I was just talking to God during worship and telling Him that I’ve been missing hearing from Him and I want more intimacy with Him. I fell to my knees and was telling Him that I wanted to be with Him the way that Mary was. I was trying to do imaginative prayer and picture myself with Jesus and it’s like I couldn’t find Him and I started to get really upset. That led into me beating myself up and listening to the lies like…
“I’m not even trying to be close to God”
“He doesn’t have a special place for me to go and meet with Him”
“Because my quiet time hasn’t been consistent, He wasn’t going to talk to me”
Then the sweetest thing happened. A girl on the worship team on the AIM staff here, Chelsea, came up and got on her knees beside me and wrapped her arms around me and just started telling me what God was telling me. She said that He was saying things like…
“I am so proud of where you’re at”
“Your quiet time doesn’t have to be this long drawn out thing it can literally just be you sitting in silence with me”
“You are a princess and a daughter of the King”
“You are humble”
“You are precious, you are precious, you are so precious”
He whispered so gently to me, “Jesse I am here beloved.” Of course I was just sitting there weeping and just thanking Him for this moment.
Then Mae (another lady on the AIM staff) got up and started speaking about the identity God gives each of us. Everything that she said was hitting home and I still just sat in the far back and cried. She encouraged us to find our false identities at the end of her talk and to then find our true one. When everything was done I got up and walked very quickly to my room to cry some more. Bailey saw me so she followed. I kind of just lost my mind for a bit and told her about everything that I was trying to process through my mind. I realized that I put on this false identity of being the “strong one”, the “comforter”, the “one who has it all together”, when in reality those are Jesus. Of course I have Jesus inside of me, but I was trying to take on His role. He gives me strength, He comforts me, He is the One who has it all together, not me.
So I found these false identities pretty quickly, but it took me a few days to find the unique and true identity He gave Jessica Faith Dillow. We went to the beach this last weekend. It was incredible. My friends and I played in the waves and on the black sand like little kids. About an hour upon our arrival it was pretty dark when we were still on the bus, but I had my earphones in and I watched out the window just because. I started seeing these really bright dots and I could have sworn I was about to pass out, but I realized I wasn’t dizzy or anything. So I blinked a few times to clear up my eye sight and I kept seeing them. It took me about a minute to realize that these bright lights were fireflies. I haven’t seen fireflies the entire race, so I took up every second of these beautiful, unique bugs swarming the dark sky next to me. I watched them the rest of the way to the hostel we were staying at. I believe that it was a kiss from God.
A kiss from God= a moment where God speaks to you in your unique relationship with Him most likely through nature.
Just a couple of nights before this I knew that I needed to find the identity He gave Jessica Faith Dillow and that’s exactly what happened all because of these tiny light bugs. When I was a kid I remember fireflies fascinated me. The only time I saw them was when we went to visit family in Arkansas. My cousins, sister and I would go out with jars and catch them for hours. My goal was to always get the most. I can’t remember if I ever let them go, gosh I hope I did, the poor things. God took me back to when I was innocent and pure. I asked Him if the fireflies had something to do with my identity and it was like I could see Him nodding yes. Then the words just started flowing into my thoughts…
“PURE ONE”
“INNOCENT ONE”
“BELOVED”
“MASTERPIECE”
This is my identity. I am these things only because of Jesus.
