I have been reading the latest book by Jentzen Franklin: Love Like You’ve Never Been Hurt over the last several weeks and there was one part in there that helped me greatly. He was writing about something that his daughter had done and the pain he was feeling about it and he said, “The truth is, some things get broken and can never be put back exactly the same. Yet God can make all things new.” Those two small sentences said exactly what I felt! I had been grieving something that would never be the same again, but I know that God is in this and though it will never be the same again, it will be new and if I choose to trust Him and keep my eyes fixed upon Him each day instead of the circumstances then I have hope.
Isaiah 43:18-19
18 “Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
Christian was accepted for her second year at BSSM so she was staying in California, but she was coming back to Ohio with me for a couple of weeks to visit family and friends in Ohio and Florida before she went back to California for the summer. The two weeks flew by and before I knew it, it was once again time to send her off to California.
She had only been back in California a week or so and she called to talk to me about moving back to Ohio for a year. She said that she really felt that God was leading her back to Ohio for a time for the family. She felt that there was a lot going on spiritually with our family and that she really needed to be here. I had felt the same thing while I was in Florida before our move, so if God was sending her here as well it must be big and I was happy to have the help. Ohio is very oppressive for us, so any light joining Michael and I was welcome if God was sending it! I know that she heard from God, so I trusted that she was hearing Him on this and we made arrangements to get her flight back to Ohio.
She moved in with us, found a job and we helped her get a car. It only took a couple of weeks for me to notice that the distance that I felt in California was not a California thing because it was still here in Ohio. She had cut herself off from me spiritually. I just couldn’t quite reach her.
In one of the earlier parts, I shared that Christian is prophetic and over the last several months as I was praying for her, Holy Spirit directed me back to some of her writings and some of her songs and I have found it very awesome that at times she was prophetically writing and singing to herself of what was to come. What an awesome God we serve!
She used to send out a daily prophetic word to a group of us and the last one that she sent out was August 31, 2017. It was so very timely for the season that I had been in, but it is so amazing to me how it is timely for her today as well. His word is alive.
August 31 2017 from Christian:
“Don’t throw away everything you’ve gained in the season before Because, yes this one may be dark, but what I have given you was meant to be light. You were made and have been prepared for this. It is time to rise and stand. Pick up every word I have spoken over you. Pick up every testimony where I have come through for you. Pick up every encounter with My love that I’ve poured out over you because I AM
I AM the God who will never leave you or forsake you. I AM the God who is faithful. I AM the God who formed you and created you. I AM the God who brings the dead to life and makes the darkness light. I AM the God who makes every wrong against you right. I AM the God who drives out every cell of sickness in your body and brings life. I AM the God who hears you and turns My face. I AM the God who gets on the floor and weeps when you weep. I AM the lion who roars over you with victory. I AM the God who sings over you a melody of peace.
I AM
I AM
I AM
I AM
And I always will be
My child this is just a season. I speak to your spirit right now because I know you have become weary.
THIS IS JUST A SEASON
Don’t let a season determine who I AM and don’t let a season take away who I say you are. Come and sing that the Lord is good even when you don’t feel like He is good. Come sing that His love endures. Even when you don’t feel like love is enough. Sing it out anyway. There is power in proclamation of who He is in you life!”
Even today, as I read it again and type it out I am questioning, “How God? How did she write this and within a month she was questioning everything she ever believed?”
I wouldn’t share anything of Christians personal journey even if I did understand it at this time and what brought her to this place in her life. That will be hers to share when she is on the other side of it! I will continue to share my struggle as her mother and what I have learned in standing for your prodigals when you think you can’t stand any longer.
