“Rise up in splendor and be radiant, for your light has dawned, and Yahweh’s glory now streams from you! Look carefully! Darkness blankets the earth, and thick gloom covers the nations, but Yahweh arises upon you and the brightness of his glory appears over you! Nations will be attracted to your radiant light and kings to the sunrise-glory of your new day.”
Isaiah 60:1-3 TPT
Several years ago I shared a post with an image of a woman kneeling in full armor. The title was Drop Your Armor https://hohc.org/blog/44-drop-the-armor It was a season when I was in the middle of intense ministry and spiritual warfare with changes happening rapidly and challenges from all sides. The Lord spoke to me in that season that while navigating several teams and seeking to unify in prayer and mission, I had to surrender the rights to myself and fully yield my armor and weapons of warfare to Him. Soon after writing that post the surrender season led to abrupt endings and crippling blows that left me like a fallen warrior on the battlefield. It has been a long season seemingly adrift wandering through the rubble left behind from unfinished roles, closed doors and broken relationships looking for markers of which way to go and who was still with us.
A week or so ago I was on a three hour drive from Tallahassee to Pensacola as a part of work I am doing in child welfare on a Foster Family Support team. I had this vision of that season when fully in battle and armor, I surrendered on the field laying down my expectations, my place and my experience that not only lead to where I am now but allowed the time and growth needed to upgrade. I saw an image of the new armor and weapons of war I was being given for now. I saw that not only did the seed laid down grow but it was in fact becoming something stronger, bigger and further reaching than I had ever expected.
On that drive, I saw myself standing up and shedding the old armor leaving it behind to find I am now wrapped in light, taking my place with new lighter armor able to move more swiftly in battle and to more efficiently and effectively intercede, take possession and to occupy. I have also been given a new place in the teams I serve with and new eyes to see those around me, not only those I am seeking to see walk in freedom but also those on the battlefield with me fighting for those freedoms.
This is the hour we are being called up from every place we have been and to recognize not only are we individually prepared for this next season but we have been knit together with ministries, regions and Godly purposes. We are not fighting alone.
The hours in prayer, relationship building and long stretches of felt isolation that seemed to lead nowhere have led somewhere. Another opportunity opened up to join a team of people passionate about caring for other people's children and families. I have been given new ways to engage, encourage and elevate others in their journey loving and living for Jesus. I can fight with and for ...the women who chose abortion, the women who surrendered their children to be cared for by other mothers, the women whose lives have been ravaged by abuse, neglect and sexual assault, the women in broken and twisted relationships looking for a love that will fulfill, the women whose minds and bodies have been rewritten by these stories and circumstances and the children they have left behind or carried with them through it all...AND the women giving up their time to serve on ministry teams, in maternity homes, through foster care, to gather to intercede for one another, challenge the systems that hurt our families and children.
We need to know that it takes us together to go into the hard places where brokenness liters the ground like broken glass ;They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. (Isaiah 61:4)
I know I am not alone. I know that I have been prepared for what I have now and I know that....
We are called together to Arise & Shine.
May you see that you have been prepared and made ready to take back what the enemy has stolen.
May your eyes be opened to the many around you called alongside you.
May you overwhelm the enemy with good and not be overwhelmed by the evil one.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21