Blessings come in 3’s

When I was younger, my sister had this sunflower cloak that was apart of this Halloween costume. I was so jealous of her and I wanted it, and would often sneak and wear it. I’d pretend to be a fairy in a forest where I was free to escape and time travel to any form of me I wished. I could be an alpha woman, with a pinstriped suit and a tipped fedora , sitting on a chair of gold running every business in New York, or a curvy woman sprawled across a piano with finger waves and pearls, owning every jazz club in New Orleans, or just stay in the present day and tend to my garden, watering myself with books and watching documentaries on nature and animals. To me it made sense to hide this cloak in our closet from time to time so she couldn’t take away my escape, and one day as unsupervised children played, a stranger came into my forest and whispered a plan to find answers to unanswered questions. Curiosity and fear swayed into my garden, persuading me to test the depth of the fountain of youth as I drew closer, questioning whether this was what my parents meant when they spoke of the love a child could never find. I opened my secret hiding place and grabbed my sunflower cloak, ready to venture and enter into an unlit cave.

I’ve known about God from a very young age. I remember the moment when I realized I was human, and I could feel things no one spoke about. I began to get the chills and equated them with my spirituality. I imagined there was always a league of angels and other beings watching me from some place not on Earth. Crowds of past souls including family members that passed over the years would watch my every move, shaking their heads during times of turmoil and cheering me on during times of success. I slid deeper down the rabbit hole with every trip into the forest after his first visit. I was sexually active before my body was even capable of carrying a child and it took me twenty years to admit that I have a problem with facing grief. I thought I was healed, but this is only the beginning.

You can’t know God without knowing love, and at five years old I asked God to show me what love was. Ten years later I’d ask him to give me pain, because pain was the only way I could express my love, which was the only form of pure and unconditional love I knew. When I think about love, I think about agape love. Unconditional love that serves others without a reason. Godly love. I love hard, and often will give everything in me to help others, even if that means I will be without because God always provides what I need ( Philippians 4:19). This is the testimony God gave me in a vision I was gifted in 2023. I’m a mother, full time. A pending divorce has blessed me with two extra babies that didn’t come from me, so I have four kids now, all under the age of four. I’ve had two c-sections due to a heart condition that I’ll be having surgery for in about two months. I get scared. I get angry. I’ve questioned God and my worthiness countless of times and for a while I stopped hearing Him.  I’ve been at war for years with my body, and now after about fifteen years since surgery was first discussed, I think I’m finally ready to have it done, figuratively and literally. For months I’ve had writer’s block and for months I’ve been working on this story. Like a jigsaw puzzle I had everything except for one last piece and the night before it’s due is when it all clicked. He has perfect timing.

Last year, I prophesied a temple catching on fire, and a temple literally did. However, when I dared to say no to God upon him asking me to speak about it, I had a seizure. Instead of his fan clearing out a building, fire raged through me. I burned and burned and burned and burned, so much so that I went numb, and just when I thought my battle was ending, I screamed out Lord, “I’M STILL HERE!! DON’T LEAVE ME”. And just like that, blue lights filled the sky, and a dove descended on me. He washed me and picked me up and kissed me. It was early morning and the sun was rising. I was apart of His remnant, a scorched black seed in a sunflower , full of oil and ready to be in His army.

This is my testimony on facing my grief of lost versions of myself.


Sweat drops billowing from my forehead I force my eyes to engrave the start line into my head.
The cracked pavement was hastily slathered in pure white streaks. Dust scattered about like seeds being sown, I cut my gaze at the crowd and fixate on a smirk. She was the epicenter and under her veil she seemed dark and ominous in this raven coat, unbothered by the heat. Thousands of cheers yet her smirk consumed me. Hands searing from being in a four point position, I allowed myself to become distracted long enough to shift my focus on this being who dared to question me.

Camouflaged in her identity she showed up just to taunt me. The longer I criticized and envied her immunity to the heat, the more the crowds applause began to sound like white noise. How could she sit there in 100 degree weather in a cloak and have the audacity to question if I can win my race. Salty tears burned my eyes and my hands began to feel heavy. It became harder to concentrate and like tipping over an hour glass my world shifted. I began sinking and drifted in time to where inverted pyramids ruled. Being on top of the world was now a regretted slippery fate as my battered hands struggled to hold onto an oily  capstone while everything beneath me remained stable in its new ruling position. Below me was nothing but a vast abyss, swallowing all light and sound that dared to near it. Still I had no fear. I hated her.

The sound of the horn cracked through the noise and left my ears ringing. I took off like a newborn horse, startled at how I nearly lost my footing. A lack of faith began to well up inside of me as I shook my head in frustration. This was all her fault and now I could feel her eyes piercing my back like daggers being thrown at an enemy.

In May of 2022 I moved to South Carolina on what some would call a leap of faith. Looking back sometimes, I feel like I was reckless. Rent was due , there were barely any groceries in my fridge and  had been approved for section 8. U had pending deposits for food stamps and cash aid, yet I was convinced that God had more in store for me. I watched Pastor John Gray on tv one early Sunday morning when suddenly a seed was planted in me. I froze and stopped listening to the tv. White noise began to fill the room until it overflowed. I couldn’t take the warring between unrealistic, sporadic thoughts, and the instructions from the Holy Spirit.  “You’re going to move to South Carolina” He whispered to me.
“That’s impossible” I returned. “Say it aloud, He suggested” , and before I could even begin to speak the thoughts I dared to challenge, I spouted “We’re going to move to South Carolina” . A few weeks later I was on a plane, having chosen to leave behind everything familiar to follow a whisper, even if I was the only one hearing it. South Carolina became a brick in the new foundation God began building when He anointed me to find the answers to the questions I asked all those years ago.
 

I was able to see God’s craftsmanship personally as we flew across the country and I loved every moment of it. I called it the land of milk and honey as soon as I first gazed upon thousands of trees, thick and luscious and full of life. I was glued to the window like I imagined my toddlers would be and as they slept soundly, I sat in awe, thanking him continuously along the way. I still sit in awe and admire how everything came together so quickly. My faith allowed me to see a whisper transform into reality, but I wasn’t free. I was under an illusion of freedom and just as fast as I had tasted that freedom, I experienced a period of silence between me and God. Three months into my move I found myself venturing into that cave again, this time with no cloak. I was betrayed in a time where I needed strength the most and before I knew it I was alone.

I ran through an airport, chasing one toddler while carrying the other.  I was trying to find our boarding area and my son didn’t want to go. My daughter was terrified of loud sounds and refused to be put down as she covered her ears and screamed. My hair was thick and curly, amplified from the humidity. I had a flannel on even though it was summertime  and there was a loose button. My cheeks were red and I felt like everyone was watching. Insecurities ran rampant throughout me as I wondered what everyone was thinking. The older couple in the section to the left had to be whispering “Look at her, she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”  The woman in the bathroom glared and had to be thinking “She’s lost her mind, those poor babies.” Inside I felt like screaming. This was so embarrassing but even this was better than turning around and going back to a place that was no longer fitting for me or my babies. My child running away from me unlocked an entirely new section of horrific scenarios that clouded my mind as I sprinted trying to catch him. What was I thinking? No stroller with carry on bags and two babies was an exact recipe for disaster.

As we waited for our plane to begin boarding, I struggled to keep my son from running away again while still holding my daughter. He began to cry and throw himself on the floor once he realized we weren’t going home. I couldn’t trust him to let his hand go long enough to take off my backpack and give him a snack. They were both sweating and needed to be changed but I wouldn’t be able to tend to them the way I needed until we got onto the plane. Once it was time to board, my son decided to give it his all and put up a fight to not walk to the gate. I was mortified and was seconds from crying myself until I heard a woman ask if I needed help. Before my fearful thoughts about this stranger trying to pick my baby up could take over I eagerly accepted. Three women had stopped and calmed down my son. They picked him up and carried our things and stayed with me all the way until we sat in our seats. During our layover they carried him again until we got to our next boarding section even though they had a different flight to catch. Telling them thank you wasn’t enough to encapsulate the depth of gratitude I had for these women. The three of us were going from South Carolina, to Georgia, to California.

I had a race to run and it was evident that I was set back, still I kept running.


Lap after lap I propelled my body forward, chanting “He’s still real” . With every stride I convinced myself that the pain in my chest would soon subside and victory would soon be mine. There was no way I got this far for nothing. I was so close I could feel it. Row after row the noise subsided like air fizzing out of a balloon. One moment it was there and the next it was gone. Still she stayed, smirking in her heat proof cloak as if she knew something I didn’t. I rolled my eyes and kept running. For the remainder of the race I chose to ignore her presence and focused on intently taking each step.

Alone with my thoughts I struggled to find the meaning in it all. God had given me so many visions for the future promising to replace everything stolen, but with every lap I lost more and more of myself. It was getting harder to breathe and I envisioned myself drowning just to try and escape reality. I opened my eyes and unfortunately I was still running.

It didn’t matter that everyone left by the time I got to my final lap. I still had so many questions like why didn’t their love protect me, or wash me when I turned up dirty? Where was this love with no bounds that I so desperately needed and why was it taking so long to find it? It didn’t matter how many lives I chose to escape to, because eventually they all ended the same. I was in a constant loop and couldn’t figure out how to stop running around circles in this maze in the cave of secrets. So I did what I’ve never seen done before and I stopped running.

I took off my shoes and walked into the stands to sit down and have a conversation with a woman named grief. Before I could speak she dropped her cloak and revealed herself to me. Covering her body was a mirror that revealed the truth behind my running. I searched for an answer and discovered the root of my fear. In the mirror gazing back at me was a scorched and dried up sunflower, running from a cloud. She was withered and beyond the point of restoring, but I understood exactly what I was seeing. She was me.

Fear bursted through the soil and snatched her down yet her seeds remained and as her lamp began to glow stronger and stronger, revelation filled me. She let out a proud warriors cry screaming, “I’M STILL HERE!!!”. The cloud descended and instead of watering me, it split into three and chose to squeeze me. They pressed and and pressed until they were able to extract pure oil. I bolted toward the track, no shoes, no hesitation. I’m going to finish this lap even if it takes everything in me.  I’m proud to say that next week I start my journey to heal from sexual abuse I experienced as a child and as an adult through therapy.



The enemy won’t take my testimony. I choose to let God have his way because this is my story whether I’m alone or surrounded, focused or distracted. I’ll always be worthy because He saved me. I’m choosing to love myself unconditionally this time because I deserve it. I was chosen because He knew I would make it to this point to now be able to be a lamp bearer for someone else trying to find their way out a cave of secrets. My prayer is that God uses me to light the way for others like so many have lit the way for me. I’m not afraid to speak up anymore because I so desperately want to spread awareness for souls who get lost just like I did. This is only the beginning but I am so thankful for lamp-bearers that remain after the fire to lead the way.