Before I get to my Freedom journey, I need to share a little about my past. I was raised in church and gave my life to the Lord when I was nine. Then life happened and all the pain of my childhood became the driver of every decision I made. I was running life my way, after all, everyone and everything I knew had failed me. So I took measures into my own hands to protect myself from the hurt and pain of people and family. You can read more of my story at “From Rejected to Loved Beyond Measure”.
In 2015, after running my life my way for many years, I found I wasn’t any better than those I was running from. I had tried everything else and still found myself unhappy and unfulfilled. I began to have this stir in my spirit to go back to church. I wanted to give God one more chance. After years of searching I found Declaration Church in January 2019 and it was here that I was introduced to the Freedom small group in January 2020. I had no idea when I started this Freedom journey that God was about to show me that this start was actually a birthing of something new that was started by Him three years earlier.
Fifteen days to Freedom actually started three years earlier with a dream on December 17, 2017. In the dream I was pregnant and desperately wanted the Doctor to start the labor process but I knew it was way to early and he would not agree, but I so desperately wanted to meet this child NOW.
When I woke from this dream, I knew God was speaking to me about my lack of trust in His timing and my impatience to wait for His goodness in His perfect timing. God led me to the scripture in Isaiah 66:9 that says…
While God is comparing Israel’s suffering to the human birthing process in this scripture, I realized that no birth can come without labor and pregnancies take time. I had peace to wait and continue to pursue God’s heart for me and all the things in me that needed to be cleansed.
On May 15, 2018 I had another dream that I was pregnant, only this time, the baby was ready and was coming soon.
Fast forward to November 20, 2020 (15 days before the Freedom Conference) I have a dream where God shows me several areas in my heart that need cleansing. It was a laundry list I wasn’t prepared to hear, but my heart was ready to be free. These things have been a thorn in my side nearly my whole life and now I am approaching the moment that God is going to finally bring Freedom from it all.
In all transparency and humility, those things were comparison, a conflict within myself of wanting what God had for me but refusing to let go, lack of trust, doubt, carnal reasoning, people pleasing, control, distractions, impatience, and fear. Even with all of these things being revealed, I was still plagued by something that I just couldn’t figure out. Truth is, I didn’t need to wait for this Freedom conference to be free. Once I saw the above list, I was able to repent, ask forgiveness, and receive his Grace and forgiveness. I was free, but something was still plaguing me. So I continued seeking Him for more. I wanted to see Him in all His glory. I didn’t want Him to hold anything back. I wanted all of Him in all of me! Yet, something was still keeping me from seeing the fullness of His glory.
On November 23, 2020, I had another dream I was pregnant. Remember, it has now been thirty months since I last had a dream about being pregnant. In this dream, I am in labor, almost fully dilated, and ready to begin the birthing process, but the Doctor is taking forever to come see me. When the nurse comes in, I remember that I can’t have a natural birth and need to have a c-section, she tells me emphatically NO! this Doctor will let it happen naturally. I am immediately conflicted. I was excited that I could finally experience a natural delivery but I also wanted the control a c-section allows.
This dream spoke clearly to me because in real life with my first son was born one week late via an emergency c-section that saved his life. My second son was born by a scheduled c-section because my doctor didn’t want to repeat my first son’s delivery as it was life threatening. In the dream, I wanted to experience the joy and safety of my second son’s delivery, again not trusting that God has a perfect plan and timing of all things.
So here I go again, trust issues, I am beginning to wonder if I will ever fully trust the God I love so very much. For five years now we have been dealing with trust issues, clearly this one runs deep for me.
On November 28, 2020 I have another dream that reveals I have some haughtiness, pride or arrogance that needs to be uprooted.
Then on December 4, 2020, one day before the Freedom conference I have a dream where Jesus is speaking over me and he says “Enormous joy is being poured out on you.” The song Thrive by Casting Crown is playing in my dream…”joy unspeakable, faith unsinkable, love unstoppable, anything is possible” then Jesus says to me “2 Corinthians, veil, joy” and I wake up.
I am still singing the song when I wake up and feeling this overwhelming joy and excitement for what is coming. So naturally I jump out of bed and go to record this dream and read 2 Corinthians realizing Jesus didn’t give me the chapter or verse. So I did what anyone would do, I googled it, 🤣 ! I know I know, my patience is thin but in my defense I was excited and I wanted to know what He was trying to tell me. I found…
16But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the VEIL is taken away. 17For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM. 18So all of us who have had that VEIL removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. 2 Cor 3:16-18
Immediately, this scripture reveals to me that Jesus was telling me there was a veil He was going to remove so I can see and reflect the glory of the Lord and it will happen at the Freedom conference. I am in awe of the God I serve, He absolutely amazes me with His love! So I went to Freedom fully expecting God to meet me there in all His glory.
On day two of the conference in the last morning session before we break for lunch, everything comes to light when the speaker reads 2 Corinthians 3:16-18. My entire dream the night before is unfolding before my very eyes and I can’t even begin to explain with words what I was feeling. Jesus had been preparing me for five years for this very moment. I had walked through so much healing and repentance, forgiveness and much more for five years. I walked through the healing process of rejection, abandonment, loss, betrayal and much more. With every step I made in this healing process I grew closer and closer to Jesus, but there was always something that I felt was blocking me from what I desired with Him. It didn’t seem to matter how much cleansing I went through, the closer I got was never close enough. I know that may seem odd but honestly, that’s what I felt. Like I could see a little more of Him but not ALL of Him. Like I knew He loved me, but not all of me. It was the craziest thing. Now, He was about to remove the veil, I felt as though it was this final thing that was holding me back from seeing Him in ALL His glory. I was about to be made aware of what that veil is. The excitement was so overwhelming, I almost missed what the speaker was talking about. Then that joy quickly turned to amazement, awe, wonder, and total and complete wonder at how I didn’t see this before this moment.
Shame…was my veil. You see shame is all about how we see or how we feel about ourselves because of what we have done or what we have experienced. I didn’t like what I saw in me, and it didn’t matter how much I had grown or had changed, I was ashamed of what I had done, who I was, and the experiences I had been through. I carried shame because my biological father didn’t want me, or didn’t love me enough, or just didn’t have the strength enough to fight for me. No matter what lie I was telling myself, it was the shame of the rejection and abandonment that I was still living under.
Shame allowed the enemy to tell me I wasn’t really different, I hadn’t really changed and if people really knew me they would know that. People only see what you allow them to see. They don’t really know you, your family history or anything you have done and if they did they wouldn’t want you.
I had no idea how much these words were affecting me and I certainly had no idea they were the words I was allowing to keep me from seeing God in all His glory. If anyone had told me shame was my veil, I would have laughed because in my head I knew all of those things were lies and I didn’t think I believed them.
After prayer, breakthrough and healing, Pastor John comes back to lead worship and immediately sings Freedom Reigns by Jason Upton. “Where the spirit of the Lord is there is Freedom” in that moment Jesus spoke to me and said “this is for you!” I can’t begin to explain the tears of joy I shed in that moment. It was overwhelming to feel His love wrapped around me like never before. He loved ALL of me, like sooooo loved ALL of me.
Later, I was sharing this with my friend Sarah who was leading the conference and she told me “this really was for you, we were not supposed to worship before lunch break, I only asked Pastor John to come sing because we were done early.” God is SOOO GOOOD!
He doesn’t stop there, He has more for me. I have been asking the Lord for my prayer language for years because I love to pray but often run out of things to say before I feel in my spirit that I am done praying. So I would find myself frustrated that I wanted to pray more but didn’t know what else to pray about. So I would try to sit quietly with the Lord only to find myself drifting in mindless thoughts and distractions.
I had no less than four people lay hands on me and pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and nothing ever really happened. Honestly, I don’t think I fully understood it, I just desired it. So I continued asking and seeking after him for it. For months, leading up to the conference I kept seeing the number 11:11. I saw it on the clock, in text messages, in email, everywhere. I kept asking the Lord what it meant and I never really got anything. I just knew it meant something, I could tell it wasn’t just a coincidence. It always happened when I wasn’t thinking about it. So for months, every time it would happen, I would pray about it and ask the Lord.
During the last session of the conference, it was about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We were taught what it was, the difference between this baptism accompanied by your prayer language and the gift of speaking in tongues, and why God wanted us to have it. During this session the Pastor read Luke 11:11 and I knew immediately this is why God had been showing me 11:11 for months. He was preparing me for the moment in which He would baptize me! His kairos time! Kairos time is the moment where breakthrough occurs.
I knew this time when I went forward for prayer and I asked my heavenly Father for this gift, He was going to deliver and He sure did! Within seconds of asking, I felt it in the pit of my stomach and it rose up out of me! I prayed for a long time in the spirit and experienced such joy and laughter. It was the most amazing touch from the Lord I had ever experienced.
If you are struggling and feel like something is blocking you from all you desire in relationship with the Father, I suggest you look into a Freedom Small Group. It will truly change your life in so many ways. If your church family doesn’t offer these you are always welcome to join one at Declaration Church.
If you do not know Jesus and would like to please comment or contact me through my contact page. I would love to share and pray with you. Until then...
Remain Rooted
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