sure what to do with all of your experiences, relationships, hopes, dreams, life/world changing ideas, “processes”, race wounds, “feedbacks”, traumas, etc. that you just kinda forget about them, push them to the side, and keep on going. The Race does something to you mentally, emotionally, and physically that no one can be prepared for so it has been a huge part of my “3 R Journey”. After I started going to Christian counseling, I started to open up and let people in my life again. I also allowed myself to trust leaders again and I decided I was going to be unapologetically me again. By the beginning of summer I felt like I was a new woman and was ready to take on the world!
However by the end of the summer/beginning of the school year I felt like everything that I had started to accomplish was being attacked from all sides. Everywhere I turned my identity was being challenged, degraded, questioned, and attacked. I was basically walking into another cycle of how I felt my Race went. Literally everyday it was something and I was faced with another new battle on my identity. I had a choice to make; I could either slip back into old habits and retreat from who I was called to be again or face it head on and keep the ground I have tiled for the past year or so and keep moving forward.
A couple of Saturdays ago I was at worship on my knees feeling broken, defeated, and tired of being the bigger person. After having a very long venting session to the Lord He began to speak to me and asked me to trust Him again. (Me and Him have been going through this “Trust Me” battle for awhile and it’s never fun.) Of course I finally said yes and then the next thing I know another friend began to tell me that they were going to BASSM second year again. Something inside me freaked out and I said “that’s it I want to go to School again! This is ridiculous, all my friends went through school without me and now they are going back. I want to go too!” My friend looked at me and said “Then ask.” I stepped back and thought about it; first I was surprised because I had never had the feeling FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) of missing out on school before and second I never even considered I could go since my work schedule is so crazy. By this time another friend had joined our conversation and said “if you don’t ask you don’t know.” They both took me by the arm (semi dragging me) and we walked to the director of second year. They both said almost simultaneously “she has something she wants to talk to you about.” The leader just smiled and looked at me and before I was even finished asking or explaining my crazy schedule she said “Well why not I’m sure we could work something out let me talk to the staff but I’m saying yes!” That night I was in utter disbelief and couldn’t believe I could be potentially going back to school again.
So many thoughts ran through my head. Could this really be happening? Am I really going to spend Monday and Tuesday nights in school with my friends again after working a practice or a game? Is this another restoration thing for me? Am I really getting to do second year with my First Year friends that are doing it again and other friends that are doing it for the first time?
After getting the last yes I was so excited but realized I may have a problem with work. I started to freak out but when I talked to my Drayer boss I felt like I was trying to defend/fight for my life and just knew he was going to give me some reason why it wouldn’t be a good idea. However his response was “Of course; go for it! We will do whatever we need to do to support you in going to Ministry school.” At this point I’m laughing/crying on the phone and said “are you serious?” My boss said “Yes, why wouldn’t I be? What did you think I was going to tell you no? If that’s what you need for this season we support you 100%!” I was dumbfounded and completely taken back by his response. At this point you would think that I would be secure with no fears that this was going to happen. But I was quickly reminded that there was the mandatory Panama City Beach (PCB) retreat that happened every year and I didn’t know if I could go to it because it started on a Friday night and every Friday night was football. Looking back at it now it’s laughable but God knew and when I looked at the dates the retreat was the same weekend as our school’s Bye week was. So needless to say I didn’t have to worry about missing a Friday night football game nor practice. Every obstacle that could’ve been easily placed in front of me for going to school was quickly removed within days of signing up for it.
Last weekend was our PCB school retreat and the Lord was good. Just sitting in a room filled with hundreds of people on fire for the Lord wanting more of Him and His presence brought so much more restoration, rejuvenation, and replenishing to my soul I feel like myself again. I know this is just the beginning of the continual process that He has for me this school year. I am very excited to share this journey of going back into Ministry again with you so get ready for some blogs! If you would like to support me on this journey back to Ministry school I have listed some ways you can financially support me.
If you would like to support me financially school is $2,500 (I know this won’t be an obstacle just like all the other things weren’t.) Any small amount will help!
If you would like to donate directly to the school for tax purposes this is the link:
https://pushpay.com/p/bethelatlanta?src=hpp
Select amount then choose Student Tuition to the process after you have hit send please email [email protected] In the email state
***Your Name, Amount, and for Heather Miller for BASSM***
Or if you want to send it to me directly online
Cash App: $HRM1487
Venmo App: @HRM1487
Or email: [email protected] for my mail address.
Thank you in advance for the prayers, financial, and moral support that you will and have already given!
