Dependent Transition

I am not a fan of transition. It's uncomfortable and awkward. It is hard and often feels lonely. But I think the hardest part is not knowing when it will be over.

Not knowing when things will settle back down--when your new rhythms and patterns will begin to feel natural.  When both feet will be firmly planted in one spot--no longer straddling a fine line between the new and the old. When what was normal begins to feel like a distant memory and you are able to set your hand to the plow of what is before you. 

These last two years have been almost constant transition. I have moved four times during my ten months in SF. New jobs, new goals, new friends, new home, new church--new everything. Just as soon as I get comfortable, something gets turned upside down and I realize again that I'm just a house of cards waiting for something to blow through. Build, rebuild, rebuild. 

As I peek down at my feet now, praying to finally be on the settled side of that fine line, I find I am still straddling--still in transition. 

But I know the Lord's heart well enough to know none of it is purposeless. He is the One rebuilding-- restructuring me from the ground up. He is the One who stirs deep within me and gives me dreams too big to stay put. He is tenacious in the way that He calls us and has put that same tenacity within me to take Him at His promises and reach to see them accomplished. 

That said,  I sense the Lord is leading me into full-time ministry with Linden Tree Outreach. What is this going to look like? Specific details of my day-to-day are still in the works (lots of prayer going into that from the leadership side), but the majority of my time will be meeting with people for renewal sessions. This is very exciting! And incredibly overwhelming.  I am signing up for a full-time, unpaid, dream job. This will be my first time raising support and frankly there is a part of me that is holding my breath, waiting for it to be over. Putting all of my financial security in Someone else's hands has always been a weakness of mine I'd prefer not to tackle. BUT, here we are, tackling it. And the Lord is calling me to trust Him!

The goal is to be fully supported by July this year. More details to come as I break down the logistics of what this will look like, but MAN would I LOVE some prayer!

I sense there is a lot of teaching and dependency practice coming my way these next few months. It's not surprising as I am stepping into a ministry that also requires a deep level of dependence and trust in the Holy Spirit. 

Please pray:

 -that my heart would truly learn to trust God as Provider and Sustainer

-that He would glorify Himself through this process and use it to shape me for the good of His healing work in SF

-that He would humble me and I would learn to live from a place of consistent dependency on Him

Thank you!!

Sooo, what have I been doing?

After meeting Lindsay and getting involved with Linden Tree Outreach (LTO), it became very clear this ministry was to be my top priority. I felt like I had been given a very precious opportunity to receive as much training and practice as I was willing to invest, and I did not take that gift lightly.

I have given as much time to this ministry as I have physically, spiritually and emotionally been able to. 

What has that looked like?

A big chunk of this has been serving in what we call "renewal sessions." A typical session consists of the person receiving from the Lord accompanied by one leader and one intercessor. The majority of my time thus far has been spent interceding. It has been absolutely amazing! The lessons the Lord has taught me through this role are invaluable. I am constantly being reminded by how much He desires to communicate His love and care for us. His closeness and attention to detail in each of our lives is astounding.

I started to see this play out in some of my earliest sessions. On one such occasion, I sensed the Lord had given me a very clear picture for the person we were praying for. I silently mouthed over to the leader of the session that I had something to share. She gave me a wink and a gentle, "shhhh." No more than a minute later, the recipient was describing in great detail the exact same picture I had seen for her.

Something became very clear in that moment--the goal was for this woman to connect with God. 

His top priority is relationship, and close relationships involve communication--on both sides. He wants to make it incredibly clear that we all can have an intimate relationship with Him; a relationship in which we can see and hear Him for ourselves.  It is wonderful when someone hears from the Lord for you (and there is definitely a time and place for that), but how sweet to be assured of the fact that He desires to speak right to you. So that should be also our goal-- helping that person connect with the Lord directly. And how encouraging to have that confirmed so clearly through another person hearing the same Voice?

My time with Linden Tree has also included receiving a lot of inner healing training and mentoring. I meet regularly with one of our leaders to receive my own sessions (most of my understanding of inner healing tools has come through my own healing and revelation of God's love for me personally), ask questions, study inner healing material, and spend a lot of time seeking the Lord in our ministry and lives. We also have monthly team meetings (my personal favorite day of the month) in which there is an element of training and Q&A, we seek the Lord on our upcoming sessions, ministry, etc, and spend time interceding for each other. Our team recently traveled to Nashville to attend a Heart Sync training by Father Andrew Miller. Heart Sync is the primary healing method that we use at Linden Tree (I'll go into that in more detail at a later point). For now, I'll just say it BLEW.OUR.MINDS. 

*Let me also address the issue of survival and student loans (cause that stuff is kinda important). Around the same time I signed on with LTO, I met a girl at church who offered me her full-time nanny job on the spot. She had been praying for another Christian to take her place. I interviewed with the family and had the job by the end of the week. I am thankful it pays the bills and has allowed me (to a certain degree) to focus my energy on learning about inner healing ministry, but I sense my nanny days are coming to an end as the Lord moves me into more work with Linden Tree Outreach (more on this later).