Having joy at Christmas time.....

The other day I had God reveal something to me that I had not realized before. Let me tell you the story. My mother has been passed away since 1995 and what God had revealed to me was something I had stopped doing ever since then. When my mother was alive, her, my sister and I would every year be in competition to see who could get their tree up and decorated the fastest. We had only one rule and that was we had to wait until Nov 11 @ noon before we could start. So at noon on that day we would all start frantically decorating our own homes, while calling each other to see how far the others were in the race to be first. It was alot of fun and being a competitive person, I was always up for the challenge. We had alot of laughs together. Another thing we would do is put little bells on our shoelaces so that when we went out you would hear our bells ringing on our shoes as we went shopping. My mom was so much fun and did not mind being silly to have fun. I have alot of fond memories about Christmas time and how silly and how much fun we would have together. It was just the other day that I had come to realize that since her passing away I have not acted or been exciting about decorating since then. It is not something I did intentionally but I did. As God revealed this to me I realized although I am happy I have not been excited about decorating. So today I got the tree out fluffed it and and decorated it all by myself. It was a fabulous day! Many great memories were brought to mind as I decorated the tree and in a time that you might think I might feel sadness I felt the exact opposite. I had a great day today doing the tree and thinking about all the fun I had at Christmas time with my mom.

My mom, dad and my stepdad are all long passed away now but I am reminded about all the fun and good memories I had with them and realize that there are many ways I want to be like my mom but mostly I want to live with that joy that makes life fun.

I realize for many that Christmas time can be painful because of lost ones and I pray that you may be comforted and that God will give you the peace that passes all understanding. I am now a mom with three children and I want my kids to remember how fun it was around Christmas time because of the joy and silliness that goes on in our everyday life just like my mom! Having a relationship with Jesus is my main source of joy and I am so happy that even after 14 years God will still reveal things to me that will produce a change in my mindset and even more healing would be brought into my life.

Sorry about the long story but I feel really good today and wanted to share with you the healing that happened today that I didn't even know I needed. I love God so much!!

What a weekend!!!

Wow!!! What a weekend that was! How much fun to watch 170 plus youth, young adults and youth pastors passionately worship Jesus. We had a band called Revolution Band that came and lead worship on Friday night and Saturday morning. They were amazing and played exactly what the youth loved to hear, music rocked and loud!! I have heard testimonies about this Consumed Conference from one person that said, that was not what she expected at all....it was SO much better. She saw people were healed, people saved and new friends were made. Another girl gave testimony that Justin Rymer, one of the speakers over the weekend, spoke into her life so much and has never felt such peace about her health issues. Others had God give them direction, encouragement and brought forth dreams and desires that have died and brought forth life again and strength to try again and not give up on the dreams that God had put in them. I loved being there and watching such passionate people that love Jesus. I know that these ones are going to change this world for the better.

I want to thank the church body for spending so much time in prayer regarding this conference! It is prayer that moves the hand of God and it was so great to be apart of such a large group that prayed for this next generation of youth to go forward in all God has for them.

Thanks to our whole church leadership that believes so much in the youth and the call on their lives!!

In 2 days our youth will be attending our annual youth conference. Each and every year I have heard amazing stories of transformation in the hearts and minds of our youth. God has called, healed, set free, directed and encouraged them. I ask all the people who love to pray to join me in upholding this event in prayer. The youth are our future! They are simply amazing people with such a passion to change this world for the better. The conference starts this Friday night @ 7pm and then continues on Saturday morning and Saturday night. I am so excited as to what God is going to do this time. Thank you so much Jason and Kelsey and the whole leadership team that is preparing and organizing everything for this event. Bless you all and we are praying for you!

My day today....

My day today started off quite normal, getting ready for work and getting kids ready for school. I left the house earlier today than normally. At 7:50 am I left the house went down 5th street and over the bridge to soon realize that our main park was completely flooded and at the intersection there was a detour. At this point I am about 1/2 block away from work which would normally take me 1 minute or less. But not this day....it took me another 30 minutes to get around the detour to my work. I was only able to get to the parking lot for Blockbuster Video as Puntledge Rd was completely flooded as you can see in the pictures. So homeward bound I was to have an unexpected day at home.....ah nice! But I did ponder and pray for those that might of not been having such a great day today as I was. The ones that are dealing with there basements flooding and such stuff. I pray that God would provide for them everything they need.....family and friends to help with what is an overwhelming time when dealing with a flood.

The Vancouver Taboo Sex Show

God is doing some amazing things through people that are willing to love like He loves. About a week and a half ago six of us ladies from the Courtenay Northgate Church meet up with three others from XXXChurch which is out of Las Vegas, a couple from Seatle, a lady from Calgary and two more ladies from Vancouver. We spent four days a sex show in a booth handing out Jesus Loves Porn Stars bibles. We got all kinds of different reactions but mostly they were amazing and so thankful that we would extend the unconditional love of Jesus to all. The sadest thing I heard for those four days was about 80% of my conversations, the person would express that in one way or another the church(us) had hurt them with judgement. Some of the team was able to say sorry on behalf of the church and bring about some form of healing for them. All of the team members had such great conversations with the people and had fun together as a team. This experience truly opened my eyes and has changed me forever.

I am so glad that before I was a christian someone told me that Jesus loved me right as I was!

I am reading this book right now that is called The Happy Intercessor by Beni Johnson. One of the chapters in there talks about having An Offensive Lifestyle. Just as in football it is best to be the offensive team instead of being on the defensive. Why? The defensive team is always trying to steal the ball and trying to figure out the offensive team's strategies and plays. However, the offensive team has the advantage in that they have the ball and call the plays and know the strategies. God has already given us the ball and we are to know we are the offensive team. If we do not understand that God has already given us the ball then we will live in fear and pray from a place of lack. As intercessors, as the offensive team, our job is to take the land and not to run around after the enemy trying to steal the ball away from him. As intercessors, we must listen for the plays the Lord is calling and pray them in so the team can catch the ball and make the touchdown. Our job is not to spend all of our time worrying about the enemy's strategies. We are to make the plays that God calls.

What team are you on?

I started this blog out of a God dream I had, it was about encouraging all the intercessors/prayer people in their communities to begin or continue declaring God's favor, goodness, kindness and prosperity into every situation that is around them. God said to me "Sandra I want you to encourage them to DIG in. I want them to be Declaring Intercessors of God (D.I.G.). When Graham Cooke was last at our church, he brought forth a very powerful word from God and it spoke about this time being a time of favor and to be overwhelming situations with declaring the favor of God instead of focusing on the enemy. There has been a group of us that have been declaring things over homes, business and situations and it works. God's word does not come back void! Thats all for my first post, I will be back soon.

Glad you stopped by, have a great day!