Keeping the First Thing First

As I was creating this blog site, I kept looking at the tab that said, “About Me.” First of all, I don’t want this site to become “About Me.” My hope for this site is to share things that the Lord downloads into my spirit for whoever may need to read it. I don’t know who will read this, if anyone, but I know in the future there may be a day when I am needed to be reminded of what God did. So maybe this will end up as a journal for the future me, but my prayer is that it will be for someone else too.

I feel like in order to move forward with the things the Lord keeps giving me to share I do need to share my testimony. How I came to know the Lord, what that journey has looked like, and what I believe He is doing next. The first step to any spiritual journey has to be salvation. We cannot learn about the Lord the way we need to unless we first know and understand WHO He is, and how He fits in our lives.

I grew up in church…it was a weekly obligation for our family. For me, that’s all it was. My weekly obligation. We would go through the motions, sing the songs, pray the prayers, listen to the sermon, and go back home. That was it… just basic go to the building, do the things, and go home. I knew all of the hymns, I knew the Bible stories, and I was a master in Bible drill at finding scriptures or books of the Bible. When I was 13, I met the person that would become my spiritual mentor. She was different… she walked different…there was a light about her that was just different. I watched how she lived, I watched how she served, and most of the time I listened when she offered advice (Side note – I tend to be a little rebellious at times ). Eventually, I wanted to look more like that. I wanted to know the Lord in the same way she did and in August of 1999 I was saved and baptized in my home church in Moss Bluff. I led worship on our praise team, I did Bible studies, I was excited to be at church, I taught in youth. I loved Jesus, I loved learning about Him and telling others about him… but a few years later I turned my back.

My dream from as far back as I can remember was to be a wife and a mom. I didn’t want a career, I wanted babies. In 2003 I met a boy who I thought was my future husband. We got serious fairly quickly and he proposed not long after. A few months before our wedding date we began fighting a lot. One day I asked him, do you even want to get married anymore? His response… No, I haven’t wanted to marry you for a while. And that was that. I remember calling my spiritual mentor sobbing…I had no idea what I was going to do. My bridesmaids had all bought dresses, I had a dress, the plans were in motion. In that conversation she offered to pay back all of my bridesmaids for their dresses. She didn’t care about the money or the logistics… She cared about me. The Lord knew years earlier I would need someone like her to help me pick up the pieces when my world fell apart. But man was I terrible steward of that for many years.

I was so angry after this; my anger drove me into a season of rebellion. I wanted to do life the way I wanted to and to numb the pain, disappointment, rejection, and hurt I drank. I would take shot after shot, beer after beer, drink after drink until I couldn’t feel anymore. During this season I put myself into so many dangerous situations I am still amazed that I survived. I lied to anyone I spoke to, I said horrible things to the people I loved, I wanted nothing to do with the Lord, and on many occasions I wanted to die or disappear. I was on an island, in the deepest valley… The enemy told me over and over how awful I was, how much damage I had caused, and how far gone I was. However, during this entire season people who loved me never stopped praying, they never stopped encouraging, and even though some of our conversations were hard…they told me the hard things and loved me in my most unlovable season.

One evening I was sitting alone in my living room and I audibly heard a voice say, “Get up and go!” I looked around to find the voice and saw nothing…but I got up, packed my things, and left. I was welcomed back into my world with open arms… I apologized and cried over and over for a long time. I fell on my knees before the Lord and asked forgiveness, He forgave me and has since redeemed those years the locusts stole. I got plugged back into church and serving the Lord and wanted to be re-baptized on this side of my re-entry to the Lord’s plan for my life. I wanted to be open and obedient to what He had for me.

Life did not get easier, and I did not move into the life I had planned for myself but I did keep pressing forward to whatever it was God had for me next. In 2011, I attended a Faith Walk weekend. In the months leading up to that weekend and the months that followed the Lord began to reveal to me that I had grown substantially but the vine I was growing from was not His. It was the vine of my spiritual mentor. I was connected to her and feeding off of her spiritually. This was keeping me going but sucking the life out of her at the same time. I was so heavily convicted, that I needed to make a change. Now this is one of those seasons I did not handle the right way. Instead of gradually adjusting my life to connect to the Lord’s vine, I cut off completely and made some rash decisions in the process. Looking back, this was a devastating blow both to myself and to my sweet friend who had stood by me for so long. I did feel like I was doing what was right, but it was completely out of step with the Lord and the wake of destruction went for miles.

I did grow tremendously in this season. My eyes became fixed on Him, and I had nowhere else to turn but to Him. It was probably about a year or so before the relationship with my spiritual mentor began to resurface. She continued to pray for me during this season, and the entire time my heart yearned for that connection to my friend. I believed, and the enemy told me continuously that once again I had brought so much damage into this friendship that it was a lost cause. We would never be as close as we once were because of my rash decision and by taking my conviction into my own hands instead of seeking the Lord. But God. Ya’ll we serve such an amazing heavenly Father who wants His best for our lives. He placed my friend and I together so many years before and HE was the glue, the anchor, and the connection that we had so in His timing He restored a relationship with us. If I am being truly transparent our friendship is better and definitely more healthy today than it was years ago. I treasure her and her family and I know without a doubt God has used her abundantly in my world since day 1.

In 2022, I was asked to lead worship at a Faith Walk weekend. I had done this previously but this time was different. The Lord began a “shift” in me that is hard to put into words. He changed the way I led, the way I worshipped, and the way I spoke. He created a boldness in me to share His word that was unlike anything I ever experienced. I would feel Him well up within me and my mouth would open and the spirit would pour out truth over the people in that room with conviction and intentionality. I would end the set shaking, red faced, and emotional. That trend has continued since then, and I pray it is something I never lose. I want to be open and ready whenever He gives me something to say. As I have been cultivating this new shift, it has brought me from everything I knew and was comfortable with to a new church, a new ministry, and a new calling.

I recently did a dive into Jesus’ baptism story.

Matthew 3:13-17:  Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.  But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.  As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

I knew this part of the story pretty well, but it was what came next that hit me pretty hard. Matthew 4 talks about from here Jesus was tempted by the devil. Every jab the devil made, Jesus combated with the truth of God’s word. Then, after the devil fled Jesus’ ministry began. That was the part that hit me… His ministry did not begin until AFTER His baptism. After reading this I let it soak for a while, but a few days later I woke up in the middle of the night with this story on repeat. It cycled over and over again, and the Lord showed me that His next step for me is baptism. Now if you are counting… I’ve been baptized twice already… Once after my salvation; once after my season of rebellion; and now the Lord is calling me to do it a third time. Boy did the enemy have a hay day with that one. I have known for some time that this “shift” in me is a calling into ministry. I don’t know what that looks like or where we go but I had been praying for doors to open and for the Lord to show me what that next step would be. As crazy as it felt, I knew in my spirit it was what He was calling me to… So on 7/7/2024, I was baptized by my spiritual mentor and her husband… Don’t you love how HE did that?!?! After spending so much time fighting the lies that this relationship would never be restored not only are we closer than ever BUT the Lord allowed them to be part of this baptism into my next step. We serve such a BIG God whose ways are not what we think. His way is SO MUCH BETTER than we could ever imagine.

Step two of this new path is this blog. A place to keep track of what He is showing me and speaking into me. I’m not sure what comes next, but I am ready… I am open, and I know that no matter what He calls me to, I will be able to say yes because it is in HIS strength that I am able to walk in the calling He has for me! I am excited to see what’s next and where we go from here!