Update. Sorta.

I was looking through the notes in my phone recently and found this list of random things that I learned (or re-learned in some cases) along the road trip that I wanted to share just for fun

• Madison is the capital of Wisconsin
• Pierre is the capital of South Dakota
• You have to be 21 in order to book a room at a hotel.
• The name “Cooper” means one who makes barrels.
• This country is mostly open land and fields.
• The Northern Midwest has a lot of corn. And hay.
• There are so many people in this country.

Well, I’ve officially been here for a month as of yesterday. Crazy. It’s been good times. The Lord’s really doing a lot of stuff in my heart, I think mostly stuff that I’m not even aware of too. It’s been really sweet just getting more familiar with Ellensburg. It is such a pleasant town. As Jenna and I were running around downtown to do some errands I was telling her how I love how there are so many stores that are local businesses and only found in Ellensburg. I love seeing the little things that make this place unique.

One thing that is definitely a big deal in Ellensburg is this huge county fair they have the first week of September. I’ll actually be missing it which is a slight bummer cause everyone’s been saying how great it is. Buuuut, part of the fair is that they have people enter art, food, livestock and whatnot and you get money just for entering stuff in! Doesn’t cost anything to put something in the fair and no matter what you will get a check of some quantity at the end. Sometimes you might only get a couple bucks for something but that’s better than nothing in my book! So I totally entered some of my art in and a couple shirts. This is such an answer to prayer (and a quick one I might add) as well because I’m really wanting to be able to use my art more as an outlet to touch people and also to be able to support myself some. Even if it’s just a couple bucks that I get from it, who knows what could happen as a result . Prayers for my art stuff are greatly appreciated, open doors and financial-ness, all that jazz.

On another side note, I feel like one facet of me being here has something to do with a house of prayer in Ellensburg. Don’t really have any more details than that. That could really look like anything. It could be just releasing the vision, actually being a part of it getting started or who knows what. I’m not trying to figure stuff out so I’ll just keep following Mr. Lamb wherever He goes .

Oh and by the way, the church that I’m a part of here now, Wellspring Christian Fellowship, is awesome. They are just so sensitive to the Spirit and the Lord’s leading it’s beautiful. A lot of freedom and peace, totally feels like a family as well. Just precious, you guys back in the NJ would really love it.

One more thing, I’m going to Kansas City in less than two weeks! One of my roommates from FITN is getting married and then I’ll just be chilling there for a couple days. I’ll be switching to NightWatch as well 8) . Like always this is incredibly timely of the Lord. I keep thinking of this verse in Proverbs that says, “even the events that seem accidental are really ordered by Him.” IHOP for me is definitely my hive where I get rest and refreshed and it’s funny how I can feel when it’s time to get back there so thank ya Lord. I’m really excited about what He has in store during that time

Okay, TTFN.

The Season’s Are A-changin’

Just about two months ago I had a very important sit down with the Lord. The result of that sit down now brings me to my last couple days in Jersey (at least for a while) where this Friday I will be heading out to the West to Ellensburg, Washington. These last two months have been such a roller coaster and so great for my heart, despite how “great” it felt at times lol. Back in the beginning of May, I remember sharing this revelation I got with Jenna and Dora one night. I was reading through Exodus and that day was on Chapter 10 and the first couple verses say:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the ears of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them, that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.”

Pretty much immediately after I read that the Lord gave me this phrase, “I’m more interested in winning your heart than just giving you what you want right away.” Think about it, the Lord could have just plucked the Jews right out of Egypt but for sooooome reason He chose to do it the way we read in Exodus. So much drama and extravagance. Why? He was in the process of wooing their hearts. It was more than just getting the Jews out of Egypt. He wanted their hearts and all those signs and wonders were to point to the fact that He is the Lord and the pursuer of their hearts. When I first got this revelation I was just super excited cause it’s really cool but what I realized a couple weeks later was that that was actually a word for me lol. The Lord could have just made all this stuff with getting to Washington happen overnight. He can do anything. But He chose to do it sooooooooo specifically and full of crazy details and twists and turns because He wanted my heart to fall more in love with Him. More than getting me to Ellensburg, He wanted me to learn more about His nature and His faithfulness. When I re-think over the past two months and all the ups and downs of my heart, the moments of waiting, the breakthroughs, all I keep telling Him is, “You are crazy” and it’s a compliment I promise lol. For real though, I’m just in awe of who He is, how He moves on my behalf. Nuts.

Now, all my stuff is packed and it’s just two days till Drew and I leave. A week from today I will actually be in Ellensburg! I’m feeling a lot of things all at once. The Lord got me through the nervousness stuff and I’ve just been feeling more excited about what Him and I are gonna do in my life really. It all feels kind of surreal to be honest too. I have nooooo clue what’s gonna go down but I know it’s gonna be good .

Oh, and I’m gonna try and do a blog post each day of the trip, maybe throw in some video blogs on facebook or something too 8) .

Following the Lamb Across the Country

Gotta love that “suddenly” character of the Lord. These past 3 weeks I’ve definitely been tasting that side of Him as He’s been shedding light on my path in regards to the next step in our adventure together. And this time, the adventure doesn’t just bring me to a summer internship. This time it’s moving me across the country.

If you go back a couple blog entries you’ll find one where I just kinda recap about my time in Ellensburg, Washington. For those who may not know, that’s my friend Jenna’s hometown who I did Fire in the Night with last summer. If you go back and re-read that entry real quick, I talk a little bit about how the Lord just really knit my heart to that town. Before leaving to come home I knew the Lord was going to have me back in Ellensburg for an extended period of time at some point. Jenna’s parents are pastors and all I knew was that I was going to be helping out with their church in some way but that’s all I got. So I just kinda tucked that away in my heart when I left, wanting it to be soon but didn’t really think that would be likely I guess. But apparently the Lord was about to do a 360 on me.

I’m not really gonna go into all the details on here, but long and cool God story short the Lord basically started to tell me that I was going to be back in Ellensburg way sooner than I thought, like “in about a month or two” sooner. I’ve spent the last 3 weeks or so just really seeking Him on this and He’s really responded and moved in a lot of ways already. Details are still being worked out but it’s looking like by mid-July or at some point in the summer I will be making the move across country to Ellensburg. I’m gonna be staying with Jenna and her family there and like I mentioned, helping out with their church in some way. I know that this is kind of a big ball to drop and probably incredibly unexpected. I mean, I really didn’t expect this at first myself lol. But with all the Lord’s done recently I just can’t deny it’s Him. If you wanna hear some of the craziness of how this came about totally grab me if you see me and I’d love to explain a little more.

I’m not really sure about specifically how long I’m gonna be there. The Lord has been making pretty clear though that it’s an up and move type deal for me. I know I’ll be back in Jersey at some point and will totally still be connected with what’s going on with IHOP-EG and what not. But for now all I know is Ellensburg and then “dot, dot, dot.” And like I told Jenna recently, anything can happen in the “dot, dot, dot” of following Jesus .

Where I’m at now in the midst of this is just really seeking the Lord on what His purpose is for my time in Ellensburg, what He wants me to keep before me. I know that His hand is on this, am really excited, but don’t want to lose sight of what’s in His heart for this next season ya know? I would totally appreciate your prayers for that and also for the Lord to do a crazy financial breakthrough in the next couple weeks. It’s gonna be a good one.

I’ll be keeping stuff posted as the details get more finalized and all. In the mean time, I leave you with lyrics from Brock Human’s song “Come Away” that totally capture what I feel like the Lord’s singing over me right now

I have a plan for you, I have a plan

It’s gonna be wild

It’s gonna be great

It’s gonna be full of Me

Recap: Ellensburg, WA April 16th-24th

Oh sweet, beloved town of Ellensburg, Washington.

After chillen in KC for 10 days, Dora, Jenna and I headed on a plane to the beautiful state of Washington . Even before going I knew I was going to love it and love Ellensburg, which is Jenna’s hometown. Didn’t know why, still don’t know why but I just have this precious heart connect with that place. First off the landscape around there, and basically all of Washington, is beauuuutiful. Driving from the airport was probably one of the most beautiful 2 hour car rides I’ve been on. Talk about an Artist who knows His stuff .

As I’m just re-thinking our time their, my heart is so incredibly grateful to the Lord. We called our time at IHOP our “Fire in the Night Track 2 Intensive” lol and Washington was more of a vacation thing. It was a time full of peace and sweetness to my heart really. I so loved the time of fellowship Dora, Jenna and I had, along with the rest of the beloved Miller clan and others from their church. I could totally sense just a “family-feel” the whole time and that was such a gift in and of itself to me. I loved how pretty much each morning we’d head over to the coffee place for “secret place time.” There’s just something so sweet about pursuing the Lord together. Like I said, the whole time was just sweet, sweet, sweet . We got to partake of an awesome BBQ & the famous “Taco Thursday” at the Miller household, did “farm things,” went for walks, enjoyed the classic films of Pride and Prejudice and The Ten Commandments, shot bows and arrows & BB-Guns, played with little ones, gave it a go at learning how to drive stick, and lots of other precious things. Most of all we loved on the Lord and loved on each other. I love that He is the glue for all this. At the end of the day, He was the center of it all and that is so beautiful.

Gotta have an artsy coffee shop pic

I really didn’t realize juuuust how much the Lord had blessed my heart while in Ellensburg until I got home. I realized that He had been doing something behind the scenes. My heart just felt so incredibly blessed and privileged to have had that time. There’s a bunch of stuff the Lord was showing me about Ellensburg but one thing that was really clear was just the peace that rests over that town. This is how I described it to Jenna:

I feel like it’s a city that is a resting place for the peace of God. Like I told you earlier, I feel like the peace of being there was like, deposited into my spirit. And peace is a Person, not just some universal, etherial mindset or something. If I’m feeling peace, I’m feeling Jesus so He is totally present in Ellensburg. It’s reminds me of something Bill Johnson said once, “Peace is not the absence of something, it’s the presence of a Person.”

I feel like the Lord gave me a precious, unique gift in Ellensburg through the beautiful times I had with my friends and also just by being there. My heart will greatly rejoice at the time that I get to head back there whenever the Lamb leads .

Recap: IHOP-KC April 6th-16th, back to my first Love

April has been one packed month. I just got back from a three week extravaganza of a trip across the country. 10 days in KC and then another week in Washington state. So much amazing Jesus-ness happened so I’m gonna try and do an overview as best as I can. Here’s the IHOP-KC visit recap:

Basically going into this trip I knew it was going to be one of those “never be the same” trips. The Lord told me before we left that this He was going to birth a lot of things in Dora, Jenna, and I and He sure did.

A huge theme for me during my time at IHOP-KC was just returning to my first love really. It juuuuust so happened to be the Passion for Jesus conference while we were there and the first session of the conference I felt like I came home to Love again. I think I was just caught up in the swirl of the cares of life a little bit, trying to figure out what’s going on and everything. The Lord just really brought me back to that place where just loving Him and being loved by Him was enough again. Even in all the swirl of contending for revival and all the exciting stuff that’s been going on with IHOP-EG I kinda forgot that. That love is the point. Misty’s lyrics ring in my mind, “Knowing You is the point of life…the point of life is You.” The Lord made it very clear from the get go of the trip that He just wanted me to receive that again and move forward in the strength of that. Moving forward in the place where the first commandment is truly restored to first place. Jenna even had a word for me during worship the first day of the conference about how Love was going to be the theme of this trip and it totally was. It’s like priorities got put back into place in my heart. Even thought I may not have all the answers to a bunch of things yet, my heart can rest knowing that loving Him and being loved by Him really is enough.

I’m not gonna go into details about it, if you see me in person totally ask me about it cause it’s awesome, but on April 9th at the Awakening, I basically had a 4 hour power encounter with the Lord. I have never experienced His touch like that before. The Lord brought such deliverance to my heart from self-hatred, rejection, abandonment, fear, and lots of lies. So much stuff went on that night. I experienced a bunch of inner healing months before but I feel like He just really sealed the deal on it all that night. And praise the Lord for my awesome friends who just stayed with me and fought for me through it all, it was so great. Something that one of them kept saying was “He gave you a new heart! He gave you a new heart and a new mind!” That’s exactly what went on. My body has never manifested the way it did then and while it was going on I was asking the Lord, “What are you doing?” cause I didn’t just want to get caught up in what I was feeling, I wanted to know what was going on ya know? And the next day the Lord gave me a verse that He showed me was the over-arching banner for what He did that night.

Ezekiel 26:25-27 – “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take a heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues, and you will keep My judgements and do them.”

That night I was totally aware that He was just doing a deep cleansing work. Cleansing me from wrong mindsets and lies that I’ve believed about myself. I feel so much more confident in my identity and see myself as beautiful in a way I haven’t before. I can feel in my mind and heart that I’m different and what’s even more awesome is that others can too . I feel like there’s so much that happened that night that I’m probably not even aware of. One thing that it definitely left me with as well though was just knowing that I was made to experience God. After that, I’m ruined. Nothing compares to God touching the human frame.

The rest of our time there was incredibly lovely. My heart was so refreshed beyond words being with everyone who was there too. Time in the prayer room was awesome. I’m so happy the Lord basically made me just receive from Him this trip. It does say that He makes us lie down lol. Totally felt that and loved it. He made me lie down and I sat there with great delight. He filled us, refreshed us, empowered us…and then it was off to the lovely state of Washington …

Oh! I almost forgot! Jenna got healed of 21 years of being lactose and tolerant ! The first night we were there we went to the Awakening meeting for the first time Jenna got prayer for healing, knew she was healed and was eating ice cream for days afterwards! Jesus is alive in well kids 8) Praise the Lamb! We were contending for my eyesight to get healed as well and though there’s not total healing yet, I do think that my right eye got one notch better cause it was always worse than my left and I know the Lord was moving so we’ll just keep asking