One-Winged Butterfly

Holy Spirit week was awesome. I was looking forward to it so much! I couldn’t wait for my sisters who had never encountered or experienced the Holy Spirit to have that opportunity. It was amazing to watch. The husband of our speaker gave me a really good prophetic word during ministry time of class one day.

He said, “Right now you’re building steps up to the top of a wall. You are a watchman of the wall-a watchman of the night. God has gifted me with the mandate of intercession. I will be able to see what the enemy is doing and pray against that. He’s always had a good plan for me that won’t leave me dry or disappointed. I will see 10,000 come to Christ. He sees me. He rages for me. He is passionately in love with me. He wants to hold my hand.” That was soooooo encouraging. It confirmed things I’ve heard before, and reminded me of promises God’s given me.

She took some time to talk about envy and my favorite thing she said during that time was, “Any time you fake celebrate envy is present.” Ouch! How many times do we pretend to be happy for people in our lives all while secretly harboring bitterness that we aren’t receiving the same blessing or favor that they are? I want to be real. Really happy for my friends. Really joyful because they’re joyful. I don’t want friendships to be affected by envy in my life!

Week 8 was a great big kick in the butt spiritually. It was all about dying to ourselves and giving God everything.One thing Jeremy talked about a lot was “The moment grace gets boring is the moment you don’t understand it.” How true! We can never ever ever fully understand grace and the magnitude of what it means for us eternally speaking.

“We end up trying to redeem our lives rather than living the redeemed life.” Whoa! That’s crazy. What an amazing perspective shift. We can never redeem our lives. We have been redeemed by the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. That is the only way redemption was possible, and because of that our focus should be living as who we are in Christ rather than trying to make ourselves seem redeemed enough for Christ.

“If you defend something it’s part of your identity. We defend what makes us who we are.” It’s funny how when we are doing bad things we tend to become super defensive. When we are dating someone everyone thinks we should break up with, we constantly defend their behavior. I want to spend more time defending my faith and relationship with Jesus than the sinful desires of my flesh.

Week 7: Sex & Relationships

I must say this wasn’t a week I was particularly looking forward to. Honestly I’d rather avoid the topic altogether. Luckily we spent a lot of time talking about relationships and a lot less time talking about sex. This week was amazing for me. Our speaker Pat Caven taught us so many little things that were life changing. The biggest thing she taught us was that No is a complete sentence. You don’t have to defend your no. You don’t have to explain your no. No is No! That was revolutionary for me in so many ways. I am allowed to say no and not have to explain myself. Wow! Such a big shift mentally!

Some other amazing things she said were:

“In the transformation from the old to the new, the presence of God is the anesthesia.” Being able to go back and look at that today means so so much to where I’m at now.

“Christian maturity is our ability to access the holy spirit within us.” Wow! That pretty much speaks for itself.

“Children are like wet cement. What you experience gets recorded permanently into the rock.” That statement couldn’t be more true. I think healing is being able to take those rocks to Jesus and allow him to wash over the cement with the healing, living water and make them new.

“When the pain of the consequences is greater than the pain of whatever we’re trying to numb, that’s when change occurs.” Such a harsh but true reality. Sometimes it has to hurt more to numb the hurt than to feel the hurt.

“80% of the relational difficulties we have as adults are based on the first 20 years of our lives.” YEP.

“We fight against the very thing we believe deepest in our hearts.”

“You can deal with the same issue repetitively, but it will shrink in size.” This was so encouraging. I get so frustrated seeming to deal with the same things over and over again. Realizing that’s natural and the problems really are getting smaller made a huge difference.

We arrived in Tijuana about lunch time on Friday. We were staying at a local church. They served us an incredibly yummy lunch. We had some worship and prayer after that. It was really encouraging. Then we got to take a NAP which was heavenly. :D We left for YWAM Tijuana a little after dinner. They have a beautiful base there. We had a little orientation about the red light district there. It was going to be a lot more intense than the one on Ensenada. We split into teams and left for the red light district. Nothing could’ve prepared us for what we saw. Girls just line the walls of every building, hundreds of them, waiting to be bought. Girls constantly coming in and out of hotels. Watching kids being given to men and taken into hotels. It was beyond overwhelming. It felt so unreal. The amount of sin and brokenness there can’t be expressed in words.

It’s incredible how many people came up to US asking for prayer. The people were desperate and hungry for more. Every time I saw a girl get bought off the wall my heart broke. This was an every day reality for hundreds of these girls. It was so sad. There was a man who approached us on a corner who was completely demon possessed. He got right in my face and was almost mocking me with his movements and stares. I had to walk away. The darkness pouring out of his eyes was too much to handle. After that interaction I was experiencing so much fear. I wanted to go home. I didn’t even want to stay in the city that night. I couldn’t even share with anyone what was going on until 2 days later. It was so intense. As horrible as it is I wish more people in America could witness this horrible reality. It really prevents you from being desensitized from the whole issue as we so often are. Those girls need love and protection. The deserve so much more than the life they have. They’re beautiful and should be treated that way. 

Week 6 we set out on Sunday morning for Ensenada Mexico. It was a really long drive, but we had a lot of fun on the vans. We arrived at Misiones MUC pretty late and got ready for bed. Monday was a day full of classes and teaching by a guy named Rich who came down with us from the local church we attend here in Vegas. We talked about evangelism. He explained 4 main hindrances to evangelism. 1. Bad experiences/examples, 2. Apathy-passive-not caring and active-too busy to care, 3. Unbelief-choosing not to believe in the power or promises of God and 4. Fear of man. We had some time to ask God for forgiveness in any of those 4 areas. I had to apologize to God for believing that he wouldn’t heal my mom from cancer because he makes me go through everything the hard way. My unbelief in that area was so high and it felt really good to let that go.

Our first outreach was to a safe house for girls that had been trafficked. I got to share a 5 min testimony with the girls there. It was so amazing. I got super disappointed because we had a chance to pray for the girls and I really wanted to be able to pray for someone completely in Spanish. That didn’t happen, but God redeemed that the rest of the week. That night we had a prayer and worship service for our team. Trey lead the service time. He came over to me during the prayer time and gave me a word. He said God was not overlooking me. He notices me and sees me .He said I will see the dead raised to life with my hands. God will give me the nations and I will lead thousands to Christ. It was really encouraging and confirmation of what I’ve heard in the past, but I was extremely frustrated. How can someone prophecy something that incredible over your life and you not have the slightest emotional response? All I wanted was to feel. I was tired of being numb. I talked to my leader about it some and ended up just going to bed trying to forget about it.

We had more classes the next day and then we went to a rehab center for girls. The moment we met the girls, one girl was crying. Her name was Vivian, and she was upset because she had been at the rehab center for 2 weeks and hadn’t seen her daughter the whole time she’d been in there. We worked to clean the rehab center, fold laundry and do some work outside. Before we left, I pulled Vivian aside to talk to her some more. She opened up about her dreams to be a missionary. She told me a pastor had come the week before and told her she would reach nations. The girls she lived with made fun of her for that. That broke my heart. She said she had a copy of the book The Purpose Driven Life in Spanish and read it every night. I tried to encourage her and shared a little bit of what I’d been through. I asked her if I gave her something if she would be allowed to keep it. She said yes. I took off my bracelet that said survivor and put it around her wrist. I told her to never give up and never forget she was a survivor. It was such a powerful moment. Our team led a worship song and prayed over the girls. While we were praying over her she wept and wept. She said she could feel the warmth of the Holy Spirit. She was so touched and encouraged that day. I was so grateful we went there and got to minister to them.

That afternoon we went to an orphanage. We got to do a skit and lead the kids in some songs. I got to teach the kids Jesus Loves Me in Spanish. :) That was SO much fun. We went outside to play with the kids. I was kinda just floating around but ended up talking to this one little girl. She clung to me. She was absolutely hilarious and stayed with me the whole afternoon. We talked in Spanish the entire time. I really enjoyed our time there. That night we had another prayer and worship time for our team. I was trying so hard to be open and expect God to really do something in my life. He gave me some things to pray over 2 of my sisters. I did, but afterwards I just felt extremely frustrated. Suddenly I had an overwhelming desire to die. I wanted to just run into the streets of Mexico and end it all. That was really weird and random because I hadn’t really struggled with thoughts of suicide in months. Leah came over and asked what I was thinking at that moment, and I told her I was trying to think of the sharpest thing I had in my possession that I could cut with. They called everyone up to pray over the people who were hosting us that week. I ran out and went to my room. I was so upset. I felt completely out of control. I was actually afraid of myself in those moments. They started a bonfire. I ran downstairs and found Leah. I felt like I had a fleeting moment of clarity and I used it to look directly into her eyes and tell her I needed her to help me. I wasn’t ok and I needed help. She sat with me for a bit and told me we would pray with Trey in a little while. I was out of control. I couldn’t focus on anything, I didn’t want to pray.

About an hour later almost everyone was in bed, and we headed upstairs to pray. It turned into a 3 hour deliverance session in which God set me free from SO many things. It was incredible. I was overwhelmed and exhausted, but I knew I was free. My sisters were so happy for me and couldn’t wait to see me live out my freedom. Over the next few days, I realized that I could no longer access my other personalities that had been there my whole life. (Side note: I was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder in 2012. Because of the severe trauma I endured as a child, my mind coped by forming different personalities to handle the things I was enduring. They had been there my whole life and I constantly used that as a way to cope.) It was so weird to not have them there. I knew God had done something amazing, but it took me a few days to wrap my mind around what he’d done. It was so good to have the love and support from my sisters during this time. They were so excited and loving towards me. It really helped solidify my freedom. :)

The next day we went out to migrant camps in the city where most of the workers are labor trafficked. It was hard because they spoke indigenous languages not English or Spanish. It was good to be there and get to show them God’s love though! We made a pit stop at a little school where we had about 7 minutes to minister to the kids. The local pastor led them in the prayer of salvation. It is so rare to get to do that in that location. It was amazing! That night we went to the red light district in Ensenada. It was really weird! It was super heavy and dark. It was extremely depressing and sad.  There weren’t a lot of people out on the streets at all. Even the music blaring from the bars had an extremely depressing undertone. We prayer walked for about an hour and then we left. It was good preparation for the red light district in Tijuana the next day.

Week 5 was a struggle for me. I have a hard time really caring about plate tectonics, or dinosaurs, or giants, or all the controversial science topics out there. I was really uninterested in the topic. The speaker did a good job presenting the information, I just really couldn’t connect with it. It was really weird because the enemy was really using tiny, random things the speaker would do to trigger things from my past. I didn’t want to see him or be around him. After talking to my leaders, however, I realized it really had nothing to do with him and everything to do with what was being triggered. That was hard to accept because it was much easier to put the blame on him and try to avoid it that way. 

We had an amazing speaker that week for our track focus. She came and told her testimony of her daughter who had been trafficked. It was so overwhelming and my heart just broke for that situation. The worst part was that the daughter wasn’t completely out of the trafficking industry. We all prayed for that speaker and her daughter’s situation. We went out onto a street called Tropicana where the speaker had said her daughter frequently used to be forced to prostitute. We did a prayer walk and tried to speak to anyone we saw on the street.

I LOVE LOVE LOVED week 4! It was amazing! Our speaker was Kay Charlotte and she was phenomenal! One of the very first things she introduced to us was a picture with 3 columns, Lies, True and Truth. We learned so much about that. Things in your True category represent facts about your life and the things you’ve experienced. For example, divorced, abused, single, afraid, self-harmer etc could be in that category. (Those aren’t specifically mine although some of those do appear in my category). The things in your True category very much affect the things in your Lie category. Example: abused could be in your true category and the lie that you were made for abuse could be in your Lie category. That was such a revelation. We live constantly between the Lies and True categories when in reality we should live in a balance between the True and Truth categories. This whole example really showed me a lot of things I was believing incorrectly about myself.

The second day we talked about Justice. Injustice produces a need for Justice. We make a decision in that moment to choose God’s justice or our own. If we choose God’s justice it leads to the cross-forgiveness, restitution, freedom, abundant life, grace, fulfillment, joy and healing. Choosing our own justice leads to frustration->bitterness/stewing->resentment which can lead to hate. Hate when we blame others produces aggression. Hate when we blame ourselves produces depression. It’s a nasty cycle when we choose to take justice into our own hands and not allow God to handle it.

One really profound statement she made was, “The way you leave one place is the way you enter the next.” That was such a revelation. It’s true from the simplest thing of leaving the room in a fight with a friend and entering the next room in a horrible mood to leaving a church bitter and angry and entering the next closed off and broken. It really affects every aspect of life.

The biggest statement that she made the entire week was, “Forgiveness of self is NOT scriptural.” Do I really think that my forgiveness of myself is greater than God’s? NO! I am called to RECEIVE God’s forgiveness for myself. I have no power to forgive myself. I am a broken, fallen human being. I can, however, learn to accept God’s forgiveness for myself. That requires a lot less striving on my part. It’s also important to remember that Hurting people hurt people and healed people heal people! I’ve always loved that concept and getting reminded of that was great. She also reminded us that our perception is not our reality. That’s also something that I forgot quite frequently in life.

Kay Charlotte talked to us a lot about feeling invisible. The only thing that makes the feeling of invisibility go away is vulnerability. That was something we all needed to hear. She explained that there’s 2 kinds of pride. Arrogant pride, which we all know about, where you feel better than others and exalt yourself to a high place. There’s also Inferior pride which is where you consistently put yourself in a lower place than others. Both types of pride represent a distorted view of self. We talked about forgiveness a lot too. She reminded us that it’s important to transform our pain otherwise we will transfer it to others. It’s so important and necessary to forgive. We were never designed to carry the huge burden of unforgiveness. 

I had my 1 on 1 with Kay Charlotte on Wednesday night. It was amazing. She definitely gave me a kick in the butt that I needed. She instantly started speaking about my wall. She said it was a huge wall-one that I’d been building my whole life. It’d been there so long I’d even started putting decorations on it. She said that she saw me sitting on top of my wall shooting cannons at people that came too close. She said she saw a moat around my wall as well. I asked what she felt like the moat was for. She said I use the moat to drown the people who make it past the cannon shots. Ouch! I knew every word she said was 100% true. I finally let down some of my wall and let her and Leah (my 1 on 1 leader) see some of who I really am. I showed anger, but I also showed sadness and gentleness. I started talking to her about my mom because she said her mom had passed away from cancer when she was young. I told her how much it hurt that I couldn’t have a normal goodbye at the airport like everyone else because I’d had to tell my mom goodbye from a hospital bed to come here. I expressed my sadness and hurt over the situation and especially the timing of it all. 

Kay Charlotte warned me what we would be doing the next day. The whole week we had talked about dying to ourselves and burying our rights. For our last class we would be going to a cemetery. She warned me because she knew I might be upset because of my mom’s current condition. I was really glad she warned me, but there was no way I could’ve prepared for that. I was angry and hurt and wanted to leave. Leah stayed with me the whole time that morning. I felt like it was a big sick joke. Like ha ha ha you’ll be here soon burying your mom. I was so angry with God. I spent a lot of time just honestly telling him how I felt about the whole situation. On the bus ride home, I started thinking about how I wanted my mom to remember me when she was gone. I so desperately longed for her to see me healed. To see me whole. To no longer see me striving. To see me thriving and really living life. I began to cry. Those things were truly the desires of my heart.

Week 2 was one of my favorites! The speaker was amazing! His name was Rich and his wife Lynn and friend David spoke a little bit too. From the first class I could tell he was very spirit filled and prophetic. I was really excited to see how the week would play out. Some of the girls were SUPER skeptical and I was frustrated because of that. I didn’t want to feel like my beliefs put me in a different category because I wasn’t skeptical and hesitant about prophecy and things like that. I was so familiar with it because of being a part of the Kidzablaze ministry team for the 3 years I was with them. That quickly disappeared and the week was really good for most of us. :)

One of the very first things Rich had us do what to order 3 words in the order we felt like they belonged. The words were Believe, Behave and Belong. For many of us we put felt that they belonged in the order, “ We believe that we have to behave in order to belong.” Rich gave us an example of an iceberg in which our thoughts, emotions and behaviors were above the surface and our beliefs were the part below the surface. He explained that if we BELIEVE a lie it leads to destructive THOUGHTS which lead to unhealthy EMOTIONS which lead to messed up BEHAVIOR. It was really powerful to see how all those things were connected. WHY you do what you do really matters.

The second morning was SO powerful. Rich gave us this incredibly eye-opening example of how we put up walls for everyone around us. It’s just like Disneyland....a bunch of walls with nice paint to make it attractive. On one side of the wall are those in life we are trying to please and those that put expectations on us (parents, friends, bosses, government, siblings, teachers, coaches, leaders, spouse, God etc). Behind the wall are all the expectations we are trying to meet (appearance, success, love, acceptance, independence, work, perfection, respect, funny, loyal, control emotions, intelligence etc). The paint that we continuously pour on our wall is our feeble attempts at pleasing all of those with expectations for us. The funny part is, just like Disneyland, your life ends up being one big giant fantasy. Your behaviors and thoughts are so wrapped up in meeting the expectations of those people, you lose your identity and desires in life. Stress enters the picture and causes you to try harder, throw on more paint and fake it until you make it or die trying. At the end of that lecture David got up and played the guitar. He sang this super simple song that was one life...I’m so proud of you. It brought so many of us to tears because we really struggled to believe people were proud of us much less God. It was a really powerful time.

That afternoon we had a really amazing sharing time. Rich called it our own mini ‘AA’ meeting. We got before the class, said our name and something we were struggling with. I had shared a lot in my personal testimony time the previous week but I had omitted the fact that I struggled with Dissociative Identity Disorder. I really felt God urging me to share that with the class. I was really nervous, but I did it anyway. Rich addressed it afterward and told the entire class that he saw DID as an amazing gift from God for someone who has been so exposed to trauma to be able to survive. It was so validating to have him say that in front of everyone. 

The next day was super life changing. The weekend before Rich came, we were instructed to make masks out of paper mache. I made mine in a hurry and wasn’t very proud of it AT ALL. Wednesday afternoon, we were instructed to get into groups. We took turns holding up our masks and praying and asking God to give us things to speak over each other prophetically based on the design of our masks. It was incredibly powerful and accurate. For some girls it was the first time they’d ever experienced that and it was so awesome to watch that happen. I will make a second post with a picture of my mask and what was said about it. It was a very encouraging night.

Thursday was our last class with Rich. We did something really powerful. He had us talking about the names of God...comforter, king, peacemaker, lover, friend, provider etc. He sang a song over us and then urged us to all spread out around the building for 15 mins and really seek God and ask him to give us the name he calls us by. For me, it was a very frustrating time. I spent those 15 mins yelling at God and telling him I was tired of being used by him. I was tired of doing things for him and serving him. I had no idea what it was like to KNOW him and be known by him. I hated that. I wanted to be loved and accepted and cherished. I was tired of praying for people and hearing his voice for everyone else except myself. When we came back together as a group I was beyond frustrated.

We got in the middle of our circle 6 at a time and shared the name God had given us. Someone would say their name followed by the name God gave them and we would all repeat it after them affirming what God had done. When all 6 had shared we all surrounded them in the middle and prayed over them. Then 6 more would go. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get a name from God that day, but I was still very angry and didn’t want to be in the middle of that circle. It came to my turn. I started to cry. I told everyone how I felt used by God. I felt like he wanted to use me like almost everyone else in my life had. I didn’t hold anything back in that time. Rich spoke some prophetic things over me. He told me since I didn’t have a name I could say whatever I felt like in that moment and everyone would affirm me. After a while I finally mustered up the words, “I’m Jenny and I need support.” It felt so weird to admit that in front of everyone. I didn’t want to need anyone but I couldn’t do it on my own anymore. My sisters were very loving and supportive of me in that moment. 

The first night/second morning of week 1 we had testimony time. Each girl and leader took turns sharing a 10 minute testimony. It was so incredible to be able to see where all 25 of my sisters had come from. It really helped us not even have a chance to put each other in boxes because we were transparent from the beginning. I really appreciated that.

Week 1 our topic was hearing God’s Voice. We had a great speaker named Donna with us all week. One of the first activities we did was identifying the aspects of God as Savior, Lord, Friend and Counselor. We had to talk about which were the easiest to relate to him as and which were the hardest. I was surprised to discover that for me, it was easiest to relate to him as Savior and Lord. Those 2 aspects kinda put God in a position above me. Friend and Counselor were harder for me because in those 2 positions he is on my level and intimately involved in my life. Those were hard for me...it’s hard to let him be that close to me. That was really eye-opening for me! I knew that was something I wanted to change.

One good quote that Donna said that really stuck out with me was, “God wants us to seek his face not his hand.” That was really challenging. So often we seek God because we want him to do things for us or make things play out a certain way in our lives. We don’t seek him for who He is. In reality knowing who he is and what that means about who we are is so much more important. I think a lot of us in the DTS were really challenged by her saying this. Donna challenged us to think about whose voices were the loudest in our lives. Whose opinion matters most to us? Who do we listen to the most? That was really interesting to me because I realized a lot of the time God was not always the first voice that I tried to hear. I didn’t always seek him first, and that’s something I wanted to be sure to make a priority.