Thoughts.

"We will fight for You!

We will die for You!

We will go for You!"

As christians, we always wanna "go" somewhere for Jesus. Some sort of injustice in the world stirs our hearts and compels us to want to go and do something about it. Sometimes we really will go, a lot of other times, we won't. What happens, that I see a lot, is that we "go" based off of an emotional pain we feel in our hearts. This isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but when we do go, are we bringing God's love, justice and mercy to the dark and broken of the world, or our own? Are we simply "going" so that we can again sleep peacefully at night after we return, feeling satisfied that we've "done all we can do"? Are we changing the world, changing hearts, by "going"? Are people experiencing God's LOVE by merely being in our presence?

I like the order that the song quoted above puts its last three lines. It really does pinpoint two very key things to do before we "go". We will fight for God, we will die for God, THEN we will go for Him.

We must learn to fight for our Love before we're able to die for Him. We aren't ready to go for God until we're willing to die for Him. Before we simply go, we should first fight for Him in our every day lives. Letting nothing come between us and Him. Before we go, we must die to ourselves daily, starting right now. We need to be willing and ready to literally die for Him. After this, we will be able to go. We will be able to love, with His love. We will be able to change lives. We'll be able to witness God restoring freedom, healing and LIFE through us!

The only way the world will have an encounter with Love Himself is if we're madly in love with Him first - always fighting for Him and ready to die for Him - and we bring His love to everyone else.

Let us be filled with Him until we're overflowing out and onto the world.

--Peace and Love.

Dance In The Rain

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." --Nelson Mandela

Ever since the weather started becoming more summer-y. I've had this desire to dance in the rain. In my head, what I was thinking was that a good dance in the rain would be revitalizing, almost healing, in a way.

Well today, it started raining. It wasn't crazy pouring or anything, but definitely enough to dance in. I love the rain, so I went into my sunroom to watch it. As I was watching the raindrops explode onto the back porch, I remembered my desire to dance in the rain. I had to be at work in an hour, so I hesitated. I didn't want to get all wet before leaving to go to work. "Next time," I promised myself, "next good rain."

I live in Colorado, and we simply to do not just "get good rains." When the rain comes, you never know for how long. I've always been the kind of person who hesitates - who second guesses myself. I decided that I needed to go dance right then and there. I had to take advantage of the rain.

So, I walked through the kitchen where my brother was standing, grabbed my hoodie from my room, and walked back to go outside. While walking through the kitchen, I was randomly reminded of something Rob Morris once said, and I said it out loud to my brother. "When the broken ask you to dance, you dance." My brother said, "Yea!" in kind of a joking way, and I asked him to come outside and dance with me. I went outside and starting dancing like a fool in the rain. I was right - it was revitalizing, and it definitely was healing. After goofing off for a bit, I started walking over to the trampoline. It was then that I heard the back door open, and I turned around to see my brother standing outside. As I started to walk back to where he was, he started dancing. I ran over with complete joy and excitement, and the two of us danced together for just a little bit.

That little bit will stay with me for eternity.

Let it rain

Let it rain

--Peace and Love.

Strip Church Training and Jessica Renovating

Well, God, today I head out to Los Angeles for the strip club outreach training. I am so stoked. (:

Let this be a time of refreshment, but also a time where my eyes and heart are opened to the realities and darkness of this world. Let the flame of my passion and heart for women in the industry catch Your wind and blaze out of control...

This is what I prayed the day I was to fly out to L.A. to learn how to reach out to women working in the sex industry. Now, there's something everyone should know - God LOVES to answer our prayers. He may not always answer in the way you thought He would or in a manner that makes sense to you, but He WILL answer, I can promise you that. I think the best thing to do after praying is to open your heart, mind and eyes to the huge surprise God has for your answer. (: He's so cool.

Anyway - WOW! Did God ANSWER this prayer. I went to the training to learn how to speak truths into these women about their value and how they are treasured and loved by God Himself. Little did I know that God used this time to speak those very same truths into my heart. He did this in such an incredible and beautiful way.

The motto of Treasures (the organization leading the training) is Loved. Valued. Purposed. God used my time in L.A. to really engrave these into my own heart. Here's how:

First off, let me just say this - THE OCEAN! I mean wow. I think my soul and the ocean were made for each other. There's something the ocean does in me that I can't explain, it touches my soul in such a powerful way. It's the equivalent, I think, to being in love, or reuniting with an old best friend. This is how it felt when I saw my "old friend" again on the shores of Manhattan Beach. I literally fell in love again at first sight. All the different colors and shapes of the waves as it runs up to shore and crashes into it. The foam that clings to the sand as the water falls back. The sand that envelopes your feet and toes. The endless sky. The sun. The smell of saltwater and fish. The ocean breeze spraying your face, giving a light mist to cool you off. The taste of saltwater you lick off your lips. It's glorious. God definitely refreshed my soul in the few hours of simply sitting on His beautiful beach, taking it all in.

Looking out over the ocean, you see literally no end. It goes on, and on, and on! As I watched the waves collect as they raced towards the shore, crashing against it in such a magnificent way, I was shown such a beautiful picture. It was God - My God. My Beloved, my Friend, running - literally RUNNING towards me with arms wide open - haha! With a huge smile of delight on His beautiful face, and His legs jumping one by one as if He was about to take off for flight. (: He ran towards me, saying, as He ran, "Iiiiiiiiiiiii LOVE YOU!!!!!!" and embraced me whole heartedly into His arms. He picked me up off my feet and swung me around, holding on so tight and not letting go! Haha!

I am LOVED.

The next day, we went to the luncheon to meet the Treasures team and all the women who came from all over the U.S. to be trained. Without going into too much detail - Vera and I left the lunch feeling pretty bummed about the overall spirit of everyone there. Instead of letting our frustrations become anger and then bitterness and division, we simply prayed it out, and WHOA! I have never seen God change the hearts of and entire group like that. It wasn't just everyone else's hearts, it was mine and Vera's as well. Instantly, the whole atmosphere changed to one of unity, love and honesty. It was so freaking awesome.

With that, Vera and I were blown away that we got to see into what God was seeing, and to be able to give it over to Him in prayer, and watch Him move in such a powerful way. It's so awesome that God lets us be a part of His heart like that. 

With that..

For some reason - and this happens to me a lot - people are literally drawn to me. And I don't say that to be cocky. I mean, it's weird. It's almost as if they see something different in me. Many see me as real. I could never understand this until going on this trip. Now, I get it - it's God. People are literally seeing God in me! God has made Himself visible in my life so that others can see Him! And they see His love. They see His beauty. They see His freedom. They see Him! 

I am VALUED.

During the first day of training, all the women were sharing why we were all there. When I shared, I didn't say much. I simply stated that I really have no idea how I got here. Haha, I really don't! I used to, for real, HATE women. I'm not even joking. They're fake, flaky, and SO incredibly annoying. Yet, God's love has compelled my heart to reach out to them. To touch the issues of worthlessness and belief that we have no value as women and that we deserve no love. To touch women's heart with God, with His love. Then I said how beautiful it was to see a group of women who all have such a passion for other women who are struggling with the same feelings of worthlessness in their hearts. Because really - as women, we have ALL struggled with this. No one woman is exempt. After this, I sat down, and Harmony says, "We've got a little preacher girl in here."

..Now, that really isn't that big of a deal. Except for the fact that I am by NO means what I consider a "preacher" or "speaker". Yet time and time again this word is spoken over me by people. The most random people will tell me things like, "God has such amazing plans for your life." Or, people will treat me as a leader. It's as if everyone is seeing this thing in me that, honestly, I've never before seen in myself. But during this trip, God really did solidify the fact that He has literally chosen and called me to this ministry. I'm just a dumb christian girl who grew up home schooled and in the church - who am I to reach out to the most broken of the broken women? But whatever God calls us to, He will equip us for. That is the number one thing I'm taking away from all this.

All I gotta do is trust God and what He's doing, and let go. This is all about Him. It's all for Him and His glory. It's His love being poured out for these women through me. It's powerful. 

And now, as Harmony said, "I'm just running to keep up with what He's doing."

He has enabled my heart to understand so powerfully the meaning of His words, "My power is perfected in weakness."

I am PURPOSED.

I love you

more than life...

--Peace and Love.