Saved, Healed and Delivered!

I am just about to wrap up my journey here at the Pasadena International House of Prayer for my Pulse Internship and I feel the need for this post to be a testimony of what God has been doing during this past month for inner healing. This week alone has revealed the power and love of God in ways I could previously have only imagined! For over 5 years I have been dealing with intense pain in my abdomen due to an issue with my reproductive system called PCOS. Sometimes the pain would be so bad that I would spend hours at times in the bathroom vomiting, and many nights have been spent curled into a ball on my bed, crying myself to sleep, because no matter what I did, the pain wouldn't leave. I started dealing with these issues here in California about a week ago as I was in an evening worship service for PIHOP. During worship, I felt led to pray for the Salvation of my family, since all but me and my oldest brother are still members of the FLDS church, or Fundamentalist Mormons. As I was kneeling low to the ground, interceding for personal encounters with Jesus Christ as their Savior, sharp intense pains started shouting though my body. The epicenter of the pain was my abdomen, but I noticed that sharp pain was also manifesting in my shoulder, wrist, knees, ankles, and neck as well. I tried to ignore it and focus on worship instead, but if anyone has dealt with that pain before, it's not something that can just be ignored! So I spent the rest of the evening trying to pray though it, hoping that there would be a word of knowledge about it at the end, giving me an opportunity to leave my responsibilities and receive prayer.

Needless to say... God does not work on our terms, hence, the word of knowledge never came. I had agreed to serve as part of the ministry team and as I our group was praying together before people started coming to receive from us, my group leader Suzann asked me a question. I still don't know what the question was because I was zoning out so much due to the pain. I apologized and told her I did not feel well. She and the other girl in my group prayed over me and told me to go sit down, worship and just receive from the Lord. That wasn't much better, but I couldn't go home because I had 2 girls that I had given rides to the service that I was responsible for, so I had to wait it all out. My friends Jena and Lois prayed over me as well, but nothing changed. Lois finally told me to go home and take care of myself after agreeing to take the other girls home. Unfortunately the next 3 days consisted of me staying at home alone watching netflix, with my pain and the lies in my head to keep me company.Lies saying that no one wanted to be around me or that they didn't really care. It made my weekend, quite literally a mental hell. I forced myself to go to Old Town Pasadena on Saturday to take my friend to a job interview and spent some time in Barnes and Noble which is normally like a room in heaven to me, but after about an hour, I couldn't focus on what I was trying to read, so I walked over and got my friend and went home. Monday, once again I forced myself to go to staff prayer at the house of prayer, but I spent most of the time sitting on the floor, cross-legged and begging God to take away the pain. I left and ran some errands around town and went home for awhile, to let my body have a break before forcing myself to go to the YWAM Circuit Rider's service that PIHOP was hosting that evening.

Thankfully the message was phenomenal and I got so excited about the sermon and the preaching that it was a long awaited and very welcomed distraction. My friend Lois asked me how I feeling when the service was over and I told her that I was ok, but gave more details on what was going on. She prayed for me again and asked me to grab her to pray with me if things started getting bad again. The next morning, I was still in a lot of pain and was seriously considering not going in for the internship that day. But I kept pushing myself, because I hate feeling confined or held back, and this stupid thing had held me back way too much as it was!! Little did I know that we would have a guest teacher in town, who was actually the original Pulse Director. Mandy is extremely gifted in the prophetic, healing and deliverance, so she began to teach us about a little of all of that, starting with inner healing and deliverance to help finish of the month's focus. While we were trying to receive from the Lord, the pain got really bad. I was so distracted that I could not think, let alone hear from the Holy Spirit! Mandy, looked at me and asked me what I was feeling based on our exercise. I told her that I was in a lot of pain and felt nauseous, I felt like I needed to leave. She instantly came over and laid hands on me and started praying for me. She was sensing the spiritual realm and battle I was walking though, beyond the physical or even emotional, and her prayers were definitely hitting my heart, but the pain seemed to only be getting worse. The biggest thing in my head was, "I am robbing from what the class should be learning right now."

I told Mandy I was gonna go into the other room so she could continue with class. She protested at first, but then allowed me to leave with the exception that our Pulse assistant went with me and continued to pray in tongues over me. When I got to the couch in the other room, all of the lies I had been feeling or hearing in my head had surfaced and I broke down and buried my face into the pillows and wept. I wept for probably a good 20 min or more, as Valerie stroked my hair comfortingly, praying over me the entire time. I felt someones hands come down on my side, as heat shot through my body. I heard Mandy's voice as she began praying fervently over me, breaking and rebuking as she felt led. After a few minutes, I felt my entire being succumb to peace, except my abdomen, which kept burning. Not a painful, violent burning, but a tingling, warmth- almost as if someone had placed a heat pack over me. Mandy left again into the other room after telling Valerie that I should just rest awhile and could join them in the next room, if and when I was ready to. I sat up and just received the peace of God's presence and His healing power within me. I realized that I had been carrying guilt and shame over things of my past that God had forgiven me for, but I was still holding onto. I had been afraid to allow for God's peace in it's full capacity, because I had been abused and taken advantage of the last time I allowed myself to be in that state of being. I let God bring things to light and speak His truth over me as I received His love.

Over the next few days God continued to show me areas from my past that had affected my diagnosis and condition, including things that I had spoken over myself- even unintentionally- and cursing my health. Thing like telling my Mom that I didn't want to have children when I was a teenager, fears that I had bought into that were irrational, but still very real because they were rooted in my Mormon upbringing and the lie that I would always fail. The Lord has revealed to me that there has been generational curse that come along with my upbringing in Mormonism that are more subtle than the spirit of the occult per se, but still very present nonetheless. Things like a spirit of misogyny, a spirit of poverty and a spirit of affliction. Over the next week I went through some inner healing and deliverance over these issues with my YWAM friend Jena and got some awesome breakthrough! Not just for myself, but after 4 hours of prayer between each of us, we both walked away with greater levels of freedom! With my healing and deliverance I began to understand God's love in a very practical way and it led me to want to show that same love with others, by praying for healing for their needs- physical and emotional! I saw a total of 3 physical healings in one week and 3 cases of deliverance and inner healing within a weeks time! Needless to say, I have been in awe of Christ's power and the love He has for us each as individuals and His desires to protect, care for, and provide for us! For the first time in my life I am actually believing that God can use me to be great- all for His glory!! And that is as simple as receiving Him and His love in His fullness! Loving Him, and loving the ones in front of me, whoever comes across my path- because THAT is how true revival starts, with people encountering the person of Jesus. But we must cultivate Christ in us, and fellowship with Him first and foremost!

It has been a crazy journey, still is! In fact I have been battling a lot this past week with various attacks against my voice and being a voice as God has called me to be. I know that no victory comes without retaliation, and I also know that I am entering into new realms and new battles- a lot are as a result of contending for my family and their salvation,because no longer am I satisfied with the story stopping here with me... I want God's glory in it's fullness and that means carrying it to every single person I know and seeing it brought to fruition! If you're reading this, your prayers regarding these things would be valued far greater than you could ever imagine! But even still... God is worthy! He is worthy of everything and no matter the cost, I am choosing to love Him with everything! If there is one thing this Summer Internship has taught me it is to "rooted and grounded in love" and to seek the one thing: to sit at the feet of Jesus, being obedient to all that He requires of me.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward that which is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
~Philippians 3:12-14~