I have been an intercessory missionary since 2008, and I'm now at IHOP–KC in Missouri. I serve full-time on the missions base as an intercessor, as an editor in the marketing department, and as a singer at Hope City, an inner-city outreach and prayer room. My desire is to see the Lord glorified on earth in every nation from the lips of a sincere, lovesick Bride who cries out for His return.
Testimony
I grew up in a Spirit-filled church in North Carolina, and I loved the Lord with all my heart then. I knew Him personally, and I experienced Him in the prophetic, in joy, in the Spirit, and in tenderness when I thought about, prayed to, and sang to Him. We moved to another town when I was nine, and I lost a lot of that nearness growing up.
In time, having lost the experiential knowledge of the relationship with God, I started believing that I should not be accepted by the God who is holy. I deeply felt the terrible unfairness of the sacrifice He makes for us, the unworthy and wandering humans. I felt that I could never make a sacrifice big enough to make it right with God. Because of this, I deliberately tried to turn my back on Christianity. I still believed in the reality of God and that the Bible is true, but that it wasn't right for me to be a part of it.
I separated myself as much as I could from my church and my family. When I went to college, I began to harden myself in disillusionment, and became dry and unemotional in my worldview. I was imploding with emptiness, and I longed for meaning and truth—I was painfully aware of the absence of God.
During the beginning of my senior year in college, I decided that I should re-learn Christianity, find the rumored inconsistencies in the Bible so that I could more easily deny the whole thing and resolve the issue within myself. I was nearly convinced at that point that I must have been brainwashed as a child by all the Christian influences around me to believe that what I experienced in God was real, more than just emotional hype. But at that point I still could not fully deny that there was a God and that I had a great need for Him.
The first thing I read in my search was Hebrews. Hebrews 10:28–29 says: "Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who had insulted the spirit of grace?"
The Lord opened up the Word for me, and I realized that I was totally wrong. The worst thing I can ever do, no matter how unworthy I think the human race and I are, is to reject forgiveness and relationship. I had forgotten that it was even about a relationship.
I had put my unworthiness on a pedestal and made it bigger than God's grace. I insulted the spirit of grace by deciding that I knew who God should and should not accept, and that His blood wasn't powerful enough for me. I realized that the whole time I was rejecting God, I was doing it out of misplaced pride in myself and in my unworthiness. It was pride in my youth that had made me think I would not really ever fall, and it was God’s grace that brought me low to see that I was capable of falling, to see the barrenness in me. Then it was pride that said I could not ask to be near Him anymore, because I was one who should never have fallen in the first place, and therefore I could not return.
The Holy Spirit met me in my brokenness that day.
When I graduated in May 2008, I moved to Fort Mill and did an internship at ZHOP. I went on staff and stayed there until I moved here to IHOP–KC in the beginning of October 2009.
Testimony
I grew up in a Spirit-filled church in North Carolina, and I loved the Lord with all my heart then. I knew Him personally, and I experienced Him in the prophetic, in joy, in the Spirit, and in tenderness when I thought about, prayed to, and sang to Him. We moved to another town when I was nine, and I lost a lot of that nearness growing up.
In time, having lost the experiential knowledge of the relationship with God, I started believing that I should not be accepted by the God who is holy. I deeply felt the terrible unfairness of the sacrifice He makes for us, the unworthy and wandering humans. I felt that I could never make a sacrifice big enough to make it right with God. Because of this, I deliberately tried to turn my back on Christianity. I still believed in the reality of God and that the Bible is true, but that it wasn't right for me to be a part of it.
I separated myself as much as I could from my church and my family. When I went to college, I began to harden myself in disillusionment, and became dry and unemotional in my worldview. I was imploding with emptiness, and I longed for meaning and truth—I was painfully aware of the absence of God.
During the beginning of my senior year in college, I decided that I should re-learn Christianity, find the rumored inconsistencies in the Bible so that I could more easily deny the whole thing and resolve the issue within myself. I was nearly convinced at that point that I must have been brainwashed as a child by all the Christian influences around me to believe that what I experienced in God was real, more than just emotional hype. But at that point I still could not fully deny that there was a God and that I had a great need for Him.
The first thing I read in my search was Hebrews. Hebrews 10:28–29 says: "Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who had insulted the spirit of grace?"
The Lord opened up the Word for me, and I realized that I was totally wrong. The worst thing I can ever do, no matter how unworthy I think the human race and I are, is to reject forgiveness and relationship. I had forgotten that it was even about a relationship.
I had put my unworthiness on a pedestal and made it bigger than God's grace. I insulted the spirit of grace by deciding that I knew who God should and should not accept, and that His blood wasn't powerful enough for me. I realized that the whole time I was rejecting God, I was doing it out of misplaced pride in myself and in my unworthiness. It was pride in my youth that had made me think I would not really ever fall, and it was God’s grace that brought me low to see that I was capable of falling, to see the barrenness in me. Then it was pride that said I could not ask to be near Him anymore, because I was one who should never have fallen in the first place, and therefore I could not return.
The Holy Spirit met me in my brokenness that day.
When I graduated in May 2008, I moved to Fort Mill and did an internship at ZHOP. I went on staff and stayed there until I moved here to IHOP–KC in the beginning of October 2009.
