The Ongoing Story: Heart Healing ~ Oct. 2025

 I didn't intentionally put this blog on the shelf. I just quit blogging for most of the past three years, period.

Life's been busy - working a full-time job (including volunteering at a Women's Conversation Club), a volunteer side gig of helping my Ugandan sister by fundraising here in America for her grassroots nonprofit, and of course trying to keep up with my social calendar (I've got a great core group of me and four friends) and normal life stuff.

But something important happened that MUST have a presence here!!!

I heard about a conference for women at The Hope Center, an office space where about 60 Christian groups have office space. It was one evening, so I signed up to go! I didn't really know what to expect; I basically just knew the speakers' names. BUT GOD - He had something planned for me!

The first speaker, Abigail - who basically introduced the concept of Still She Sows, works at The Hope Center and God planted the seed of the conference in her. She told us about how her dad died suddenly in the pulpit in Africa, and how she struggled with God about "WHY?" 

Her story naturally brought to mind my long-term struggle with God over why He yanked me out of Uganda the way He did, and why I went through a year of intense depression and why I went through a spiritual drought for several years.

Then Abigail shared three lessons she learned during that time, one of which sank into my soul. She said that when something happens--especially something bad/unpleasant--there are two lenses we can view that situation through. One is the Fairness Lens - a WHY ME? view. The other is the Faithfulness Lens - a why NOT me? view that focuses more on God's steadfastness and the fact that He has a plan for everything He causes/allows to happen.

That really resonated with me, but it was just the beginning!

After some worship, including the song I'm including at the end, Hosanna--the keynote speaker--started talking about identity. It was a powerful teaching that started with her personal experience and rooted into Scripture with the story of Jesus calling the four fishermen.

Then Hosanna performed her spoken word, "I Have a New Name." I would definitely encourage you to give it a listen - the link is to her official YouTube video. Basically, she talks about all the negative names the world can give us; BUT GOD has some other names for us. And which names we answer to is critically important.

She asked the audience to stand for which name they identify with. By Paraclete's prompting, I stood to BRAND NEW. Having the whole post-Uganda situation brought to mind, hearing Hosanna talk about changing our negative identities - I wanted to camp out on the fact that I'm not defined by past failures.

But God - He wasn't done yet!

The band was leading worship again, and there was a prayer team up front. One of the members was Terri, the woman who had invited me to Still She Sows. Paraclete was whispering for me to go up to her, but she had someone else she was praying with. When that person sat down, I was waffling - did I really need to go up for prayer? But then the Holy Spirit's voice turned from a whisper to an imperative command: GO UP!

So I did - I told Terri that I'd had a mental breakdown in Uganda and that I had been letting it define me for years. She said "No, that's the enemy! You have a river flowing through you. I've seen you grow in joy these past couple years .... You have a river flowing through you!

At first I thought it was just a reference to the song we had sung. But after she prayed for me and I went back to my seat, Paraclete reminded me of something:

That was my Sept. 2017 prayer card. When I designed it, that verse was my prayer for 2018. What I didn't know then was the breakdown that would come just four months later, eventually ending my time in Uganda.

It gives me goose bumps now. Because, see, I'd been letting John 7:38 hang like a banner of defeat over my life for SEVEN YEARS. Because I couldn't live it out. Because I failed. Because God took me from the adult life I loved. Because of the spiritual drought and the wilderness of depression.

BUT GOD.

He filled a syringe with healing power and plunged it deep into my heart, into the depths of the trauma onion that I've been gradually peeling outside layers off of through counseling.

With Abigail, Hosanna, and Terri's words, He showed me that I am not defined by the past. NO, I am BRAND NEW in Him.

I can't even begin to tell you the new-found freedom I walked in the next couple of weeks. I told everyone who would listen the story. And now I'm posting it here. Because I do NOT want it to be a one-off mountaintop experience. Rather, I want it to define my life moving forward.

I wish it weren't so easy to forget ... to slip back into old habits and ways of thinking. I don't want to forget - I want to remember and live out. So I made myself a new bracelet: white and gold stripes, to remind me that I am BRAND NEW.

Please pray with me that I'll live in this freedom!

Thanks for reading!