December 24, 1991: The Truth About Santa and Side Eyeing God

My dad wanted to talk to me. I knew what was coming. I had this ability to sometimes know what was going to happen before it did. I thought everyone did so it was never a big deal to me. Could be small things, like knowing if someone was going to call and then they would right when I would be thinking that or a knowing that my friend Savannah was going to wear a certain outfit on a certain day or that my friend Lindsay would be sick and not be at school.

My sister had already hinted at the conversation so that added to the “knowing” but I put her suggestions aside and chose to believe she was lying to me and being annoying.

She was hovering around so my dad took me into a room and closed the door. Mom was standing there too.

“Nicole, there is no Santa Claus.”

He said it flat, like that wasn’t a big deal. Like the implications to my life and heart wouldn’t be forever altered by those words. I cried. I told them my sister told me but I didn’t believe her because I thought it more likely she would be lying then them.

Gathering myself I asked hesitantly, “Is God real? And Jesus?”

“Yes! Yes! Of course God is real and Jesus and Holy Spirit. We wouldn’t go to church every week if they weren’t real,” dad added, bolstering his claim.

“Okay,” I said lamely not knowing what to reply with and being aware that we were leaving to go to the Christmas Eve service in a few minutes and I needed to pull myself together.

We left for church the mood more somber than usual. My sister tried cheering me up by talking to me about how we still get presents even though Santa isn’t real and tomorrow we will get to open them like we always do. That didn’t help me. And I had a new suspicion building in me that maybe God wasn’t real.

March 5, 1991: First Encounter

I stood in church, my feet finding their place directly in front of my wooden pew seat. My hands held on to the back of the pew in front of me steadying me. In my heart I asked the question I had been gaining the courage to ask: “God, are you real?”

I didn’t hear an answer but I immediately felt a feeling I never had before. I got goosebumps but not because I was cold. My heart picked up in rhythm and I felt a joy come over me that I had never experienced. I had my answer and it was then that I knew that I knew He was real!

I felt like He let me in on a little secret. The rest of the service I sang the songs with new vigor. I engaged the words and felt my heart searching for their true meaning. I listened intently as the reading from the gospels was done wondering exactly what the words meant. I began to pay attention to it all.

Present day: December 25, 2023: Do You KNOW Him?

I remember after that time walking around feeling like I imagine the man who finds the kingdom feels. He found a great treasure and sold everything he had to purchase the field it was in. I knew God was real. I knew that He cared enough about me to reveal Himself to me, even as a little 8 year old girl. I also remember noticing not everyone else seemed as excited as I was that He was real. I didn’t understand that. I wondered if they all had heard about Santa and then questioned God’s existence like I did but never asked Him about it…walking around with a half truth in their hearts not quite knowing if He is who He says He is.

As life went on, I paid attention. When people talked about Him, I listened to hear if they knew Him like I knew Him. Like, yes you go to church and all of that but do you KNOW Him? Felt like I had learned a deep truth or a secret that not many others learned or knew and I found myself digging when I met other Christians…”when did you meet Him?” waiting to see if they got excited when they spoke about Him.

I don’t remember exactly when she told us but I do remember being fully floored when I learned my grandma’s story of Jesus that would even more ignite the growing fire in me for Him.

June 8, 1991: Jesus in the Sky

My cousins and I were gathered in my grandparent’s house for lunch and were planning on riding our bikes to my house to play.

“Grandma, can you tell us the story of when you saw Jesus back the lane?” I found myself asking on a whim, like I couldn’t control my heart’s desire to hear it again.

When she told this story she would get serious and sort of somber. Grandma was a practical, no nonsense type of woman who would tell it like it was no matter who was in the room or if they would like it or not. She was a baptism for me into what a strong woman looked like. I don’t know to this day if I’ve met a stronger woman. She was happiest when she was making food for people and they were enjoying her food but don’t let that lead you to any conclusions or judgements. She was also president of the Soil and Water Conservation, and a stubborn as they come defender of the Democratic party. She would fight anyone tooth and nail about democratic beliefs. My cousins and I being there for lunch had the effect of putting her in a good mood but when I asked her to tell the story she made a point of coming out into the living room from the kitchen and sitting down, something she didn’t do much of in those days as she was always busy and moving around.

She went on to narrate her experience of walking back the lane (the lane of the farm my family now lived on, a fact then that I took great pride in) and getting on her knees in prayer. She prayed a prayer that I remember didn’t seem to warrant a visitation from Jesus-like He would only appear on super important prayer occasions. She prayed and looked up and saw Jesus’ face in the sky.

We were all awed by the story that seemed to bear more weight due to the nature of the storyteller. She was not one prone to fanciful fairy tales or day dreaming. She liked facts, truth, honesty.

The cousins, my sister and I decided to hop on our bikes and high tail it to the farm and back the lane to see if we could see Jesus’ face in the sky too. The freshly told story adding new excitement that felt like we captured something and must get down there quick to see if He is currently appearing, like Grandma just telling us maybe opened up heaven anew or something.

We outdid one another trying to get there first to see. I don’t know that I ever rode my bike so fast up to that point. We left our bikes at the beginning of the lane as we felt that we should recreate the moment as close to Grandma’s experience as possible. We walked to the middle of the lane and looked at the sky and saw nothing. I believe I even prayed or one of us asked Jesus to show us His face like He had to my grandma and nothing.

I felt let down and had a similar feeling to hearing the news of Santa. But that feeling quickly left. My introduction to the mysteries of God. And how He typically doesn’t do the same thing in the same way.

Present day: December 25, 2023

I look back on the vignettes of my life and the times that stand out the most are those where He was somehow involved. He is always involved…but there are times when He is more noticeable than others.

October 10^th,  1996: Embers Glowing

I had been looking forward to this year. My 8^th grade year. My sister, was one grade ahead of me and the most exciting year to date in school was 8^th grade year. It was this year that we would read and learn about the Holocaust. This was the year we would go to Washington D.C. for our 8^th grade trip. It felt like all grades up to this point added up to this year and it was the pinnacle of childhood school experience.

My sister talked about the Holocaust a lot her 8^th grade year so I decided to get a leg up and began to read books on it the summer leading up. I found a new fascination. I’m not exactly sure what compelled me, even to this day. I think I was blown away by the fact that a person would convince a nation and then other nations and people to exterminate an entire people group. In the beginning of my readings I thought maybe everyone had exaggerated this and wasn’t as bad or there was some other outlying factor that people hadn’t shared with me. As I read, I found it was far worse than what people had shared with me or than what I knew. The atrocities I read blew my mind. That a person/people could conceive of that kind of evil…I felt the more I read the more answers I would get to solve the mystery as to why a person would be led to do this, let alone an entire nation and more!

I was thirty books in at the start of 8^th grade year. One book that gripped me was, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. I was struck by her family’s foresight to do the right thing though they didn’t have to as they themselves weren’t Jews but they did anyway. They chose to be ones to hide Jews in their home despite the cost. These were ones who walked the walk and talked the talk…though it seems they did more “walking” metaphorically speaking. The miracles Corrie and her sister, Betsy, experienced while in the concentration camps were incredible! They were “Jesus’ face in the sky” stories. I read all her books that year.

Corrie was the sole survivor of her family. She was released by accident and would’ve been killed the next day if it wasn’t for a clerical error, which was clearly intervention from Father God. She went on to travel the world speaking about the goodness of God and who He is and was. She shared stories of the miracles she and Betsy experienced while in the camps. Her earnest heart to speak about Him after what she endured belied a foundation built upon the solid truth of Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. Also, that her heart was tender and soft after enduring and witnessing the atrocities and horrendous evil that she did. I was taken by her witness. I wanted to be like her.

I had to reread some of the books I already read to keep pace with my class but I didn’t care or mind in the least. Something else was happening to me as I read. The flame for Him that had begun was burning brighter and brighter. I started to talk about Him to classmates that I wasn’t sure attended church and my zeal compelled me to share how incredible He is and that He loves them. I instituted a breakfast club that met before school started where we could meet and talk about Jesus…and there were donuts. I’m not sure who came for Jesus or for the donuts. Then I learned about prayer at the pole and so started that. A few of us would meet at Mary’s and watch Veggie Tales and talk about Jesus. A mini revival of sorts had begun in our jr high hearts and it was beautiful.

May 20, 1996: Disappointment and Redemption

We drove by bus to Washington D.C. My mom came on my trip just like she did for my sister. I was somewhat interested in learning about the different battles fought and different history lessons but I endured it all with baited breath for the visit to the Holocaust museum. My sister and her friends all talked about their trip but the standout for them was the Holocaust Museum. It moved them all so much as they were issued a number, like they were one of the prisoners and at the end they found out if they made it out alive or were killed. Most were killed. I wanted so badly to experience the museum as it felt like the exclamation mark on my deep dive. The day of arrived. I got up, got dressed, one of the first ready. Excitement for the experience made it hard to sleep the night prior. We met in the lobby to gather to head to the museum and as we waited word circulated that the museum was closed for the day. We wouldn’t be able to go.

I held back tears. The group decided to go somewhere else, I have no idea where, I did know that I couldn’t go anywhere. The devastation of not going to the Holocaust museum, the only reason I was excited about the trip went way too deep. My mom stayed back with me and made phone calls to see why they were closed, if they would open later. She discovered that the archives of the museum were open and we could go in and read as much as we wanted to and so I settled for that.

God, the good Father that He is, totally redeemed this in 2015. I had the opportunity to go to Yad Vashem in Israel, their Holocaust museum with a tour guide nonetheless, who was one of the first messianic Jews born in the land in 1948. He KNEW EVERYTHING about the Holocaust! And he set up the background story so well, you felt as though you lived it yourself. He himself had relatives who were a part of it and shared their stories as well.

Present day: December 25, 2023: Learning

A large part of my life I thought God would show up somehow and do something amazing! I see now that He always was there…I often didn’t see it at the time. Life, as it does, continues and we make our choices. I wish I would’ve learned to listen for His voice. Learned to ask Him about decisions before me vs just reacting or making what I thought was the best choice at the time. I didn’t know I could be led by Him like Corrie was. I guess I thought I had to have a “call” on my life or a launching point that started it all off, like Corrie mistakenly released. The “call” was the learning that He could lead me then…faith comes by hearing. I had heard, just not connected the dots. I weighed that my life hadn’t really started yet or something not seeing the revival in my own heart and then others was a clarion call to beckon me to on to following His leading. But He is gentle. He doesn’t force His way. He leads gently with subtle nudges.

1997-2003: Dark Choices

I left the nudges behind somewhere in 9^th grade favoring the idea of being “popular” vs a follower of Jesus. The following years were rather dark for me. I didn’t reject Him or not believe anymore, I still believed in Him, I didn’t follow Him though and often my actions were completely counter to what I knew to be right.

I often felt like I didn’t fit in at all no matter where I went or who I met. I was welcomed into the popular crowd and brought into a world I hadn’t realized existed up to that point. I heard rumors but doubted they were true.

I was freshman when I started drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. Addiction took root quickly in me. Attention from boys was something else that took root and I found a sort of acceptance in relationships. If I would’ve known imposter syndrome was a thing that would’ve been the exact wording I would’ve used to describe freshmen year to senior year. I always felt like a misfit in this crowd. And I always seemed to get caught when things went wrong. I felt this struggle in me about being me and fitting in…like I couldn’t have both.

In college, I explored drugs and found friends who were out of the box. We had long talks about life and philosophy…about possibilities and altered realities. I was intrigued by the mysteries of human experience. I broke up with a long term boyfriend in pursuit of more freedom though that only landed me in terrible relationships in the long run. Exploring different ideas and thoughts I began to land in the realm of Buddhism. I was interested in being unconsciously conscious and operating from that place. I was reading and learning and attempting to practice.

Around that time the drug scene I was a part of had become pretty intense. I was dating a cocaine dealer who often would go off the deep end for no reason at all and yell at me for dumb things like eating what he thought was too much or the wrong thing.

I remember walking around campus one night, having taken ecstasy the night before and having a feeling of psychosis…I felt I was losing my mind. In fact, my grip on reality had been further loosened by feeling my moral compass was gone, what is wrong? What is right? These were questions I pondered and tried to tackle with people in my friend group at the time. I had a hunger in me for truth and I was not finding what I thought I would find in college and quite the opposite, beginning to feel like ground I had taken previously was also gone. I felt the answers people gave were pithy and lacked depth and given from a drug induced stupor.

In my heart, I once again cried out to God, “God, if you’re there, can You help me?” I felt a peace come over me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Shortly after that I decided to leave that college and transfer to another.

That summer I moved home in the interim and worked at Walmart and reconnected with Jesus a bit. I felt wounded from the previous experience. I began at the new school passive and scared. I’d been humbled. I realized how quick one can lose their grip on reality. How much of a gift life is. I had had a couple of near death experiences due to overdosing. I know that God spared my life. I wanted to turn over a new leaf and leave drugs and drug culture behind. That didn’t happen right away but slowly and it was an improvement in many ways from where I had come from.

January 2004: BIG Changes and New Chapters

Everything changed for me. I was working and going to school but becoming more and more tired for no apparent reason. Eventually I took a pregnancy test and discovered I was pregnant. Friends of mine had become pregnant in college and had abortions. That wasn’t an option for me and I knew this innately though people close to the situation suggested it. I considered adoption but knew deep down I couldn’t do that either. I needed to have this baby.

My incredible daughter catapulted me back into my relationship with Jesus. I knew I needed Him to do this. I couldn’t become a mom without Him. I found a church and was taken with how they accepted me though I was pregnant and unwed. I felt every bit the sinner. The prodigal son come back with clear evidence of my wild living. I often felt this weird mix of shame and being loved. Of peace and yet a daunting  fear of the future.  I was so brought low by what I perceived as failures. Failure to stay at my original school, failure in relationships, failure in educational success, failure in curbing sin. I had lost all confidence and what I perceived as respect. My parents were disappointed…I felt even more a misfit everywhere and now a burden as well.

Present day: December 25, 2023

Writing connects dots for me. Sometimes I realize a great truth about life when I look back. I see how He was in it all. I see how I tried to find myself in nonconformity but further lost myself. How the truest version of me was always the me walking in tandem with Him. I had a taste of that life at a young age but chose something else over it.

Though I wanted to have my daughter, I felt trapped. I felt my life was over. Like I could no longer go to school or finish college. Full of fear, questions swirled: “Would I be a good mom? What if she didn’t like me? How would we get by?” Too many books I had read up to that point cast their tropes over me and I wondered how my book would end…

September 2007: Pain Epidemic

After my second daughter, I began to experience back pain. It wasn’t improving and I realized I was going through bottles of Advil to deal with the pain and it seemed to only get worse. A friend recommended a Dr she had gone to. I went and it was straight out of a movie what happened…he came into the room and never looked at me. He asked me questions about the pain and my back and looked at the clipboard he carried in THE ENTIRE TIME! He wrote me a prescription for Vicodin and recommended physical therapy.

I took the Vicodin and therapy…neither helped. I went back to the Dr to see what else I could do. He again, never looked at me, wrote a script for 100 Vicodin and recommended rehabilitation therapy.

I remember getting that script for 100 vicodin and realizing that this pain was not going anywhere anytime soon. I went to rehab therapy and underwent all kinds of therapies to try and help. They would help for a few days or it seemed the pain would subside slightly but always returned.

I ended up in pain management therapy. I had MRIs that showed a herniated disc that leaked fluid.

The Vicodin turned into Percocet. The Percocet began at 100 and ended up at 240…for a month. When that didn’t help as much, morphine was added…and then fentanyl…then Nucynta…along with the others. And muscle relaxers. And sleep aids. And antidepressants. And anti-anxiety meds. And nerve pain meds. We tried steroid shots and more therapies…I was referred to a surgeon who wanted to do surgery. I got a second opinion and he told me to avoid surgery at all costs. Meanwhile, the pain only seemed to get worse.

During all of this I joined a class that taught about healing and deliverance. I grew up believing in spiritual warfare but didn’t know much about how to handle it except to pray Jesus’ name boldly-what my dad had taught me. I tried it once in college when I was desperate. Friends and I had watched a horror film (the last one I’ve seen and have no plans to ever see another again) and after everyone had fallen asleep I laid awake still haunted by the film. Out of nowhere multiple car alarms began to go off in the parking lot outside my apt. I knew it was demonic. I prayed in Jesus’ name for it to stop and they stopped immediately. That was my experience. This class taught in depth about spiritual strongholds and reasons why they can come on and how to get rid of them and to pray specifically against them. Results came pretty quick. I had freedom in especially an area I had struggled in for a long time. I even saw results in praying for my daughter. The class taught about spiritual warfare and pharmakeia and I began to wonder if there were some spiritual roots to the pain I was in.

During one of the classes we prayed and you could pray out loud if you wanted to repent of agreement to any of the specific strongholds we discussed and I found myself repenting of addiction. It felt out of body…like I hadn’t admitted even to myself that I had an addiction but I knew something was amiss about how many meds I was on and that they didn’t help me and I was a couple years into this by now. After class I was introduced to a woman who had gone through getting off medication herself and she agreed to begin to meet with me and pray with me and walk beside me as I began to confront the possibility of addiction. I remember after the class when we met and she suggested addiction I was offended, though I had repented of it already. There was a battle inside me that wanted to defend the meds. After all, they were being prescribed. The pain was real. I had MRIs to prove it. She had also been a nurse so she carefully and gently walked with me through confronting within myself that I was in fact addicted to the medications I was on. That that wasn’t a personal thing, but a product of being on such medications. Some part of me knew there was more to it. That I was in a way escaping pain, yes physical but also internal pain. A resolve grew to try and get off the meds.

Thus ensued months of titrating down and then going higher on meds as the pain increased. This battle waged-my body against my mind. My will and my body. Looking back I realize I had to want to get off of them more than I had to want to stay on them. I felt like a zombie most of the time. I functioned pretty normally though. You probably wouldn’t have known I was on anything. The draw to get off of them eventually surpassed the desire for them and I would cry out to God to help me.

Summer 2010 I got really sick. Woke up with a migraine. Vomitted. And as I sat beside the toilet I heard a voice say, “it’s time.” I knew in that moment it was God. I felt this grace or peace or something come over me and I knew I could get off the meds. Migraine, sickness and all. I got rid of the meds. The next three days were a living hell for my body. I shook and had cold sweats. I laid in bed as my body endured the brunt of a cold turkey withdrawal to years of numbing medications. The pain in my back screamed at me. The pain inside me screamed as well. Fear overwhelmed me. Fear of literally everything and anything. I clung to my bible like it was my life line. I read verses I had read before that were my new medicine-they took on a totally new life. I cried reading, “he who loses his life for My sake will find it and whoever clings to his life will lose it”. Still gives me chills. I knew getting off the meds was losing my life for His sake and to choose to stay on them would be clinging to “my life”. This was our journey. He did it with me. I had a total grace to endure the pain, the withdrawal.  It sucked. That didn’t change but I knew I could get through it. And I did. I spent most of that summer laying down. A visit to Target did me in. The pain was incredible. I had to learn how to deal with it and what I could or couldn’t do that would make it worse. Floors I stood on made a difference. The smallest subtle thing could throw me into a bout of back pain for a day or a week. But as time went on I learned to deal with it. It slowly, slowly got less and less.

I visited my Dr. at the pain management office later on as I felt to tell her about it. She had worked with me for so long trying to help get me off the meds and I felt to tell her that I had and it was possible. She was shocked. She let me know that I could’ve had a heart attack going off the meds and amount of meds I was on cold turkey. I told her the real story-that God gave me the grace to do it. That I couldn’t do it myself. I looked her up later just to see if she was still at that office. I got the feeling she read between the lines and realized the uptick in people coming to the office-there is a pain pandemic…just may be deeper than physical. When I started going to pain management I was me and older people and people who appeared to have severe situations. At the end of my time there it was often standing room only with a lobby full of people from all walks of life and all ages.

Years later, God took this journey with back pain further. After I had my daughter I took up running to exercise. I loved running personally. I loved the feel of it and the mind feel. No other workout was like it. I had to stop running pretty immediately when the back pain began. As the years went on I would try every so often to run again just to see if I could. And no. That was one thing that would throw me into a back pain flare no matter what. I could be laid out with  pain for a week from a one mile run. I did other workouts. I had to still avoid certain things for what it could potentially do to my back. A couple years ago I realized it had been a few months since I had a pain flare. I decided to give running a try to test it. Just see if it was a little doable. I ran. NO PAIN! I kept running. No pain. I began to realize, I had zero pain. I took long drives as those were good now too without paying the price of pain. He had totally, TOTALLY healed my back. I ran a ½ marathon since. I run nearly every day now. Completely healed, like it never even happened! Yeah, He is that good. I had been told I would have to have surgery some day, just a matter of time until I would have to have my discs fused. No. God had other plans for me. He healed me totally instead. The awesome part is, He is not a respecter of persons, so anyone can be healed of anything.

Deeper Still…

Spring 2015 to Present: Awed by God

I attended a deliverance retreat. After it, I opened up more to what is possible on this walk and journey with God. It was like blinders fell off of me and I saw that there is literally endless potential on this journey with Him. I heard stories of people praying and diverting tornadoes from their property and the tornado literally destroyed everything but their property, transrelocations-traveling anywhere in the world in a second, traveling through timelines, going into heaven, on and on and on. A realization began to open up in me…anything is possible in union with Christ.  

It’s a funny thing when you begin to notice God speaking to you, especially if He is trying to get your attention about something or what you’re on is a big deal! You start to notice SO MANY THINGS!!! Movies I watched with my kids paralleled with what I was learning and beginning to experience in small ways. I noticed a even bigger theme emerge pretty quickly, LOVE.

The theme of love seemed to beckon more than anything else I was learning. I loved listening to all the amazing things that are possible and that others were experiencing but I began to realize none of that really mattered without love. And for me, I could get really into things (for example, I did a rather deep dive into spiritual warfare when I started to learn more-a dive that went on for some years until I sensed Holy Spirit nudge me to stop). Paul goes into depth about this in 1 Corinthians 13: If I were to speak with eloquence in earth’s many languages and in the heavenly tongues of angels, yet I didn’t express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal. And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God’s hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains, but have never learned to love, then I am nothing. And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor, and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr, without the PURE MOTIVE OF LOVE, I would gain nothing of value.

It seems that Father leads all of us in our way that we should go with what He gives us. For me, He led me in the way of love. Love and loving others is to be my focus. From experience, much adversity has come in the way of trying to take me off course of that and also there was much work that needed to be done deep in me to change the way I received and perceived love. From a place of love and love in Christ, I believe anything is possible. But funny how the excitement of the “shiny” experiences wanes in the light of love.

I was reading in John 17 where Jesus is praying to Father out loud and says that He became the representation of Him on earth and that I feel is where we pick up in this journey: walking as Sons of God, in union with the resurrected Christ. Jesus did incredible things before he died and was resurrected by the same Spirit who now lives in us and He said we would do what He did and more but the incredible things Jesus did were often from a place of compassion and love. Not saying one can’t do cool things just because they can-you’re a Son of God! Yes, you can do cool things just because! Rather, I’ve found motive of heart is most important. When I first started out in these things I was excited and Father honored my excitement but looking back, I acted in immaturity. I would pray over the weather in the summer if we had a stretch of rainy days because I love the sun! My motive of heart, while innocent, conveyed selfishness and inconsideration, a lack of love. There very well may have been a farmer 20 miles away praying opposite me due to needing rain for his fields! A mature son realizes the bigger picture…a mature son would go to his/her father and ask what is best before praying such a prayer.

One of my favorite teachers on Sonship talks about maturity in Sonship and iterates the importance of how a father will give to a son the keys to his car if he will treat it as he does. Our Father in heaven sends rain on the good and the evil…do we? Do you? Do you pray for your enemies? Do you pray for their blessing and prosperity? Do you pray for the president you didn’t vote for? Do you give to the homeless drunk man as you would to a charity? The homeless drunk man won’t give you a tax receipt or a banquet in your honor…but your Father sees it. I love very much to hear this man teach as he says that our Father in heaven wants to mature Sons to govern the earth. What does a mature Son look like? A good place to start is to consider Jesus…He only DID what He SAW His Father doing. What would it look like to put all else aside, and to consider Jesus as a Son? To begin to ask Father to help you to grow as a mature Son.

As my journey of Sonship and love evolved and love became the primary focus a beautiful thing began to happen, Father began to tell me how much He loved me. He began to show me. I would hear a love song and know it was from Him to me. Tony Bennet crooning, The Way You Look Tonight gave me chills as I felt the heart of Father in the lyrics to my heart. The way I saw myself began to change and shift. I felt literally like the apple of His eye. That all His attention was focused on me! Up to that point in my life, I hadn’t experienced a love like that before so it was all new to me. I began to see myself the way He did and I loved me to! I began to love my laugh and the way I looked at life…the way I saw people and the good in them. And many more things. I used to hate these things about myself…thinking my laugh was obnoxious, I was naïve and gullible and wore rose colored glasses when looking at people..etc. It all flipped! I saw myself through this lens of love, these glasses that my Father in heaven wore I wore too. And I as I saw me different, I saw everything different! And cool things happened. Obstacles moved from my path, traffic cleared when I came through, it’s like everything aligned as I aligned. I would love to say this continued uninterrupted until today but that has not been the case.

Anytime you get a word that word becomes a seed inside of you. And that word will be tested. I think its good to know that when hearing these things so that you can be mindful to protect it. Walking in Sonship as a Son of God is the most incredible journey and honor I can imagine-I would urge you to protect the words you get about it with everything you have. The cares of this life will seek to take it. The enemy or darkness will seek to take it. You may forget it and brush it aside and remember it later. It is the most precious thing to learn that the resurrected Christ lives inside of you and that you can become a mature Son of God on this earth and learn to govern the earth. As that journey takes place a letting go of this world’s operating system also seems to happen and needs to as you assume higher positions. This is where it helps to get around like-minded people and take great courage! And all of creation is groaning to see the unveiling of the sons of God!

I often listen to teachers on Sonship just to retrain my brain and how it thinks. Our world runs on a system that has been trained by “the fall” (by the way, I am not a technical bible scholar by any means and struggle often to remember where verses are in the bible so if you are that type, I recommend searching for someone who teaches this that way-they exist! And offer far better technical teaching than I do) and so I’ve found that listening to others that talk about their journey of sonship helps me stay in mine. Walking as a Son of God entails following the prompting of Holy Spirit which is interesting. For me, the journey of Sonship has often looked opposite to the world. I found for me that focusing on the good in it all is far more helpful that glancing at the contrast, though I have done that too and see how it can be helpful. For me, it often leads me back towards a lower self image as it is much easier for me in my default state to notice my negatives over my positives. Oh yeah, I do that, maybe I’m more an orphan than a Son…I have so far to go. This way is similar to how the world has been so deeply effected by the fall we find it helpful to address the contrast vs just looking forward and up. There is a verse in Philippians 4:8 that says, think on what is good, valuable, excellent, on what is above…I don’t know that it does much good to glance at the opposite side but if it helps you than do it! I have felt deep in my heart to keep my gaze up as much as possible and that’s what I intend to do and I notice how helpful that is to me as the other way can tend to lead me back down the slope of negative self image the word itself seems to draw its conclusion when one continues to look upon it, depending on what is in their heart but the contrast doesn’t exist for me unless I look at it. My heart leaps at the talks of what it means to be a Son and helpful practicals in how to do so but tends to drop when I hear the contrast so it’s sort of easy to just do the one thing. You feed what you focus on I guess is what I’m saying and so to focus on the contrast much past noticing there is a contrast I personally haven’t felt helpful.

A few thoughts I want to end with here. God is real. He wants friendship with you. You don’t have to be “special” and I’m going to be totally cheesy and tell you the real, you are special. That is true. I invite you into this journey of going deeper with Him if you’re curious. Ask Him about what He likes, what He is thinking about, etc…ask Him to speak to you and listen. Do you hear Him? How? Do you sense Him in different ways?