I wrote the following testimony in April of 2025.

During the Encounter weekend, I heard the Holy Spirit more clearly than usual, tying together all He had said before and bringing it into focus so I could understand more completely.

               The first issue He addressed was my writing.  I haven’t had the time or energy for it in the past few years.  Many ideas would press in yet getting them out through my fingertips into a computer seemed impossible.  I had only written one article for my blog in the past year. Would I ever write another article again? I doubted the power of my testimonies and if God could do any good through them.  I even began to fear putting my family at risk by keeping our stories and photos on a public platform. When the annual bill came from WordPress for my website, I thought it would be wisdom to wipe my blog clean, delete it, and be done with it.

               I was praying for wisdom while doubting that I could hear God’s voice clearly.

I did hear Him say, “You can at least believe all the things that I have told you in the past.” He reminded me of my journals full of His words, scriptures, and promises.  He reminded me of the two prophecies I had received in the past year at church.

The first was from Vinny during the baby dedication prayer.  He told me, “You have a book in you.”  I thanked him but just thought to myself, “How nice.  We will see if that is true.”

The second was from a woman I didn’t even know at the Women’s event in December.  She gave a word to my close friend which seemed very accurate. Then she turned to me and said, “You  are a teacher, and you have great wisdom. You are going to write books and books and people will come to you and say, ‘I read your book, and I was inspired.’ ”

               Sitting in the Women’s Encounter on Friday night, I was praying, “Holy Spirit come!  Come more than you ever have before.  Let me hear your voice more clearly and understand your direction for each day.”

               He began to gently show me how He had come, but I had consistently pushed Him away.  Every time I dismissed encouragement from other people about me, my life, and my writing; I had dismissed Him.  I had made a habit of dismissing His words when I thought I was being “humble” or “realistic.”  I began to repent. 

               I was not sure how to start writing again, and then I saw the email with a link to submit a testimony!  I don’t want to rehash my own dysfunctional thoughts or bad decisions anymore.  I am tired of myself, tired of writing about myself.  I want to grieve, breath, and heal in my own hidden place rather than write my stories to share with the world.

God said, “That is shame talking.  That is not me.”

               I repented for finding the voice of the stranger and the voice of the accuser easier to believe than the voice of my Good Father. 

               “Where the enemy sought to empty you for your shame, I am filling you for your glory.  I will shame the enemy.”  A quote from the weekend addressed this shame.

               There were many things that Haley said that named my struggle.  My notes from Saturday read like this, “Love is not guilt. Don’t love because of guilt or out of guilt.  When I live in guilt and shame, I divide myself.  I need to obey the LORD whole heartedly.  I need to be where He has told me to be and not feel guilty for where I am not.  The will of God is not easy.  I don’t have to hold my family together.  Trust God.”

               God began to show me many things. The heavy burden I have been carrying is called, “grief” and “guilt.”  For years I have been practicing small moments of grief as I encountered sad situations that I felt powerless to change.  Examples would be: watching Ashlyn crawl in a way that harmed her joints because she couldn’t walk, caring for a sick child whose pain I could not take away, watching another child believe what YouTube said about a subject more than he believed God, nursing my baby as much as I could yet seeing him remain skinny and hungry. 

God told me, “I don’t want you to grieve, I want you to praise me because you know that I am bigger than the situation.”

               I really tried to do this.  Charles spoke on Sunday mornings about strongholds, “A mindset impregnated with hopelessness from which we accept as unchangeable situations that we know are contrary to the will of God.”

He was talking right to me.  I tried to rise above the circumstances, to see as God sees.  But I failed and continued to live with small episodes of grief each day.  Every time a child would come to me with a request that I couldn’t fulfill, “I am sorry,” would come out of my mouth.  Each time I made supper late or not at all, “I’m sorry.”  Each time a guest came over and saw that state of my house, “I’m sorry.”  Each time I arrived somewhere late or never showed up, “I’m sorry.” 

               During the women’s encounter I heard God say, “I don’t want you to say, ‘I am sorry’ anymore. You don’t have to please anyone but me.”

               Of course God wants me to ask forgiveness when I have sinned or wronged someone.  He just didn’t want me to carry sorrow for every time I couldn’t fix the situation like ONLY GOD COULD.

               I have been giving every bit of guilt and shame to Jesus, over and over again.  I have been giving my sorrow to Jesus, over and over again.   I still say, “I am sorry” quite a few times each day out of habit.  Every time I say it, I realize that I am still grieving over something.  I also make the other person sorry and more prone to self-pity. 

I am practicing other things that I could say.

               “You can’t get a shower this morning because the bathroom has been occupied for the last two hours?  Great! This will make you stronger!”

               “You can’t read the book that you want because your brother is reading it.  You are learning patience!”

               “You don’t like the dinner I made tonight? How wonderful, there will be more for the rest of us!

               “You think we are weird parents because we have weird rules that no other parents have?  You will thank us someday!”

               I know, I still need a lot of practice. Just writing those sentiments out made me realize that they are not quite right.  (Another reason for me to start writing my stories down.  It forces me to take the thoughts floating around in my head and put them in a logical order. It forces me to look back into my journal, the Bible, and the recordings so I can remember the details I had forgotten.  It helps me to process and take steps forward!)

My alternatives for, “I’m sorry,” lack a certain compassion and encouragement.  As God told Haley, “You may have to get it a little bit wrong to get it righter.”

One night Aria, my six-year-old, came to me with a very long story about why BOTH her knees were hurting and why she was so sad that they were STILL hurting.  I started formulating one of my typical responses when I was under pressure to get supper ready and felt powerless to help her hurt knees.  But instead of saying, “I am sorry your knees are hurting.  There is nothing I can do about it.  Just sit on the sofa and rest,” I felt the Holy Spirit in me pull her aside to the sofa.  I snuggled with her and words started coming that I had not premeditated.

               “You know, Aria, that God is healing you.  He gave you the most wonderful knees.  You have ‘wonderfully well and blessed and highly favored of the Lord’ knees.  He meant for your knees to last your entire life.  You are young and you will heal quickly.  God, thank you for Aria’s knees and that you are healing them. She will be running and jumping and dancing in no time.”

               Aria started to smile.  We both felt encouraged rather than sorry. She gave me a hug and said, “You are the best mom ever.”

Wow!  So much better than, “I’m sorry.”

               I am trusting the Holy Spirit to lead me and fill my mouth as I break up with grief and sorrow! It is not up to me to fix every problem and meet every need.  I will trust Him to do it.