The last time I left you was when I honestly almost DONE- spiritually and emotionally I was spent and I was angry. Well you might have guessed by the title of this blog that there was a tipping point. My frustration boiled over.
I was not myself. I was battling major comparison to everyone in my class.
“Why am I not having these revelations?”
“Why can’t I feel this deep love from God right now?”
“How come God is not giving me these encounters that are leaving people in tears and joy?”
“Why do I have all this disdain for myself?”
There still to this day has not been one class day where I have not cried. I’m serious. It’s been a whole month of God peeling back layers and shaking up what I believe and how I see Him and myself.
There were days where I left class crying and having NO idea why. I’m a verbal processor so thank you Jesus that I have wonderful housemates that will sit with me during lunch break and help me process what’s happening internally. One afternoon I left morning class not knowing why I was crying but through conversation came to realize that I didn’t like myself. The morning class period had just gone on this long tangent off topic to what was supposed to be taught and I was frustrated. I could feel the organized, type A, structured part of me come out with wanting to learn the curriculum, but instead of accepting me as I am, I criticized myself and scolded myself on the whole way home for not being flexible and open to the conversation. My housemates talked about how rabbit trails and tangents bothered them too and they were going to give feedback.
As simple as it was, I thought I was alone and just someone validating it left me going “Oh. This is okay for me to feel this. I can be okay that I am an organized, type A personality.”
An overall theme I’m finding here at G42 is honestly learning to be okay with myself! God keeps revealing part of my heart or ways that He made me for the kingdom and they come up and I want to compare and look to others and push it down, but what God is doing is saying:
Look at you, beautiful daughter, and how perfect I made you just as you are. I am captivated by you.
Even in simple moments like rabbit trails.
But that didn’t mean that I liked myself. But God was fervently pursuing me to see me the way that He does. Every single day something new was coming up in my theology, perspective, personality, etc. and I couldn’t take it anymore. Our classes are on the relationship between head and heart, on missional communities and the definitions of church and the gospel, on the roles of men and women, and everything in between and my frustration with my journey reached a point when literally screaming my head off in the middle of class.
I was tired of looking at all my classmates sprawled out on the floor or with their hands raised or their passionate prayers during class and me sitting in the corner repeating to myself “I’m on my own journey, it’s all a process, eyes on Jesus, eyes on Jesus…”
Last Thursday I was DONE. I left class for lunch upset, frustrated, and angry at myself. Everyone in my house had lunch dates and I was in the house alone. I think I ended up eating a bowl of cereal I was that done I didn’t want to make lunch. I hid myself under my covers and cried. While there God started highlighting my habits of the day. My feelings, apathy, eating habits, not wanting to do anything or talk to anyone…
“This is what it was like when I was depressed! Oh my gosh, I think I’m struggling with some depression!”
I came back to class fed up, trying to sit through one class period without crying. Key word: trying. At the end of class a friend, during prayer, shouted out that she felt darkness and heaviness in the room and that someone needed to come forward and be vulnerable so the class could pray and support them. I kept doodling and was planning on just having another isolating cry sesh later, but I knew I needed my tribe.
I told the class I realized that afternoon that I was exhibiting habits of depression and I could use some prayer. All 30 of them laid hands on me and prayed and yelled at the enemy and told him to leave. They gave me visions and lyrics and sentences I had only told Jesus. They loved me. They encouraged me to pray for people I knew struggling with depression, and after “amen” I got ANGRY.
There was no longer anger and hatred toward myself but it was full on directed toward the enemy and his attacks toward me. I was PISSED. I had let him rule my life with fear and shame for too long and I was done.
“You need to go to the mirror!”
The mirror?
YUP. Apparently G42 is known for encouraging students to stand behind and beside students who need to say truths to themselves in the mirror. I’ve learned here how powerful my words are and how needed this process is! The next 20 minutes was about shaking off the enemy, sending him back to hell, and proclaiming who I was in Christ. The entire class with visitors and staff stood beside me and behind as I looked myself in the mirror and said some of the following things:
I am beautiful.
I am radiant.
I am chosen.
I am anointed.
I am ENOUGH.
I am loved!
I am free!
I am worthy!
I am masterpiece made by the Creator of the universe!!
**and some other things I won’t repeat here with strong language to tell those demons I meant business.
It was hard. I didn’t believe these things, but I knew I needed to say them. I knew somehow deep down they were true, I had just let the enemy distract me and lead me to believe lies. This whole process was difficult for me to do in front of so many people as well! That’s vulnerability! I was letting 30+ people into my mess, and they stood beside me and told me who I was and the ROAR I had inside me.
My WARRIOR of a housemate Alisha got IN MY FACE to make sure I knew how serious she was about not letting the enemy touch me!
“LET HIM KNOW! C’mon! HELL FREAKING NO! You’re my freaking sister are you kidding me?! Jamilyn! I’m not going to sit here and let him come at you! He has to come through me too! He has to come through all of us! Tell him to get the F&%# away! Don’t come at us, he’s going to get knocked the freak out. I’m here and I got my shout on your behalf but he needs to hear your voice! Let’s go girl!”
Can you imagine a strong, passionate, warrior of a woman of God shouting this in your face? This is where millennials would say “It got freakin’ LIT dude.” I wish I could truly describe what happened in class but words really don’t do enough!
I let the enemy know…
“I am so DONE WITH YOU! You cannot have me or my family anymore! I take it as a COMPLIMENT that you continue to attack me because that means you feel THREATENED by who I am! I am going to bring SO much Kingdom into this world, the enemy will COWER in fear! I am bring joy and laughter in the world! There are so many people in spiritual chains and prisons and God is going to use ME TO FREE THEM! God has put an anointing on MY LIFE!!”
The entire room is erupting in applause, screams and cheers on my behalf, validating all the truths I was screaming at the enemy.
I looked back in the mirror and told the warrior inside me who she was.
“I’ve let fear and shame rule your life for too long! And I’m not letting it do that anymore! You are a freaking masterpiece made by the Creator of the universe! There is life behind those blue eyes! There’s a reason your name is JOY! God named you that! There’s a tattoo on your thigh of boldness so live it out!”
And then I screamed. I did. At the top of my lungs, as loud as I could, in front of dozens of people, in the middle of class… I screamed. And my class, my friends, my people here who have become my family cheered with me, one I’m sure satan and all his demons heard from hell.
I got deliverance, I felt more like myself, and I felt FREE. Fellows students came up to me after and said “it’s nice to meet you!” And I replied “yeah, it’s nice to meet me too.”
The Director of G42 stepped forward after this roar of mine and talked about the battle that still rages ahead of me. It doesn’t mean that I won’t get attacked anymore, but I can be better equipped and aware when they come. We took care of the spiritual, but it was MY job to take care of the mental. I found out how powerful my words are when I say them out loud and proclaim over myself and I needed to keep doing that every day, every morning making it a habit to say those truths over myself until I believe them- carve those pathways in my brain. I spoke those truths out loud, screamed them at the devil, but I needed to keep using the power of my words and say them out loud every day until I truly believed them in my heart.
So me and my roommate went to work…
Every morning I’m looking myself in those bright blue eyes and telling the warrior inside me to stay awake! And you know what? It’s working! I’m truly believing that I am chosen, anointed, beautiful, worthy, loved, and the other dozen sticky notes that I have! I am meant for big things! I am a daughter of the Most High God! I am radiant! I am ME.
And it feels SO good to be me.
All my love,
Jamilyn Joy
G42 Leadership Academy has been so transformative in my life in just the few short weeks I have been here. I really have a hard time sitting down and writing a blog to try and describe it all, but I want to keep you all updated in what God is doing.
I want to stay. I want to choose into this great calling God has on my life. I am changed. I am transformed. I am loved. I am in awe. Remember the last blog I wrote about hating being here? It’s been crazy for my own classmates to stand up in class and tell me how its been amazing to watch how much I have opened myself up to this process and how much God has already transformed me in such a short time that has taken them months or years.
I need to raise $3,000 by June 1st in order to stay! Will you prayerfully consider partnering with this warrior of a Kingdom builder and helping her step into the leader that she is? I’m looking for 30 monthly supporters to give just $10 a month for the rest of the 8 months I could be here.
If you would like to partner with me, please visit www.generation42.org/donations and scroll down till you see my face!
So, SO much more to come!
