An Open Letter to my Friends and Family

It is with joy and a little sadness that I write to you this time of year; joy in the fullness of the Lord in my heart, joy in the blessings he's pouring forth in my life - sadness in that I find myself so far away from you. But it is the joy I choose to hold on to and focus on, stirring up the wonderful memories of yesterday and enjoying the ones from today as I look forward to those yet to come. 

I must admit that I do not keep in touch with those I love well enough; perhaps it is from some broken place within me, or maybe it's just how I'm bent. Either one will require intentionality on my behalf to do better. But please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers always and that my heart is to reach out to you more than I do. 

I felt there was no better day than Christmas for me to reflect on the past year and share it with you. It has been an amazing time for me here at Bethel. Last year was all about stepping into a place of accepting who I am as a daughter, learning to love and see myself through God's eyes, and stepping into greater levels of faith and hope for what God wants to do in my life. Last year, also, was about me stepping out of fear and performance in my career. Most of you know that I lost my job in May, but the word of the Lord spoken through Shawn Bolz at the Creative Conference released the grace I needed to step into this season with confidence in God's provision over my life. 

This fall since coming back to Redding has been something new entirely. I have painted a picture of a tree on my wall that I feel is a prophetic picture of my life right now (see pictures). The winds of change are blowing me over; I am bent and swaying in the wind, my leaves are coming off and I am being stretched beyond what I ever thought I could be; and yet, my trunk is firmly planted and rooted in who I am in the Lord. 

I feel like these last several months have been a time of refining for me. Right before Halloween I felt the grace to fast, which I have had trouble with in the past because of my food addictions, but I felt this grace come on me for fasting and so I did, for 7 days I was on a strict liquid fast. I rarely felt hungry and I felt amazing during it, having only a few detox symptoms. But I got off the fast by having some of the kids' Halloween candy which led me to crash out. I went through a period of guilt and shame, but then broke agreement with that. But after that it seemed as if I was so sensitive to the spirit realm around me, as if I was affected by every little thing in the atmosphere. Things started coming up for me.... issues I thought I had already dealt with like overcoming my eating disorder and issues of self-hatred and feeling unloved, and the most glaring one, overcoming poverty to step into prosperity. It felt as if I was going around and around the mountain, not making any progress. But the Lord gave me a picture of this tree; the tree was me and there were all these dead branches that were being cut down and drug away and thrown onto his fire. I think that picture really helped me to realize that I am making great progress; that every time a pile is drug away and burnt I am being refined and brought to a place of wholeness that wasn't possible before. 

It's not been easy. When I got back to Redding this fall, I stayed with another single mom for 3 days. Not knowing where I was going to go, but feeling as if the Lord was telling me all summer that he was going to provide a house for us, I left her place to go to church. Before I pulled out of the driveway, a lady friend from MI called me to say that the Lord has put it on her heart to pay for our rent. We ended up in this beautiful house as a result (see pictures)!! I couldn't afford to live here when I was working - it was totally the goodness of God. This summer I also felt like the Lord was saying to me that, as in the days of Michelangelo, I would have a patron of the arts come forth to support me in this season of discovery that Shawn Bolz had spoken over me. Since then there has been one giant or another standing in the way of me inheriting that promise. It took me 3 weeks of fighting, moving from temporary place to place with my sons before we finally secured a house. After that, it was another week and a half before funding came in for me to start school. During that time I had a potential job offer come my way. The obvious thing to do was to take it, but I had nothing but anxiety every time I thought about it. Something was gnawing in me that that was not what God was asking of me. When I would ask God outright if I should take the job, I heard nothing. 

I made the decision finally to decline the job, stepping out in faith that God had different plans. He confirmed to me that next day at school through a lecture Bill gave that I had made the right decision. Since then it's been a game of catching up regarding finances; living off unemployment and paying things a month late in many cases. Most recently, before Thanksgiving, I decided to have a craft booth at the Bethel bazaar. I know God has spoken to me about painting being a stream of income for me, so I stepped out. I rented the booth for $20, brought my paintings to sell and I offered caricatures on the spot. It was fun, I had a great time ministering to people but I only made $30. Then in the parking lot as I'm packing up to leave, I accidentally backed into a woman's minivan who was parked in the middle of the street. My trunk was full and I had not seen the vehicle behind me. Because I was 2 months behind on my auto insurance I did not have coverage to file a claim, which brought about some interesting complications. Soon after I had a shut-off notice for my electric service, but because I had filed for my benefits for unemployment and had claimed the money I made at the Bazaar, it took them an extra week to get me my money. I had made a payment arrangement with the city I couldn't keep and so when the money came in the next day I went in they required $600+ to keep it on. I had to pay it which left me only $200 for other bills and food. 

But in the same breath, I must confess the goodness of the Lord so completely over me during these circumstances. Several times someone has brought me and my boys bags full of groceries. Others have handed me cash at pivotal times when I had nothing. Then, after the electric bill fiasco, a group I'm in took up a donation for me and it helped me get back on my feet. Then the kids grandma and dad sent extra money for Christmas so I could get presents for them. It's been amazing and challenging. I guess through it all I've wondered, as if waiting for some new revelation to be released that I can use to overcome. But that has been in error. God has shown me through these circumstances that He is and will always stay the same, that His heart and plans for me will never change, that I can truly trust Him. He's shown me that I'm already equipped; that it's the process of renewing my mind - using His truth and declaring that over my life in times of difficulty - that will help me to overcome. Somehow I forget that that is exactly the enemy's plan for me - to wear me down and get me to a point where I forget who I am and who God is for me. I'm well equipped. To overcome. Now. Today. The biggest challenge has been this prosperity thing; I have come from a poverty mindset to knowing that I am prosperous. It's an inside job; the heart and the mind. I have made that shift and I've remained generous regardless of my financial circumstances. But I have seen very little fruit of it so far. But it is coming; I can feel the shift taking place. 

Yesterday morning I got a new picture from the Lord that I felt was foretelling of this next season I'm coming in to. It was a cherry blossom tree in full bloom. The air was warm and sweet smelling, and tiny blossoms slowly floated around in the air around the tree as if in some sort of dream. It was a beautiful picture of beautiful promises yet to come that I cherish dearly. I wanted to share all of this because I want to be intentional, not only about reaching out to you, but about creating value for the process in my life. I don't ever want to put forth this face where I only show the good things that are happening. I want to be real about the challenges and struggles in my life, hopefully that you can draw from them some hope and faith for yourself. It's simple, but far from easy; God has chosen that we interact with him through faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. He has already overcome everything through the cross of Christ; these processes are now teaching us to step into those levels of overcoming that we need to in order to become Sons and Daughters, Kings and Priests. It is not God's punishment that puts me in these circumstances; it's his kindness. Because in His wisdom he knows that's how I am transformed from glory to glory. 

For those who don't know, I'm taking two tracks and two advanced tracks this year - can you say busier than a one-armed paper-hanger!! I'm in the Heaven in Business Track with Andy Mason where I have been assigned a team of people who are helping me form my dream into a business - to create the first ever prophetic arts magazine. The second is the Film Track which is part of Theresa Dedmon's creative track. The advanced tracks are the painting one with Theresa and the advacned film track with Matt & Joy Thayer. I am writing and directing my first short (less than 8 minutes) which is about beauty. I'll have an update soon on the status of those; but if you could pray for me in these areas: (1) that I would be led by the Spirit in all I create; (2) that I would pursue creativity from passion not money; (3) that I would make decisions from a place of daughtership and not out of fear or pressure; (4) that I would trust people and God to do their part, I can't do it all alone, I need other creative people in order to get where I'm going and create what he's put inside of me.  

These last weeks of 2014, I am being intentional about finishing things I've started this year; creatively, emotionally, etc., to prepare myself for what's to come. Paintings I started last year or earlier this year that are still unfinished I'm finishing one by one. As I do, I expect my being faithful in stewarding what God's given me to be fully rewarded. I fully expect my patron of the arts to come forth at exactly the right time. I fully expect the creative projects I'm working on to be successful. I fully expect to walk in divine health and nutrition this year as I pursue physical wholeness. I fully expect that the Lord's plans to prosper me are so much greater than what I can imagine on my own. I fully expect to meet my husband this year and for those desires of my heart to come forth. I fully expect the Lord's favor to be in all that I'm seeking to do and accomplish. 

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Be blessed and know you are loved. 

XXOO, Jen, Michael & Max :-)

A Letter to Myself in Times of Trouble

Dear Jen,

I'm writing you this letter to remind you of who you are and whose you are from a place of faith and identity. Right now you feel good. Right now things are going well. Right now you feel loved, safe, protected, covered and adored. This letter is for all the times yet to come when the winds of change blow into your life and shake the very foundations of who you are, making you question everything. 

You are a most favored daughter of the King. The very one who breathed galaxies into existence fashioned you in your mother's womb. He delighted in putting the finishing touches on your special beauty and made you unique, unlike any other created being. You are beautiful. No one else carries the expression of Him that he pulled out from himself to make you. No one has your laugh, your skin, your hair, your eyes. You are a full spectrum of delight in your Father's eyes. 

This letter is to remind you of the Father's love over you. When times get tough, as they always do, this will give you hope and strength to find your faith again; faith in yourself, faith in others, faith in God. You are radically loved and highly favored. The Lord has worked many miracles at your hand, He's worked many miracles on your behalf. There has never been a situation in your life that He has not turned around for good. He has always been present, always watching, always acting on your behalf. His plans for you are greater than the most outrageous dreams you have for yourself, His thoughts about you - which are ALL good - are as many as the sands in the sea. He is kind and purposeful, everything He allows is from a position of absolute wisdom and nothing takes place outside of his authority. Now, when you're down and out that truth can feel brutal, hard, unloving. But the truth is, that He has given all authority back to his sons and daughters, and so the darkness of this world is not a result of His lack of love or involvement but it's a result of the lack of action by his sons and daughters. 

You have an enormous creative Destiny on your life. You were gifted with a measure of talents that carry a unique creative signature of God that no one else has been equipped with. (The same goes for every person ever created. Whether it's math, sales, decorating or raising a child, each created person has an expression of God's creativity that no one else carries. To live your life expressing yourself in the fullness of what He imagined for you is to reveal who God is to the rest of the planet. The world is waiting for you to reveal God). God has already set aside the provision and the equipment I need to accomplish the desires of my heart. In every circumstance, He's already extended an invitation for me to sit beside Him in the heavenly realms to see it all from His perspective. He is always talking and always Has a way through the problem. The enemy is not equal to God, he is a created being just like me. God has given the enemy limited access to me, allowing the enemy to craft his plans against me to release circumstances - but God uses them to teach me how to be a daughter, how to walk in my authority and to reveal His wisdom in the earth. There is nothing I'm facing right now that hasn't already been defeated on the cross of Christ. 

I'm writing this to myself because in the middle of circumstances I will forget. Somehow, each time I walk into a somewhat self-induced amnesia where all the good things the Lord has done to me, for me, with me fall away as I stare face to face with the enormity of the problem in front of me. But don't worry; God isn't surprised or offended by my reaction, He isn't left doubting His own goodness in my life. Rather I think He expects it, I think that's the essence of being human and being childlike. For a child is helpless on their own, fully dependent upon their parents for identity, instruction and survival. I rather think that He's waiting for us to realize our circumstances aren't about what is happening to us, but rather it's about who He desires to be for us. Every moment of pressure in our lives reveals who and what we really are beneath the surface, beyond the masks we wear and claims we make about ourselves. It is His kindness and wisdom that He allows who we are to be revealed so that we may relinquish control, confess our weakness and dependency upon Him, and in doing so enjoy the privilege of gaining His strength to overcome every circumstance as mature sons and daughters. 

This is the essence of what it means to be a child of God, and it is His plan for every child to be fashioned as such. Just remember, you are who you think you are within your heart. The battleground is in your mind. The process is simple but not easy. We take His thoughts and replace them with our own. We do that through His word, the bible, we do it through our conversations with Him, and we do it by being an active participant in His holy church, however flawed and broken she may be, through encouragement, prophesy and love for one another. So it's relative to say that in the midst of my storms, I need those around me who are armed and equipped with the word of God to speak truth into my life. That I am to use the weapons He has given me in this season to wage war on my own mind, to tear down and destroy every lofty thought that raises itself up against the knowledge of God. That I allow His sword of truth to perform its delicate surgery on my heart, cutting out the very thoughts, feelings and experiences that lie about who He wants to be for me; and replace them with those that testify throughout the ages about who He has been, who He is and who He is yet to be for me. 

This letter isn't just for me, it's for all of us. It isn't just true for me but for you as well. Where are you? Are you in a safe place of comfort and peace or are you being tossed to and fro by the tsunamis of life? Either way, take hold of who He Says He is, and even more take hold of who He says you are. If you don't know what He says about you, find someone who knows and ask them. If you know but are suffering temporary amnesia, slap yourself, grab a friend and remind yourself of the glorious history between you and become a child again.