Yesterday, I learned an important lesson. On rare occasions: I still have my brief bouts with anxiety/depression. Yesterday was one of those days. I hardly spoke to anyone until 4pm when some of my G42 fam prayed for and encouraged me. I was still determined to escape & have some "me and JC time" down at the skatepark to shake it off. While there, a French skater fell and hit his head. My first thought was to pray...then my thoughts went to, "how can I pray when i haven't been myself all day? How can I pray when I don't have my crap together? How can I pray even though I'm still depressed?"

BUT then God spoke and said "You are still my son. I still love you. You still have everything you need, you lack nothing. These emotions don't change who you truly are." With that, I was able to pray for my new friend. I'm trusting God has touched him, but whether or not God healed his head, ONE THING I know for sure: GOD HEALED MY HEART right there. Your emotions don't dictate who you are. They do not control you. Don't let them decide your identity, only Christ can. So the day began with being paralyzed in my bed with anxiety and ended with me spontaneously leading worship in the middle of a bar at 1am😂 Funny how God works sometimes huh? He is bigger than our emotions, believe it ✌😁 "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and a sound mind" ~ 2 Timothy 1:7

I see it there, I feel it here - HOPE - that is set within the burning heart in the midst of a ravaged landscape. It is the vision to see the trees that have filled the landscape and the promise that the river that flows through would never run dry. It was shown by the returning of an eye for an eye, not to get even but a willing to be who we are called to be when it costs us our very life. When we are hurt would we turn to show the beautiful vulnerability in our other cheek. Yes it spills from our speech and increases in our lives to be some sort of awaking, but when did Jesus fall asleep, when was he not able to calm the sea?

It is that we no longer commune with or trust the seemingly insignificant seed that lives inside of us. It is a powerful seed to transform death to life and darkest of nights into an ever increasing light. Hope is in me, Hope is His Spirit set inside of me not to wait to release me but to rest within me- it is His Peace that He would leave - being nothing missing and nothing between He and I. I have built an altar in my heart not to what I might do to change this hardness before me, that I know to be, a garden of His Past and a Garden of His Promise, but an altar for His Rest - so that all I can do and all that I would do and all that I will do is from resting in an intimate relationship with Him. So I lay my life down into the barrenness of the ground as a seed of grass with no sun shining or water to be found. It appears I have chosen death, that I have chosen acceptance of my circumstance - that what is in me was not enough so nothing good would come. But it has incited dawn as it rotates towards the sun and the vapors of promises past are drawn in waters ascending into heaven and the rains of fruitfulness condescendingly cascade over me. Reaching forth from the sweetness I know to be around me with shouts of praise for the love that engulfs me even in my grave. I come forth from all the protections I have known in the past and at last find the true freedom I have carried in my heart as I now see I am but one blade in the field of His Sowing. A harvest is many but the workers are few but my mission is to you - lay down your life to find it and see that darkness is the next place for light to be shown. No heart too heavy - no gap too wide - when we look with vision upon barrenness as an eye for an eye where we have been given eyes to see. So ignite the passion inside you, awaken the promise set inside you for Jesus is not sleeping - He is alive and He lives in you and me.

How do you know when you’ve gotten through the bad times? How do you know when you’re in a really good place?

I have so many missionary friends, so many friends who are in ministry and a common theme among us is that consistently we are in a hard place.  There always seems to be a pressure on us to do or to say exactly what God wants. We are burdened with glorious purpose and we are unable to be happy with the mundane. That sounds so good on paper. When I write those words in my journal, or prophesy them to someone at church they make people feel very important, and they should. However, most days, I want to feel like I’m in a good place. 

Last year was one of the hardest years of my life. Between embarassing financial difficulty, family drama, a dating life that rivaled most plucky rom-com heroines (you know, the dating life they talk about in the prologue), and feeling spiritually like I was just lost in a fog, I was having a rough time. But what really sucked was that I had felt like that on and off for years. I realized some point along the way, I hadn’t readjusted back to the typical day-to-day life after returning from G42. With each mission trip, or church I helped to start, or ministry I was assisting, every time those tenures would come to end I hadn’t adjusted. There is a strange duality here, between not settling for the mundane and wanting to live just one day where I don’t feel like I’m failing God because I haven’t had a magical encounter prophesying to a stranger at Starbucks.

Living like that was hard.

For me I had to come to a moment where I stood and faced God. “What do you want from me!?” I remember demanding of him. “NOT the big picture, but EVERY DAY!?” Needless to say that I was angry, and tired of feeling this way.

What shocked me however was that God didn’t answer, not right away. I’m sure most of you know that when you’re feeling like you’re hungry for more, and life isn’t satisfying God not responding right away can be annoying. Despite not hearing God, I did start to notice something; God was showing me what he wanted for me on a day-to-day basis. It would start with a favorite movie being on TV, maybe a song I loved would come on the radio, a friend would reach out and we’d chat like we hadn’t in a long time. Things in my life were making me happy.

When I was happy my guard was down, and that’s when God spoke. “I want you to be happy” he confirmed.

So often we talk about sharing in the suffering of Christ, we talk about dying daily to our flesh. When we think about emulating Jesus, and being a type of Christ to those around us we often think or portray the Jesus that suffered in the Garden as he prayed. (Matthew 26:42) I would like though to show people the Christ that laughed. The Christ that went to dinner at someone’s home and talked with them, and enjoyed them. We can’t be 100% sure if Jesus shared divine secrets when he was at the dinner table with his friends, or if he simply was checking in on how his disciples families were doing, or laughing about an inside joke. We can be sure that the man portrayed in the Bible showed the goodness of God, and the Joy of God just as much as he showed us the suffering, and the strength to pass up temptation.

By the end of September this year I wasn’t thinking too much about how hard God was testing me. I was thinking mostly about how much God loved me. I hadn’t realized how far I had actually come until my Fiance and I decided to sneak into the Awakening in Gainesville GA. After seeing Andrew for the first time in years he grabbed me and said to me “You’re doing okay, kid. It’s been a long time coming, but you’re going to be just fine.” For the first time since I’d been back on US soil in June of 2010 I believed that.

In short, I encourage each of you who are having a hard time readjusting to life, or looking for the supernatural in everyday life to know that you’re doing okay. It’s going to get better eventually. Don’t lose the hunger of God, but live in the every day in the now and know that God is in you and he wants you to be happy. That’s a supernatural experience everyone is looking for. Being Christ to the world isn’t always standing in line at the grocery store and healing the sick, sometimes it’s standing in line at the grocery store and starting a conversation with the person in front of you about the cheesy tabloids they’re looking over. Remember; Christ in you is the hope of Glory.

You’ve got this.

Surrender.  This is the word I felt the Lord repeatedly telling me earlier this year.  It has taken me awhile to figure out why but I think I am beginning to understand.  He was telling me how to find more of Him!

I think at some point in our lives we all unintentionally get caught up in the thought that we need something more to become who we want to be.  Whether it is getting the job we want, receiving a certain diploma, finding the perfect spouse, moving to a foreign country or something else.  It lands us in an unintentional place of waiting. 

As I was lying in bed one night praying, I heard God tell me that he wanted me to surrender my dreams to Him.  I was a little confused at first, feeling like surrendering them was like giving up on them.  I leaned in and realized that surrender was not a matter of giving up but a matter of rightful pursuit.  I had the option to pursue my dreams or I could pursue the keeper of my dreams.  By surrendering my dreams, I was actually gaining my freedom to live in the moment and learn everything that I can here and now so that I can carry more in the future.

I live in complete confidence that my dreams will happen because I know the one that holds them, but I am no longer waiting for them to happen.  I am using my time to prepare!  For me that looks like surrendering every thought I have about my life to my Father, pursuing Him with my whole heart, allowing Him to move in me, trusting in His faithfulness, and grabbing ahold of what is right in front of me.  I have decided that I want everything in my life to come out of a pursuit of my Father.  I am responsible for the measure of the Presence that I carry, and I want it all!!!

Let’s all awaken to the reality that waiting isn’t an option; we must prepare.  We must pursue the Father with everything we have and take responsibility for the measure of Presence we want to carry!  We are the good news!  I’m going to see the world change as my Father works through me, and I hope you all will join me!