ALANA

What a time to be alive!! The Lord is literally bringing His Word to LIFE and pouring out His Spirit on us!! While I attended the Kingdom Living event as a volunteer, I still did my best to listen to all Jessie had to say and take notes, but the Lord didn't hit me with a revelation to another step in my healing until the following day after the event.

In the final session Jessie had done a break down to figuring out our physical/spiritual issues, I followed along and broke down what I could on myself and had a quick journaling moment to get out some thoughts. It felt good to get that out. While in the same session Jessie said a few key things, she said "show me the wounds Lord", "the solution is to bring your needs, wants, and desires before the Lord and wrestle it out with Him", she also said the word REMEMBER and the Lord had all of that echoing in my head.

While laying on the beach the following the day I was wrestling with the Lord on my topic of joy and He said, "Remember... do everything as if you're doing it for me... find joy in me...". My response, "but, Lord, you're not messy...you listen to me...you understand me...". The weight of life, the every day responsibilities can really suck the joy out of you. People can be joy suckers too... but only if you allow them to, I had allowed them to because I want their compliance, respect, help, understanding, support, etc. and when I don't get that, it's hurtful and brings in resentment. Forgiveness is there but when its a continual hurt the resentment still seems to build up and before you know it the joy is gone.

So, trying to find my joy again has been very difficult for going on 10 years. Remember, the joy of the Lord is my strength. Remember HIS WORD. He reminded me to just do it FOR Him... not for people. I'm working on thought transition. I'm still learning and He is refining me daily. The Lord is using His beautiful servant Jessie to help people heal from this heavy world and become warriors for the Kingdom of Christ!!

Alana Retseck-Coulter