FACING OUR FEARS

Hello everyone

I hope you are well and at peace.

After arriving back from the amazing few weeks I was ministering in New York I spent two weeks at the community house (pictured above) in Carrick on Shannon, County Leitrim. The name of our group is The St Patricks Community and we run Parish missions across Ireland and the UK.

It started about 8 years ago when I arrived in Ireland with nothing but a bag full of clothes and a car but the conviction that God was calling me to Ireland to Evangelise. I went on the road speaking in schools and parishes with a friend of mine called Padraig and it was incredible the miracles God worked in that time. Even though we didn’t have a penny to our names, we never had to spend a night without a roof over our heads and it was an exiting adventure travelling from place to place never quite knowing what the Lord had in store for us next.

Gradually as time went by more people came to join me and at the moment there are five of us, 3 guys and 2 girls, who make up the team. God has really taught me that if I want to be truly intimate with him the only way that can happen is if I am vulnerable. That means really sharing with him what is going on in my heart and not trying to hide or disguise my deepest fears but exposing them to him.

Each of the team members are at different stages on that journey to the freedom that God wants for them and one thing we have found is that if we are not prepared to be vulnerable with one another and share our fears and brokenness it is very unlikely we will share it with God. Community life has a habit of very quickly exposing all the masks we wear to make people love and accept us. When all of this stuff comes to the surface and you realise that the people you are living with are just the same as you, then that is the beginning of the healing process. God will never withhold his love and tenderness from us when we come to him in our weakness.

After Easter I went to speak at a Parish mission at Glasnevin in Dublin. On the Tuesday night we had 14 priests hearing confessions and many people ended up going for the first time in years, it was great to see the joy on their faces afterwards. I also spoke in a school in Dublin and the young people were so open while listening to what God had done in my life. Many of them emailed me and told of how God had touched them through my talk and they wanted to read my book to find out more.

I am the so thankful to God for the privilege of doing what I do, the greatest joy I have in my life is to see someone realise that they are precious to God and he loves them.

God bless you in his deep love
John Pridmore