The Easter I wept.
The Easter I cried out for my savior.
The Easter it came to life in a new light.
The Easter I worshipped and saw you hanging there for me.
The Easter I felt the nails going through his flesh.
The Easter I felt the pieces of skin getting ripped from his body as he was flogged.
The Easter I saw my sins upon that cross.
The Easter I felt the weight of those sins.
The Easter I saw my savior upon a cross for my transgressions.
The Easter Jesus became so much more to me. my Jesus, oh, how I love you and see you and all that you did for me.
The Easter I surrendered more.
The Easter I saw his Glory more.
The Easter I saw his reverence more.
The Easter I bowed down to the king of kings and Lord of Lords
The Easter I recognized the sacrifice so personally and so tangible. Like I could taste it. Like I could feel it.
Oh, Jesus, I don’t deserve this, I am so imperfect and it’s only through you that I am made whole.
This Easter changed me.
This Easter I DANCED BEFORE THE LORD to glorify the VICTORY.
This Easter I STOMPED on the grave and danced in the land of milk and honey.
God thank you for being Lord of my life. I owe it all to you, I lay down my life, I count the costs, I pick up my own cross and I follow you.
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I’ve been praying for months that God would make himself more tangible to me.
I wanted to touch him and feel him. I wanted to know him in new ways and become closer to him.
I wanted to understand him more, his sovereignty.
I remember so clearly driving around Seattle late at night having a Holy Spirit jam sesh.
I found myself being pulled to the lighthouse in discovery park… to discover God’s light, He’s so obvious sometimes. 🙂 of course, I didn’t realize it at the time.
I walked the beach and I spent time with my father. So consumed with wanting to know him more and to love him more.
I knew there was more.
God has surrounded me with incredible warrior brothers and sisters in Christ with beautiful testimonies of the Father’s grace.
Most of them didn’t grow up in the church. In fact, most grew up in really rough situations whether drugs or poverty or abuse.
Each with their own radical story of God rescuing them and bringing them to life.
Each experiencing God for the first time in adulthood and hearing things such as God’s love for the first time. The meaning of the cross for the first time.
The meaning of heaven and hell for the first time.
The meaning of God’s grace for the first time. The meaning of The Holy Spirit.
All these beautiful beautiful things that as someone who grew up in the church become sooo normalized.
Which is so wonderful, I don’t want to take away from the blessing of getting to be raised in church. A true blessing and gift from God.
I would not be the person I am today without my parents and how God perfectly placed me in the church and family and youth group and mentors that I had growing up.
Incredible grace upon my life and I will forever glorify and thank God for this.
Growing up in the church, I’ve heard the name Jesus since the day I was in my mother’s womb, hallelujah.
These incredible, life-transforming words. Jesus. Alone. Such power in that name.
Yet, did I truly understand it?
Did I truly grasp it?
Did I truly see it?
Did I truly believe it?
Did I truly run with it?
I felt a part of me needing to grow in this. I knew this season of my life would be of
Abiding.
Growing.
Seeing.
Feeling.
Understanding.
Concepts that I’ve heard my entire life.
To feel it so hard at my core that it makes me run wild with a burning fire and passion to tell people about Jesus.
To let it transform me in such a way that I can’t help but tell people about heaven.
To tell people about how MY GOD? OH, HE SAVED ME!!!!! HE RESCUED ME!!! HE DELIVERED ME!!!!! HE LOVESSSSS MEEE!!!!
I can feel this untapped FIRE Inside of me. God wants to use it but I don’t let him… yet. I’m too afraid. It’s all too in my head and now in my heart.
It’s all information, not transformation.
I’m standing on the beach on the edge of Seattle, WA, the birthplace of revival in 2021 and I shout out to God.
I start to get angry and frustrated. I start to wonder why I can’t feel him like I want to. Why I can’t see him as I want too.
I don’t get angry with God often but I walked away that night unsatisfied with our discussion.
He didn’t answer my prayers. He was teaching me patience and He was imparting his tangible self slowly and steadily.
And I kinda just accepted that was that and moved on.
And then Friday, April 2nd, 2021 shows up. I’m running late for the service at International Restoration Church.
I remember feeling de-shuffled. I usually have a lot more time to think about preparing for something.
What I am going to wear… what am I doing with my hair… I need to shower… I need to brush my teeth… I should probably eat…. all those thoughts.
I got caught up talking to my family for a long while in our living room and I looked down at my watch and I only had 20 minutes until the service started!! I had to hustle to Bellevue!
Once I got there the service had already begun and I didn’t feel great about how I looked but I remember this very distinct feeling of peace and humility.
As if God put his hand on my shoulder and said “I don’t care how you look, neither should you. In fact, because you didn’t work so hard on your appearance, now you won’t care what people think about you as much and you can think about what I think about you instead”. It was a beautiful moment that I’m still very much in love with.
I began to worship and this house of God is very anointed in freedom.
Within minutes each word is piercing my heart. I’m singing as if the words are a part of my own personal testimony. As if I can feel Jesus right beside me. And I’ve felt that before but not like this. And I just started to weep.
- Celebratory worship weep.
Then the pastor moves us into a time of repentance and communion.
I have taken communion probably 1,000 times in my life and never, not once had it made me weep.
Never not once, did I feel the weight of his blood on my tongue as I chewed and swallowed.
God was becoming tangible to me.
I couldn’t believe I was in the middle of a miracle. The miracle of repentance.
It says in Psalms 103:12, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Every time we repent, we become clean again. It’s a miracle. A beautiful, wonderful Aw-some act.
Why and what Jesus came for.
So we may have the opportunity to be in perfect union with the Father.
I remember the pastor giving us all a time of reflection to repent and come into a personal moment with our Father.
I sat down on the bench and I put my head down and the tears came so naturally and so intensely.
There was no trying in stopping them.
I remember even feeling embarrassed because I was crying hard.
Like the kind of cry where someone turns around and asks if you’re doing all right.
I let that go, maybe because I wasn’t focused on my appearance or because resist the devil and he must flee (James 4:7). Definitely both. 🙂
I was crying and I was realizing in a new way. In a tangible way the beauty of the cross.
It was such a personal moment with God. I felt heaven invade earth that night. I felt time stop.
My face was swollen by the time the service was over. And I couldn’t stop crying, I had to excuse myself to the bathroom because I was in the middle of a conversation with someone & it hit me all over again.
It was like every time someone said the name Jesus, I would cry.
After the service, we watched The passion for Christ and I had never seen it before.
It was super cool because the church aired it in the sanctuary and a lot of people stayed and we watched it together.
And woahhhhhhh. Is that movie life-changing or what?! It just brings it to life. It’s brutal and nauseating and completely raw to what Jesus had to endure for our sins.
I wept more.
I saw a man.
Yes, fully God but also fully man, feeling every emotion before knowing he was going to be arrested.
My whole life I’ve read this passage but it always felt like stories or something we just discuss like a Socratic seminar. It made me sad, very sad but…This. This was real. This was a man. My man. My Jesus. My savior. Seeing the beads of blood on his brow from such intense prayer. Seeing how much he didn’t want to do it. His flesh was terrified. His flesh knew the weight of what he was about to experience.
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42
How the guards tied up his body… ahhh it hurts still now. How the guards were so unnecessarily awful to him.
The whole time I just wanted to protect him. I wanted to rescue him. To grab him and take away the pain.
To realize that’s what the Father wanted too.
Yet, he endured every breath.
Every lash for us.
Every transgression of the world.
Being apart from God.
Satan whispering in his ear the whole time.
Makes me cry now.
I came home that night and I wrote April 2nd, 2021 in my journal and I said
“wow, today is a day I want to remember for the rest of my life.
It just hit me tonight.
As we worshipped I felt a transformation over my heart.
It was as if the words leaped from my head to my heart.
The cross.
The power of the blood of Jesus.
Salvation.
His love for me.
Your love for me:) thank you, Jesus.
I feel like this pastor has the anointing of FREEDOM over his life.
I felt free to sob for Jesus tonight.
I feel like I cried all night.
Overwhelmed with the sacrifice.
The agony.
It was so real to me.
That all of this had to happen.
The fact that I get to live with the HOLY SPIRIT!
Lord, you care so much for me.
This is truly a season of sitting at your feel Jesus”.
Amen.
The next day I lived it out in ministry.
Going to Seattle to feed the homeless.
Yes, meeting physical needs but more importantly, meeting spiritual needs.
It’s so not about the stuff.
The stuff is so temporary but salvation? That’s ETERNAL.
Getting to share with so many people about the power of the cross was God zooming me into action.
(James 1:22)
It solidified it all the more.
Speaking from the depths of my soul.
Tearing up just explaining to others what he just did to me.
I thank you Jesus for this.
And as I reflect on this weekend, I understand why he did it.
Why he made himself tangible to me.
It’s for the ones I smile at.
It’s for the ones I open the door for.
It’s the one girl I pass and compliment her outfit.
It’s the homeless man I pass on the street corner and stop to give him a bottle of water and say, God, bless you”.
It’s not for me.
It’s for the lost and the broken.
It’s for the one.
It’s not a selfish realization.
This isn’t about me.
This isn’t only about my relationship with God.
God showed himself to me so HIS LIGHT shines through me like a flashlight.
So when I speak, when I step, when I smile, people see JESUS.
It’s his breath that fills my lungs.
I am nothing without him.
They see the POWER that raises dead to life.
The POWER that heals the sick and blind.
—– This is so not about me. —–
Everything that God does always, always point back to him and to his glory.
He showed himself to me so I may worship and glorify his name.
He is the creator, I am the creation.
I am made to worship him. I am made to serve him.
I humble myself before my king.
And when you encounter the creator, it makes you want to serve him joyfully because you know, every fiber in your body knows this is right, this is it, nothing compares, this is what we were made for.
Spending time with God puts everything else in perspective.
Jesus has risen from the dead.
That tomb is empty!!!!!!!!!!!
That same power lives inside of me and I don’t want to waste another day not shouting that from the rooftops…
HE HAS RISEN!!!! HAVEN’T YOU HEARD!!!!!! HE HAS RISEN INDEED!!!!!! FOR ME FOR YOU FOR HER FOR HIM!!!!!!!
We don’t have to live in anxiety….. we don’t have to live in fear….. we don’t have to accept depression and suicidal thoughts…. Trust me, I get it, I’m living proof of his goodness and his grace and his freedom!!!!!!
God has so much more for you. If you’re reading this, there is a reason.
God does everything for a reason.
He put each word on my mouth to speak into this blog.
He has given me this testimony for you.
He sees you.
He knows you.
Even if you don’t know him.
He knows what you’re struggling with.
He wants to help you.
Reach out and take his hand.
It doesn’t have to be a monumental moment, all it has to be is a prayer.
A thought to God.
He can deliver you from anything and everything if we let him.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
- Matthew 7:7-8 –
Each person on this earth was born with a banner of purpose above their heads.
A beautiful story that God has already written to bring him glory.
We don’t deserve him…. We really don’t.
Oh, Lord, I don’t deserve your grace.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8 –
There is no ceiling with God.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of POWER, LOVE and a SOUND MIND – 2nd Timothy 1:7
Oh, Jesus.
You have saved me.
All glory to you my God.
All glory to you my rock.
All glory to you my foundation.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20 –
Kirkland, Wa
April 4th, 2021
Glorifying my king!
