The Lord has been instilling major truths in me for years now, but lately He’s been doing a new thing.
About 4 1/2 months ago, I started attending the church that I am a member at now. Ever since I took the leap of faith it required to leave my previous church and immerse myself in a new church family and a whole new group of friends, He has been doing AMAZING things in my heart!
I have been in denial about my past and my sin for over 3 years, and about 3 weeks into being at my church, God pressed on my heart to be real with myself… in that, He also told me that I needed to fix some things, and that meant to talk to someone about my past. The Lord had challenged me before, but never in such a way as to break me and humble me in front of someone else, who at this time I barely knew! But He also revealed to me the right person to confide in, and He was right!
As soon as I started talking about it and bringing my sin into light, the love I began receiving was absolutely mind-boggling! Jesus began to pour out His heart to me. And He definitely met me where I was, because that love came to me in the form of love from my friends; just this unconditional love from people I had barely spent any time with. Girls whom I had met 3 weeks ago were telling me how beautiful and funny and sweet I am… not used to that! But learning how to receive love from friends was a pit-stop that I needed to take before I could learn to receive it from the Lord in a way that impacted my heart.
So that brings us to the past couple of weeks…
The Lord has been stirring my heart for about a month and a half for more of Him. He hadn’t giving me specifics, but just a desire for more in my life. Then I was invited to a young adult worship and prayer conference with my awesomely amazing group of friends… I was SO excited! I love worship!! I’ve never developed a need for prayer in my life, but I knew that I had a need for worship! Yeah, I’d like to like prayer, but it had never really clicked for me, so…
I get to the conference and the presence of the Lord is so thick in this church I can barely breathe, yet I can breathe better than I’ve been able in a long time! The Holy Spirit wove in and out of hearts all around me… and then It came to me.
In the middle of worship, the speaker began to pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal the Fathers’ love to me. He prayed fervently for a couple of minutes and as soon as he was done, it felt like I was hit with a Mack truck… but in a good way! All of a sudden, I was completely overcome with an image of me in the midst of my sin, covered in muck and slime. Then I saw Jesus leaning towards me and just saying “You are so beautiful! I have such desire for you! You are my beloved!”. He wasn’t condemning, He wasn’t shaking His head wondering why I had broken His heart again; He was (and is) so completely in love with me and so anxious for me to take His hand, get up, and try again.
Now, of course I’d known the Scripture saying “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…”, but it was never real! For some reason in my mind, it was for everyone else except me. I knew it was truth, but it didn’t resonate in my soul as applicable to me… until He encountered me.
I’ve been fasting from caffeine for 20 days now… its been a HUGE growing experience for me! I’ve never fasted before, and never really understood the purpose. Now, not to say that because of how worthy I am and how faithful I was in my fasting that the Lord gave that revelation to me, but I have to believe that the Lord sees our acts of obedience and rewards us. Our obedience does not go unnoticed by God, and I don’t think that I would have been in a place to receive His love in such an intense way if I was not first put into a place of weakness of flesh.
I am ecstatic to see where the Lord is going to take me next in my journey of healing. If He has brought me this far, the next steps are going to just blow my mind!
In the midst of this fast, I’ve been praying for direction and discernment for a pretty big life-change. There’s a pretty big possibility that I will be moving out of my parents’ house and into my music pastors’ place to help out. I’ve been wanting to be on my own for a couple of years now, but I just don’t make enough money to let that be a reality. When she came to me with this proposal, it scared me to death at first! I like change, but only if I know what its going to look like; change where the future is guaranteed to be unclear rocks my world! But the more I’ve prayed and thought about it, the more I feel like this could be the perfect opportunity to grow in character and responsibility.
So, I told the Lord that I would pursue it until doors closed. If He closes the door, I will know that its not His will for me; either right now, or at all. I just have to believe that He is watching me and He hears and responds to my voice. He knows that I want to be in the center of His Will for my life, and He won’t ignore my need for His intervention. He is faithful and trustworthy, and I can count on Him to complete that good work in me, and to fulfill the promises He has made me!
I’m pretty sure that this is a long enough “first blog”… so I will catch you up on my life later!
Live fully for Him,
Sarah <3
