By His Authority

I can’t gather my thoughts on all of the miracles I’ve seen over the last 72 hours. It started in Denver as it felt like our crew was caught in a show of Punked. But there was no Ashton Kusher – just problem after problem, starting with no van pick-up as we waited on the curb in freezing weather for over an hour. Then we caught an Uber to a hotel downtown in a very rich neighborhood. It seemed magical for a moment as we drove through streets filled with mansions that led to a magical community covered in rows of trees and Christmas lights everywhere. I thought for sure God was about to show me something beautiful in this place. And indeed he did.

“Why are you here? We don’t do flight crews. Do you know how many hundreds of hotels you passed between the airport and here?” The front desk clerk was less than excited to see us, to say the least. He complained that he had no reservations for us and then spent the next hour screaming at various people on the phones as the frequency of the “F word” increased with each passing moment. He screamed. He threw pens, papers and the phone in his anger and madness. He spoke loudly to himself as if he were possessed by something. And there it hit me. He was.

¹² For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” – Ephesians 6:12

That’s when I closed my eyes while sitting in the midst of a flight crew on the brink of tears and I prayed with my heart for God to send his peace into that room, provide a solution and end this madness by the Authority of Jesus.

Immediately the energy shifted.

“Ok, you have rooms, write your names on this notepad on this paper and pick up your keys,” the clerk announced as if he’d been replaced by another worker. As I picked up my key from the desk I looked at him with curiosity. He looked down at his hands and wouldn’t raise his eyes to meet mine but he mumbled, “I’m really sorry. I’m so stupid. I’m really sorry.”

“You’re not stupid, it’s OK,” I told him.

The next day was smooth but when we landed after 2 am, I struggled to drive home with heavy eyes over the lack of sleep and intensity still lingering from the drama the night before. Then I got an alert on my cell phone that i was assigned another trip later that day. I fought tears. I was so tired. “God please take this trip away from me,” I prayed as I thumbed through the options on my phone to post the rotation to the swap board (an app where others can pick up our work). I knew no one would want it. It was worth no money and didn’t get back until midnight.

When I got home I set my alarm and passed out. Then I woke around 10:30 a.m. to find an instagram message from an old friend. “I have to share with you what God showed me this morning! He gave me an interpretation to your dream! It has to do with the prophet Daniel! I’ll explain after church,” B said. I closed the message and pulled up my work app. No one picked up my trip. A wave of gloom came over me.

A few minutes later I received another instagram alert. B sent a dozen messages explaining all that God had told him and how it was confirmed that morning in his pastor’s church message. Then I responded with a confession of deep hurt that I still carry about churches. I told B the way the church treated my daughter after her dad’s accident and I told him about the church my Granny attended that I’d donated my entire life’s belongings to – they later spread rumors amongst the small town and back to my uncle that I was healing people by the spirit of witchcraft. “Her candles are witchcraft. She’s evil,” my uncle conveyed to me in a text message on Christmas day. Even as I type this today, (years later), I hear the Holy Spirit saying to me, “They accused Jesus of the same thing.” – Healing by the spirit of beelzebub.

Then with tears in my eyes, I typed to B – “The thing that’s hard to swallow is that when I gift people prayer candles and when I pray for others I always see miracles. But when I pray for myself it seems God doesn’t answer me.” In just that moment I received an alert notification on my phone. It was my company’s automated system telling me that my trip had been cancelled. There was no reroute or other instruction. It was just gone. Flight cancelled. Really?

God seems to have a sense of humor in his timing. And speaking of timing, he always seems to wait until the 11th hour to answer me. Perhaps that’s part of teaching me to trust him and walk in faith believing that what I need he will give me (at the very last moment).

I shared one of the sites I’d been working on (this one) and then I shared the domain that I bought back in 2017 as a link to this site. I don’t want to turn anyone away from the mission on my heart to pray for people and share the stories of miracles I’ve experienced through prayer and sometimes I feel so confused in sharing the name “Jesus” because I wouldn’t have listened. I didn’t find Jesus in a church, in fact I remember being terrorized by the hurt I carried as a child brought up in a religious family where nothing I did seemed enough. Yet when I was breathing my last breath as a teenager in death, I prayed in the name of Jesus. And then decades later when a loved one was breathing his last breath I prayed to God in the Jesus. He seems to show me who is responsible only after the fact. And maybe that’s his way he had to handle me because I was so wounded and skeptical.

So if he calls me to the wounded and skeptical, is it OK to share the truth? I feel like it’s not really an option. Since I don’t have any clothes here in California (that’s a long story)… I decided to design some work out gear and items to wear on lay-overs. And I decided to share my designs on the website I bought nearly 9 years ago – SquadJesus.com.

So I end this little story with a prayer for God to bless this desire in my heart to love others, pray for others, share the good news of the miracles I’ve seen in prayer and to give me the strength to wear his name proudly. For the one who woke me is the author and finisher of my faith and my story. Jesus – HE IS the AUTHORITY

And if anyone wants to pray for me, I just ask you to pray for me to have strength. Only God knows what I’m carrying in my own personal life. I’m doing my best to wait for the miracle.