2022 was a year of lament for me. At the beginning of the year, we moved out of our apartment home into a new house that would be my family’s forever home. The transition should have been a joyous one. Unfortunately for me, our family had just moved twice in the previous sixteen months. I lamented losing a sense of normalcy for myself and our children. It seemed no matter how hard I tried, I could not find my feet again after so many drastic changes.
We had left our first home behind, the dream home we purchased for our little family of four. The home that held all my children’s formative memories between the ages of one and three was no longer ours. The school and neighborhood where they had cultivated friendships and community connections for almost three years were now relics of the past. We left that home suddenly after it was attacked by gun violence and moved into an apartment. Then, we sold the house less than three months later.
My head was spinning from all the changes. And my heart broke more than a little bit once the house was officially no longer ours.
In our apartment, I had fought hard to make the rented space feel like our own. It started feeling like “home” to us around the fall of 2021, exactly one year after we moved in. I anticipated spending at least another six months to a year acclimating to our new reality before we would be ready to be home buyers again.
We did not get a second year in the apartment. Fifteen months into our life as renters, my husband informed me that we were moving into and purchasing his family home. His parents had it listed on the market, and the house was perfect for our rambunctious boys who desperately needed a yard of their own.
We left our apartment in January and were completely moved out by February 1st. A new home in a new city also meant a new school for our children. More changes led to more grieving; my poor heart could not seem to catch a break.
“I do not feel like myself.” These words escaped my lips time and again, throughout the year 2022. I leaned into my community, taking refuge in the sisterhoods that had been with me for all of my transitions. As my family life was changing, so were my friendships.
The connections that once acted as a place of refuge for me began to feel more like business transactions. It seemed I was only acceptable when I was on my “A-game.” For someone who was dealing with multiple curve balls in her life, my A-game was laughable at best. 2022 became the year of intentionally and continuously contending for my joy because so many things were determined to steal it.
By the end of 2022, I had spent several months feeling “unsafe” in previously close relationships. Consequently, I submitted myself for deliverance through the Issue-Focused Ministry offered by RTF. No matter how often I had prayed or tried to process my emotions with trusted friends, the feeling of being “terrorized” inside of my own skin had not yielded. It was time for more deliverance.
In those three hours with the Lord and my ministers, the Lord bulldozed every foundation that had been laid by fear, grief, and an orphan lifestyle. Word curses uttered by well-intentioned leaders in my life were replaced by God’s truth concerning me and my held-in fear. The freedom I had received in my time in Thorough Format had given me my voice back in a mighty way, but newly inflicted wounds told me that being muted was safer than saying the wrong thing. The Lord entered my story once again on December 14, 2022, and He revealed how committed He was to my continuous freedom. Even in the places I had deemed healed, the Lord showed me how much more healing He could accomplish on my behalf. As the weight of the grief I had carried dissipated, the Lord instead gave me boundless joy and feet that danced unashamed in His presence.
Coming out of my time in issue-focused ministry felt like I could breathe again. I had held my breath for months in my life, unsure if it was safe to release what was pent up on the inside of me. As I received ministry for those areas of my life that held new wounding, the muzzle placed on my identity by fear was removed. I found my voice again. Thank you, Jesus!
In the months between my time in Thorough Format and my tune-up via Issue-Focused Ministry, the Lord began to press upon my heart this burden to be accredited to minister to wounded women. I started researching Christian counseling programs around me, but none were a good fit. I did not want to go back to school for another degree, but I had the desire to be properly trained to minister to women. Fortunately for me, God had a solution in progress already.
I never knew that I would get my opportunity to become a minister almost immediately after receiving ministry myself. Less than two weeks after my issue-focused ministry time, I expressed my desire to train to become an RTF minister to Pastor Pauline Ezell, who had ministered to me through both my RTF sessions. Before the end of the month, I had passed the online training for new prospective RTF ministers, and a week later I was registered to attend the in-person training and activation.
I had prepared myself for my journey to becoming an RTF issue-focused minister to take upwards of three months. The Lord took me from being an IFM receiver to becoming a prospective minister within 23 days.
By the time I attended the in-person training and activation on February 2nd through the 4th, I was still within the first 60 days of walking out my new healing and deliverance. I did not realize that the Lord intended to give me more land to possess so quickly in my journey to total freedom.
My time in training was nothing short of supernatural. The Lord met me personally in surprising and miraculous ways. He even sent a snowstorm to ensure that I would have the opportunity to be in the ministry room with just the right people. My small group partner and I ministered freedom to one another in ways neither of us expected. For me, I walked away even freer from the spirit of performance and fear that had almost rendered me ineffective. I stood up, settled in my emotions, and bold in my identity. I went home with eyes that see clearly and assurance of my place in God and His family.
Finding out I had passed my training to become an RTF Minister was simply icing on the cake. By the time my weekend in Nashville was over, I was floating on air. The things that previously weighed me down had no hold on me. I was living in the afterglow of being with The Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
The joy of knowing that I get to partner with God to do for others what He has done for me through the ministry of Restoring The Foundations is a joy I cannot fully describe. I am called to women, and being able to join hands with them as they walk into more profound healing and freedom is an honor.
Once again, I am living in the aftermath of ground that has been newly leveled. High places built in memorium of the pain of my past have been turned to rubble before the Almighty God. After spending years in turmoil, just dealing with the pain of brokenness, the Lord broke up the fallow ground of my life to reveal rich, fruitful soil that can bear good seeds for His kingdom. Pain and trauma that once devoured God’s promises from the ground of my life have lost all dominion over me. I am free to become everything the Lord desires for me to be. My heart is purified and my hands are clear to carry any and all assignments the Lord chooses to place in them.
Coming out of three rounds of deliverance ministry has armed me with the tools to deliver myself from the clutches of hell, and to ask for help when I need reinforcement. The ground under my feet feels like I am planted on the Solid Rock once again. I will not be shaken. Thanks to my new tools, I can see with clarity all the places where the enemy had stolen territory from the promised land of my life. Betrayals, traumas, word curses, soul-ties, and partial forgiveness all left me living at the mercy of demonic trespassers who played freely in my emotions…until deliverance came knocking.
Today and forevermore, I am recovering every bit of the promised land of my life by the grace of God. Hell cannot have another piece of me. Not now. And not ever again.
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