Hello from Jacó Costa Rica! It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me and I have SO much to share with you. In order to get the full picture of what God is doing here, I’ve got to go back a bit to our last weeks in Guatemala.

After saying goodbye to our hosts, all of I-Squad, our coaches, and Squad mentor met up in Antigua for a week of training and a week of debrief. Training was an action-packed week full of sessions and opportunities to exercise what we had been taught. I was hoping to learn and get some answers to my questions, but I got way more than that- God completely shook me.

Early into training, we learned about prayer and were prompted to go out in teams to pray for the people of Antigua with power and authority from Christ. Everyone seemed excited, but I felt anything but excited. I did not feel any authority. In fact, I felt like a fraud. Deep down I was dwelling on an old memory that God had brought up in my mind. I knew the memory well, and had spent years suppressing and ignoring it because in my humanness, I felt it directly contradicted what God says about His character. In shame, I brought the team together and described this memory to them: I am in high school. At this point in my life, I know that there must be more to the Christian walk than what I have. My relationship with God feels mundane and dry. He seems far away from me. In this moment, I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my knees to my chest, weeping. In pure desperation, I cry out to God, wanting to hear His voice, to feel something, to get more. I get absolutely nothing.

I believe that God speaks, so why didn’t He? I believe that people can hear Him, so why didn’t I? I believe that God reveals Himself to His children, so why didn’t He show Himself? Is there something wrong with me, or was God ignoring me? That day only brought confusion, doubt, and frustration. For the sake of my faith, I tried to forget, but I never really could. Instead, it became a powerful secret weapon against me in the hands of the enemy, and he used it to breed doubt and skepticism without me even knowing. But God was ready to reclaim this memory. My team rallied around me and did some hard warfare prayer and intercession. I allowed God to take me back to that moment, but I still felt a block to our communication- and more doubt and frustration. Throughout the next hour, God revealed to me with immense clarity how He was actually present with me, even in that moment. He revealed to me that my own sin and idols prevented me from fully communicating with Him. He showed me where doubt had taken root. God spoke to my doubting heart and revealed that He doesn’t want to give me the booming voice I’ve been asking for. Instead, He is opening my eyes to receive visions. God didn’t bring all this up to shame me. He wanted to free me, and He did. He took my doubt and replaced it with faith and power.

Later in the week, the squad underwent a baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit finished God’s work and sealed my freedom from doubt and fear. I came out of that space completely remade. I am NEW and now aware that doubt and fear are in fact not part of who I am- it comes straight from the enemy and I can call it out as such. God is victorious, and if we have the Holy Spirit in us, we too are victorious. Romans 8:37 says, “NO, but in ALL these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” The best part of the whole story is that God didn’t free me to sit still.

Stay tuned for pt 2- How God gave me an opportunity to walk out freedom and exercise His power in me.