Moving From Earthly Projection to Radical Trust, Surrender, and Sonship

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Every child grows up asking questions they may never put into words:

Do I belong?
Am I loved?
Will someone protect me?
Can I depend on the people closest to me?
Is it safe to need someone?
Will I be abandoned, rejected, controlled, or harmed?

The answers we receive through our childhood experiences often become internal beliefs about ourselves, other people, and the world around us. Those beliefs can also influence how we initially perceive God.

A person who experienced abandonment may expect God to leave. Someone raised by an unpredictable parent may struggle to rest in God’s consistency. A person who was rejected by siblings or friends may find it difficult to believe that Jesus truly desires closeness with them. Someone whose vulnerability was exploited may struggle to surrender control, even to God.

These connections are real, and they deserve compassion. Trauma affects our minds, bodies, relationships, and expectations. But while our experiences may explain why we struggle to believe certain truths about God, they do not have the authority to define who God is.

Our wounds may explain the lens through which we have viewed God, but our wounds do not reveal God’s nature. God reveals God’s nature.

God Is Not a Reflection of Our Family

The comparison between the family and the Godhead can be helpful in identifying areas of pain, but it can become dangerous if we take it too far.

Scripture does not teach that God the Father is simply the heavenly version of an earthly father, that the Holy Spirit corresponds to a mother, or that Jesus is merely like a sibling or close friend. These may be partial illustrations, but they are not complete definitions of the three Persons of the Trinity.

God is not made in the image of our parents.

Our parents were made in the image of God, and because human beings are fallen, even the best parents reflect Him imperfectly. Some parents fail in devastating ways. Their failures reveal human brokenness; they do not reveal a defect in God.

We must therefore stop measuring God by the people who misrepresented love, protection, authority, comfort, or companionship to us.

Do not look at an absent father and conclude that God the Father is distant.

Do not look at an inconsistent caregiver and conclude that the Holy Spirit cannot be trusted.

Do not look at those who rejected, betrayed, or bullied you and conclude that Jesus will eventually do the same.

Instead, allow God to reveal what fatherhood, love, comfort, companionship, authority, holiness, and faithfulness were always supposed to look like.

One God in Three Persons

Christianity does not teach that God is divided into three parts. God is one Being who eternally exists in three distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Father is God.
The Son is God.
The Holy Spirit is God.

They are distinct from one another, yet they are not three gods. They are eternally united in nature, glory, will, holiness, and love.

Jesus commands His disciples to baptize people in the singular “name” of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in Matthew 28:19. Second Corinthians 13:14 speaks of the grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Throughout Scripture, the three Persons act in perfect unity in creation, redemption, sanctification, and the restoration of humanity.

We do not understand the Trinity by projecting human family roles onto God. We begin with what God has revealed about Himself through His Word.

God the Father: Holy, Loving, Faithful, and Near

God the Father is not an enlarged version of an earthly man. He is the eternal, holy, righteous, compassionate, and faithful Father from whom all true fatherhood derives its meaning.

He is not merely a provider. He is the source of every good and perfect gift.

He is not merely a protector. He is our refuge, our defender, and the sovereign Lord over all creation.

He does not speak identity over us based on sentiment. Through Christ, He actually gives us a new identity. He adopts us, calls us His children, gives us His Spirit, and makes us heirs with Christ.

Romans 8:15 teaches that we have not received a spirit of slavery that leads us back into fear. We have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.”

Psalm 103 presents Him as a compassionate Father who understands our weakness. Matthew 6 teaches that He knows what we need before we ask Him. James 1:17 describes Him as completely consistent, without shifting or instability. Ephesians 1 teaches that He chose us in Christ and brought us into His family according to His love and purpose.

God the Father is not emotionally unpredictable. He is not manipulative. He does not abandon His children when they become inconvenient. He does not require us to earn His attention through performance.

His discipline is not abuse. His authority is not domination. His holiness is not cruelty.

He is perfectly loving and perfectly just. His tenderness never compromises His righteousness, and His righteousness never cancels His compassion.

God the Son: Savior, Lord, King, and Faithful Companion

Jesus is more than a symbolic sibling or trustworthy friend.

He is the eternal Word who was with God and was God. He is the image of the invisible God, the Creator and sustainer of all things, the promised Messiah, the Lamb of God, the risen Lord, the great High Priest, and the King who will reign forever.

Jesus does call His disciples friends in John 15. Hebrews 2 also says that He is not ashamed to call those He sanctifies His brothers and sisters. These are extraordinary expressions of His closeness to us.

But Jesus is not merely our companion. He is our Savior and Lord.

He does not simply sit beside us in our pain. He entered human suffering, bore sin, defeated death, reconciled us to the Father, and now intercedes for us.

He understands rejection, betrayal, grief, physical suffering, humiliation, and abandonment. Yet He is not defined by what people did to Him. He remained completely submitted to the Father.

Jesus does not exploit vulnerability. He welcomes the weary.

He does not shame the wounded. He restores them.

He does not abandon those who fail. He confronts, forgives, transforms, and calls them forward.

He is not intimidated by our questions or disgusted by our scars. But because He loves us, He will not leave us imprisoned in beliefs that contradict His truth.

God the Holy Spirit: God With Us and Within Us

The Holy Spirit is not merely a comforting feeling, maternal energy, or impersonal force. He is the third Person of the Trinity and is fully God.

Jesus calls Him the Helper, Advocate, and Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit teaches, reminds, convicts, guides, reveals Christ, distributes spiritual gifts, produces spiritual fruit, empowers obedience, and intercedes for believers.

He regenerates us and gives spiritual life. He dwells within those who belong to Christ. He seals us as God’s possession and serves as the guarantee of our inheritance.

The Spirit’s comfort is not always the removal of discomfort. Sometimes He comforts us by giving us strength to endure. Sometimes He exposes what must be healed. Sometimes He convicts us of what must be surrendered. Sometimes He leads us into truth that disrupts the false safety of our familiar patterns.

His presence is steady even when our emotions are not.

His power is real even when we do not feel powerful.

His guidance is faithful even when we are still learning how to recognize His voice through Scripture, prayer, wisdom, and spiritual discernment.

The Holy Spirit will never contradict the character of Christ or the written Word of God. He does not manipulate, confuse, degrade, or control us. He produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

When Our Experiences Contradict God’s Revelation

Many of us can intellectually affirm that God is good while emotionally expecting Him to act like the people who hurt us.

We may say that God is our Father but relate to Him as though we are still alone.

We may believe that Jesus loves us but avoid intimacy with Him because closeness has historically led to betrayal.

We may believe that the Holy Spirit is present but remain internally guarded because comfort was once inconsistent, conditional, or unsafe.

This does not necessarily mean that we lack faith. It may mean that our minds and bodies have learned survival patterns that now need to be brought into the healing light of Christ.

Taking thoughts captive does not mean pretending that painful thoughts do not exist. It means noticing them, examining them, and refusing to allow them to operate as unquestioned truth.

Second Corinthians 10:5 calls us to take thoughts captive and bring them into obedience to Christ. Romans 12:2 speaks of transformation through the renewing of the mind. Jesus prayed in John 17:17, “Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.”

We are not commanded to deny our experiences. We are invited to stop treating those experiences as the highest authority.

My Journey Out of an Orphaned Identity

I had to confront this in my own relationship with God.

Although the phrase “orphan spirit” is common in Christian language, Scripture speaks more directly about the difference between slavery and adoption, fear and sonship, alienation and belonging. What I recognized in myself was an orphaned identity: a way of relating to life and to God as though I were ultimately alone and responsible for my own survival.

I could call God my Father while still relating to Him as though I had no dependable Father.

I could believe that He existed while struggling to release my need to understand, control, anticipate, and protect myself.

My healing required more than learning new religious language. It required surrender.

I had to stop allowing my past to serve as the final interpreter of God’s character. I had to acknowledge that the survival instincts that had once helped me endure were not qualified to lead my relationship with the Lord.

Inner healing helped me recognize the places where fear, abandonment, and self-protection had shaped my identity. But healing did not come from endlessly examining my wounds. It came as I brought those wounds under the authority, presence, and truth of God.

I had to surrender my understanding.

I had to surrender my will.

I had to surrender my demand to know exactly how God would protect me, provide for me, or lead me before I agreed to trust Him.

I had to allow the Father to be greater than every earthly example I had known.

That surrender did not erase my history. It changed who had authority over its meaning.

My past could explain my fears, but it could no longer dictate my theology.

My pain could speak, but it could no longer have the final word.

As I continued to surrender, I began to understand the Heavenly Father not merely as an idea, but as the One who had been faithful even when I could not yet recognize His faithfulness. I began to receive, not earn, the identity of a beloved daughter.

Practical Ways to Take Unbelief Captive

1. Notice the thought without condemning yourself

When fear rises, pause and identify what you are actually expecting from God.

“God will leave me.”

“I cannot depend on Him.”

“If I surrender, I will lose control and be harmed.”

“I have to handle this alone.”

“I am too damaged to be loved.”

Do not shame yourself for having the thought. A thought may reveal an old wound, a learned survival response, or a false belief. Noticing it gives you the opportunity to bring it into the light.

2. Identify the source of the belief

Ask:

Where did I first learn this?

Whose behavior taught me to expect this?

Is this belief based on God’s character, or on someone else’s failure?

What does my body expect will happen if I trust God?

This process is not about blaming people forever. It is about separating what happened to you from who God is.

3. Test the belief against Scripture

Do not replace a painful belief with a vague positive statement. Replace it with specific biblical truth.

When the belief says, “God will abandon me,” answer with Hebrews 13:5 and Christ’s promise never to leave or forsake His people.

When the belief says, “I have to earn love,” answer with Romans 5:8: God demonstrated His love while we were still sinners.

When the belief says, “I am still an orphan,” answer with Romans 8:15–17 and Ephesians 1:5.

When the belief says, “God cannot be trusted with my future,” remember His consistent character, wisdom, and faithfulness throughout Scripture.

Biblical renewal is not merely reciting words. It is repeatedly bringing our interpretations under God’s revelation.

4. Help the body recognize present safety

Trauma is not held only in our thoughts. Our nervous systems may react to surrender, authority, closeness, or vulnerability as though an old danger is happening again.

Slow your breathing. Place your feet on the ground. Notice where you are. Name what is true in the present moment. Pray slowly rather than forcing yourself into emotional intensity.

You might pray:

“Father, my body feels afraid, but I am here with You. This feeling is real, but it is not my master. Teach my mind and body to rest in Your presence.”

This is not a substitute for faith. It is one way of bringing your whole person: mind, body, emotions, and spirit before God.

5. Practice trust through small acts of obedience

Trust grows as truth becomes embodied.

Obey God in the next clear thing.

Tell the truth.

Receive help.

Rest when He is calling you to rest.

Set a necessary boundary.

Release something you cannot control.

Pray before reacting.

Remain present instead of running.

Forgive without restoring unsafe access.

Ask for support rather than carrying everything alone.

Radical surrender is not passive. It is active agreement with God’s authority, wisdom, and goodness.

6. Invite safe people into the healing process

God often works through the body of Christ, wise pastoral care, trauma-informed counseling, and trustworthy relationships.

Seeking psychological support does not diminish the power of the Holy Spirit. Good care can help us recognize distorted beliefs, process traumatic memories, regulate our nervous systems, establish healthy boundaries, and practice new relational patterns.

Healing is not always instantaneous. Repetition does not mean failure. Sometimes God renews us through a long process of truth, grief, obedience, safety, and faithful relationship.

7. Surrender the right to make complete understanding a condition of obedience

Some of us tell God, “I will trust You once I understand.”

But surrender says, “Because I know Your character, I will obey even when I do not understand everything You are doing.”

Proverbs 3:5-6 calls us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts rather than leaning entirely on our own understanding. This is not a command to abandon wisdom. It is a command to stop enthroning our limited interpretation above God’s infinite knowledge.

Surrender does not mean that every painful event was God’s will.

It means that pain, people, fear, and uncertainty no longer have the final authority over our lives.

Let God Be Greater Than the Lens

Our earthly relationships matter. Their impact should not be minimized. We may need to grieve what we did not receive, name what was harmful, establish boundaries, and seek healing.

But we must not reduce the glory of God to the limitations of human beings.

God the Father is not your earthly father with more power.

Jesus is not a human friend who may eventually betray you.

The Holy Spirit is not an inconsistent caregiver whose comfort depends on His mood.

God is holy. He is eternal. He is self-existent. He is faithful, righteous, loving, merciful, sovereign, and true.

He is not waiting for our past to give Him permission to be who He is.

The invitation is not to pretend that our wounds do not affect us. The invitation is to bring every wound, expectation, fear, and belief into His presence and say:

“God, I have seen You through the lens of what happened to me. I now ask You to teach me who You truly are. I surrender my understanding, my defenses, my expectations, and my will. Let Your Word have greater authority than my history. Teach me to know You as You have revealed Yourself.”

Prayer of Surrender

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
You are one God…holy, eternal, perfect, and true.

Forgive me for the ways I have measured You by the people who hurt, failed, rejected, or abandoned me. You are not defined by what happened to me.

Father, teach me to receive the adoption, identity, protection, correction, provision, and love You give through Christ.

Jesus, teach me to know You as Savior, Lord, King, High Priest, and faithful companion. Heal the places where rejection and betrayal have caused me to resist Your closeness.

Holy Spirit, teach me, guide me, comfort me, convict me, and renew my mind. Help my whole being learn to rest in the truth of Your presence.

I bring You every false belief that says I am alone, unwanted, unsafe, forgotten, or responsible for saving myself.

I surrender my understanding.
I surrender my need for control.
I surrender my expectations.
I surrender my defenses.
I surrender my will.

Let Your truth become greater than my fear. Let Your character become more real to me than my past. Teach me the obedience that grows from trust and the trust that grows from knowing You.

I am not an orphan.
I have been brought near through Christ.
I have received the Spirit of adoption.
I belong to God.

Teach me to live like a beloved child who is fully surrendered to a perfectly faithful Father.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

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There is a quiet tragedy unfolding in the modern Church. It isn’t just the growing persecution, false doctrine boldly preached from pulpits, and open rebellion…It’s the spiritual desensitization of the saints. A slow, almost imperceptible drifting outside the will of God…outside His presence…while still carrying His name.

Most believers do not wake up one morning and decide to abandon God. Instead, they grow busy, distracted, overstimulated, wounded, and tired.
Prayer becomes shorter. Worship becomes background noise. Conviction becomes negotiable. Obedience becomes optional.
Eventually, the soul grows accustomed to the absence of fire.

What once would have pierced the heart now barely registers. What once brought tears now feels ordinary. What once required surrender now feels inconvenient, and slowly, the voice of the Holy Spirit becomes faint beneath the noise of the self.

“So, because you are lukewarm…neither hot nor cold.. I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” – Revelation 3:16

Lukewarmness is not hatred of God. It is indifference toward Him. And indifference is far more dangerous, because when we step outside of consistent communion with God, something subtle happens: we begin to hear ourselves more clearly than Him. The flesh is loud, the soul is persuasive, and desire is convincing. Without intimacy with the Spirit, our internal cravings start to sound like divine leading. Our emotions begin to masquerade as revelation. The Apostle Paul warned about this internal war:

“For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit…” – Galatians 5:17

But when spiritual dryness sets in, the flesh doesn’t feel like opposition. It feels like preference. It feels like identity. It feels like freedom, and so we begin feeding consent and agreement into the things of our flesh leading to habits, attachments, relationships, ambitions, entertainments, and soul ties that quietly drain spiritual authority, while strengthening the enemies grip on our life. The frightening part? It feels normal, and you become numb to conviction.

Further, spiritual desensitization does not arrive with sounding alarms. It comes upon us like callouses. At first, conviction stings…then it pricks….then it whispers, and soon, it barely registers. Paul in Timothy 4 described this condition as having a conscience “seared.” A damaged conscience. Your inner warning system no longer functions properly. Individuals experiencing this repeatedly ignore conviction, silence the Spirit, justify compromise, and chose image over integrity, allowing scar tissue to form over moral sensitivity. This is an invisible shackle to an invisible idol called comfort.

When we ignore correction long enough, we do not lose salvation…we lose sensitivity. The Spirit still speaks, but the soul prefers comfort…and comfort becomes king.

One of the clearest signs of spiritual dryness is attachment without discernment. Soul ties form not only through intimacy, but through agreement: emotional, spiritual, and habitual alignment with people, or patterns God never authorized. When intimacy with God decreases, attachment to counterfeit relationships increase. What feels like love may really be dependency. What feels like passion may be trauma bonding. What feels like calling may be ego, and we then walk the earth unaware that our spiritual strength is being siphoned. We pray, but without authority. We worship, but without fire. We speak Scripture, but without power. Not because God withdrew from us, but because we stepped outside the covering of alignment. Jesus said:

“Apart from Me you can do nothing.” – John 15:5

Outside of His abiding presence, even gifted believers operate powerlessly because our authority in the Spirit is not automatic; it flows from alignment. When we live compromised, distracted, or entangled lives, we may still function publicly, but spiritually, we lack weight. The sons of Sceva in Acts attempted to cast out demons using the name of Jesus without relationship or alignment. The demonic response was chilling:

“Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” – Acts 19:15

Authority is recognized in the spirit realm.
Spiritual dryness strips us of the boldness and clarity that once marked our walk. We begin striving where we once stood firm. We debate instead of decree, analyze instead of obey, and perform instead of flow in His Spirit.

The most sobering reality is this: Spiritual dryness eventually feels preferable, and holiness can feel restrictive to a soul accustomed to this indulgence. Discipline can feel harsh to a heart softened by compromise, and conviction can feel judgmental to a conscience that now prefers comfort.

So we convince ourselves:
“This is just maturity.”
“This is balance.”
“This is freedom.”

All the while drifting further from the presence that once defined us, and because the drift is gradual, we do not recognize the distance.

Once spiritually dry we often experience the following: a decreased hunger for Scripture, emotional reactivity replacing spiritual discernment, justification of compromise, attraction to worldly affirmation, fatigue in prayer, and loss of joy without obvious cause.
We may still attend church, still post Scripture, still identify as strong believers, but internally…something is hollow. The fire has dimmed.

This is not the end though my freinds as we are always invited back. The beauty of God is this: He does not abandon the drifting. He calls them. The warning to the lukewarm in Revelation was not complete condemnation…it is an invitation:

“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.” – Revelation 3:19

Dryness is not the end, but a signal, a mercy even perhaps, and absolutely a wake-up call. Spiritual sensitivity can be restored. Authority can be reclaimed. Soul ties can be broken, and conviction can return…but it requires honesty and repentance. It requires returning to abiding.

Let’s continue to ponder this….again…one of the greatest danger believers face today is spiritual numbness. For we can no longer feel the distance from God if we can no longer distinguish the Spirit’s voice from our own desires…if we are comfortable outside His presence…then dryness has already settled in….the solution is not louder worship or busier ministry, but deeper intimacy, and absaloute surrender. It is choosing fire over comfort, because the greatest tragedy is not being attacked…it is being lukewarm. We must turn back in complete surrender. Let’s explore the process of how to come back into alignment.

Spiritual dryness is not reversed by emotion, but by surrender, and surrender is not just a word we whisper in a worship song, or a tearful moment at an altar, or simply saying the words, “God, I surrender.” True surrender is the yielding of authority back to the One who gave it, and that begins in the heart.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in ALL your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” – Proverbs 3:5–6

Surrender is first a decision to distrust your own inner compass. When dryness has settled in, we must recognize something difficult. “My desires have been leading me.” Not the Spirit, not obedience, not reverence, but desire; and desire must be dethroned. We must acknowledge the drift without excuse as full surrender begins with brutal honesty.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me…” – Psalms 139:23–24

You cannot surrender what you refuse to examine. Ask yourself: Where have I justified compromise? Where have I ignored conviction? What attachments feel impossible to release? What voices have become louder than God’s? Surrender requires naming the idols, the things and people in our life we have given priority to, and to then repent.

Once we identify the idol/sin in our life, repentance, like surrender is a complete turning, not a feeling or something we simply ask forgiveness for. We choose to turn away from our sin…we cut it off…just like we would turn from drinking pure poison, as we know it’s harmful to our bodies.  Repentance is not shame, but a full re-alignment in our Spirit. We will feel sorry, and then we must choose to turn away.

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” – Acts 3:19

Notice: refreshing follows turning. What a beautiful promise to us, so we must hold onto that truth and turn from all the things holding us back, not just partial: turning from one vice, but not ready to give up the other…sometimes we allow excuses when we consider handing things over to God….maybe it’s hard to believe a stronger vice could be fully given over…whatever it might be. Understand that spirtual dryness lingers when repentance is partial. Full surrender means: cutting off what feeds the flesh, ending what binds the soul, removing access to compromise, and obeying immediately where we once delayed. This is not legalism. This is cleansing the altar by crucifixion of our flesh. This must be done daily, and this is where many of us stop short. We want comfort restored without the crucifixion, but Scripture is clear:

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” – Galatians 5:24

Crucifixion isn’t easy, it’s violent, final, and intentional. Surrender means: saying no to the text you want to send, walking away from the relationship that feeds ego, or that you know was not authorized by God. It’s fasting what stimulates the flesh, choosing silence over self-defense, and choosing obedience over emotional gratification. As this takes place you will feel resistance and that resistance is the flesh losing ground. It’s good to feel that, because that means you hear the Holy Spirit’s conviction again. So listen to it, and turn and present your body as a living sacrifice.

“Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.” – Romans 12:1

A living sacrifice climbs onto the altar voluntarily. This means: your time belongs to Him. Your relationships belong to Him. Your ambitions belong to Him. Your sexuality belongs to Him, and your emotions belong to Him. All of us belongs to Him. Surrender is not passive, it is deliberate placement on the altar, and we must remain there and renew our mind relentlessly. We cannot believe surrender in our heart while feeding rebellion in our mind.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” –  Romans 12:2

This is truly an important part of our surrendering process as spiritual dryness often begins in our thought life. To truly believe surrender in our minds we can replace internal narratives with Scripture, and silence voices that normalize compromise. If we saturate our mind daily in truth; our beliefs and thinking will shift. This is one way we can abide in His presence, and we must do it continually, not occasionally, as surrender is sustained by abiding.

“Abide in Me, and I in you… If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” –  John 15:4–5

This looks like daily time in His presence even when it feels dry. It also looks like obedience in small things, immediate response to conviction, and returning quickly when we falter. The feelings may lag behind our obedience, but our obedience is required and precedes restoration.

Further, our obedience breaks our agreement with the old master: our flesh, and the principalities that rule this world and seek to oppress us: keeping us shackled in our sin, and a belief that we are covered in shame contrary to what Christ freed us from on the cross. In this reality, surrender is also a transfer of lordship.

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” – James 4:7

Submission always comes first, but many of us attempt resistance without the submission. Authority returns when our alignment returns, and we must consciously revoke agreement with: fleshly indulgence, counterfeit relationships, pride, fear, self-rule, and all the things we’ve tied ourselves too that wall off the presence of God and then choose active submission.

Here is the core however: you will not seek surrender in your heart until you see the cost of not surrendering. We should ask ourselves: What has my spiritual dryness cost me? Sensitivity? Peace? Spriritual authority? Joy? Clarity? Loss? Disease? Physical harm? Addiction? Incredible pain and suffering that could have been avoided? The list could go on. When we recognize what we’ve lost, surrender stops feeling like deprivation and starts feeling like rescue.

True surrender happens when we realize: His will is safer than our will, His authority is stronger than ours, His discipline is kinder than our indulgences, and His presence is better than any pleasure this earth can provide. Once we see this, our surrender is easy and turns into trust followed by restoration. Take heart if you are in the dry place, for God does not mock our returning hearts.

“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” – James 4:8

Notice: it begins with you. One step. One obedience. One removal of compromise. One honest prayer, and then the fire returns. Our conviction sharpens, our authority strengthens, and clarity restores. Peace settles again, not because you performed, but because you yielded.
Full surrender is not dramatic. It is daily. It is quiet. It is costly, but it is the only way back from spiritual dryness, and for the believer who feels numb, distracted, or lukewarm: the altar is still open.

Matthew 9:20-22

20. Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
22. Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart,daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.”And the woman was healed at that moment.

Jesus,

I come to You weary, not wandering, but running.

Not strolling behind You in quiet devotion,
but pressing through the weight of sorrow,
through fear that grips my chest,
through the whispers of defeat that try to convince me that this battle is bigger than Your power.

I am not passive in this season.
I am contending.

Like the woman who fought her way through the crowd,
I am fighting through grief, uncertainty, and exhaustion…
not with fists or weapons,
but with knees bruised by prayer
and hands lifted in thanksgiving before the miracle arrives.

I confess, Lord,
this has felt like war.

Hopelessness has tried to cut me down.
Fear has lunged like a sword.
Sorrow has stalked me in the quiet moments,
telling me to sit, to accept, to brace for disappointment.

But instead…I fall to my knees.
And there, I meet You.

I thank You in advance.
Not because I see the outcome yet,
but because I know Who You are and what You can do.

I am not simply walking after God.
I am chasing freedom for my daughter.
I am running after You in the Spirit,
stretching out every ounce of faith I have left,
believing that if I can just reach You…
if I can just touch the hem of Your garment on her behalf…healing and deliverance will flow.

Jesus, I throw myself at Your throne.
Not because You are distant,
but because my heart is desperate and anchored all at once.

You called the woman in the passage “daughter”.
You spoke tenderness into her suffering.
You honored her faith.
You made her whole.

So I come to You now as a mother,
standing in the gap,
believing that Your same power, same compassion, and same authority lives on today.

I choose faith over fear.
I choose gratitude over despair.
I choose to believe that You are still turning toward those who reach for You with trembling hands and steadfast hearts.

Now I fall on my face at your feet, and take authority over my daughter’s prayers…the little prayers she prayed to you asking to be delivered…and I pray now with her in agreement and ask for her to receive what she prayed believing in Your power…and as she doubts now…I pray on for her…I carry them on her behalf… lifting her up to You…standing in the gap…using my faith where hers is lost…I take charge over her in the Spirit and grab the hem of Your garment for her now…and as I have prayed once before, “I believe, but help me with my unbelief”, so I pray that for her too…thank You for being with her…still…even as she can not see You right now…

Father…I quiet my heart Lord to hear you…

“Take heart”, You said to the woman you healed.
So I do.

I cling to You, Jesus…
not in weakness alone,
but in fierce, surrendered trust, for You are my shepherd…guide my will and my prayers…

I believe you will:

Heal.
Deliver.
Restore.

I believe.

Help me hold fast.

Amen.

“I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” Psalm 34:1

This is not a declaration I make because everything is easy.
It is a declaration I make because I know Who God is…regardless of the season I am in.

If you have heard my story, you’ll know why I have so much to be grateful for. As time passes for me though, sometimes gratitude is not always born from abundance, but from remembrance.

Like Job, I have learned that faith is not proven in comfort, but revealed in loss. In the stripping away. In the unanswered questions. In the seasons where obedience feels costly and surrender feels daily…sometimes moment by moment. Yet even there, God remains sovereign. Even there, He is present. Even there, He is so so good.

This season carries ambiguous loss and grief; grief without clean edges, and without a single event to point to. It carries sorrow in parenting, the ache of loving a child so deeply while standing in uncertainty about her future. It carries the quiet fear that creeps in when outcomes are unclear and the weight of responsibility feels heavy.

And still…I bless the Lord.

Because I refuse to forget what He has already brought me through. I can not forget.

I remember who I was before He found me.
I remember the darkness He delivered me from.
I remember the chains He broke, the doors He opened, the life He restored, the child He gave me.

I remember that He called me by name.
That He set me apart with intention.
That He did not rescue me from purpose…but for it.

I remember that Jesus still intercedes for my life before the Father.                                                   That He has conversations over my life.
That His Spirit lives within me: active, alive, guiding, strengthening.
That I have authority over darkness not because of who I am, but because of who He is.

I remember that He equips those He calls.
Even when the calling feels overwhelming.
Even when parenting stretches me beyond what I think I can give.
Even when I am learning…again and again…to release my child back into His hands. To continue to make good on my promise…to give her back to Him.

This child was never mine to possess…only to steward.
And if God used her to bring me back to Him, then I trust He will continue to use her life for His glory, and has already worked out how He will draw her to Him as well. So, I surrender her will, her future, her becoming, and her protection to the One who loves her more than I ever possibly could.

And today, I thank Him in advance…in full faith and belief of a victory already won…

I praise Him in the in-between.
I praise Him in the hard places.
I praise Him in the waiting.
I praise Him not because I understand, but because I trust.

For all things are for His glory.

And my posture must remain one of praise and surrender…heart open, spirit attentive, ready to move when the way becomes clear. Ready to follow as He guides. Ready to trust when He is silent. Ready to surrender when He says to let go…

I will bless the Lord at all times.
Not just when the outcome is good.
Not just when prayers are answered quickly.
But here.
Now.
Even in this season…and beyond.

Because He is faithful.
Because He is present.
Because He is God.

I will bless the Lord at ALL times.

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.” Ferdinand Foch

When I think about survivors shaping the world through advocacy, this quote feels less like poetry and more like truth lived out in real time.

A survivor’s soul on fire is not fueled by anger alone…though anger has its place. It is fueled by truth. By clarity. By a refusal to let what tried to silence us have the final word. Survivors know what systems overlook, what policies ignore, and what harm looks like when it hides behind legality, normalization, or convenience. When survivors step into advocacy, they don’t speak in theory. They speak from the scars that healed into wisdom.

That is power.

Survivors don’t just demand change…we shape it. We bring lived experience into rooms where decisions are made without us. We reframe narratives that once blamed us. We expose injustice not because we studied it, but because we survived it. And when one survivor stands up, it ignites courage in others. Fire spreads that way.
What the world often misunderstands is this: survivor advocacy is not about being stuck in the past. It is about redeeming it. It is about refusing to let pain be wasted. It is about transforming suffering into something that protects, educates, and liberates others.

And here is the teaching I carry in my heart:
Pain will either imprison you or propel you, but purpose is what determines the direction.
Turning pain into purpose does not mean rushing healing or pretending wounds didn’t hurt. It means listening for what your story is trying to teach you. It means asking, “How can this serve someone else?” It means allowing God to take what was meant to destroy you and repurpose it for good…just as Scripture promises.

We are told that what the enemy meant for harm, God will use for our good. Not just despite it, but through it.

And joy? Joy is not denial. Joy is defiance. Joy is choosing to live fully, love deeply, and advocate boldly without bitterness chaining your future to your past. Joy is the evidence that healing has taken root.

When survivors lead with truth, with purpose, and with joy, the fire becomes unstoppable.
Nothing is wasted. Not the pain. Not the tears. Not the long nights. Not the survival.
A human soul on fire: refined, redeemed, and rooted in purpose…can change the world.

There is a quiet grief that lives in me right now, not loud, not dramatic, but steady. It’s the kind of grief that doesn’t come from losing something I once had, but from never quite receiving the thing I’ve longed for in the first place. Ambiguous loss has a way of doing that. It leaves no funeral, no closure, no clear moment where you can say this is where it ended. It just lingers.

When I hear Jordan Davis’s “Next Thing You Know,” I feel the ache of a life that was supposed to unfold in soft milestones…love that grows roots, shared laughter, ordinary days that quietly turn into forever. That song carries the dream of being chosen, of being partnered, of being witnessed as life moves forward. And yet, what echoes louder in my lived experience is the chorus of Ella Langley’s “Choosing Texas”…the leaving, the independence, the self-reliance, the strength forged not by being held, but by having to hold myself.

That contrast has shaped my experience of dating and love. I have loved deeply. I have hoped earnestly. And still, I have not been met in the way my heart has quietly waited for…the way that says, I see you, I choose you, let me care for you the way you care for everyone else. Carrying the weight of the world, of advocacy, of survival, of motherhood, while not having a safe earthly place to rest emotionally… that kind of loneliness settles into the bones.

There are moments when the absence feels louder than anything else. The absence of someone asking how I am and meaning it. The absence of being softened by love rather than sharpened by responsibility. The absence of being held…not because I am strong, but because I am human.

And still… I remain.

I live in acceptance of what is without surrendering the hope of what could be. My mission matters. Raising my daughter matters. The work I do, the lives I touch, the healing I help create – it all matters. I stay spiritually fit because I know joy doesn’t only come wrapped in romance. It comes in purpose. In faith. In moments of peace that arrive quietly and unexpectedly. In laughter with my child. In knowing that my life has meaning even in the waiting.

Hope, for me, is no longer naïve…it is resilient. It doesn’t demand immediate fulfillment. It simply whispers, Maybe someday. And until that day, I continue to choose life as it is now: grounded, honest, lonely at times, but still open. Still believing that my childhood dream of love…real love, in the form of marriage…can arrive later without invalidating the fullness of the life I’ve already built.

This is where I am: holding space for grief and gratitude at the same time. Accepting the quiet ache. Walking forward anyway with a smile. And trusting that joy, in whatever form it comes, is still allowed to find me as I continue to look to the my heavenly Father for His plan for that area of my life.

Being an advocate is deeply meaningful to me today. The truth is…advocacy often starts in the quiet moments. It starts when someone is finally believed. When a door is opened. When a safe place is offered without judgment….with this environment, hope grows into the belief of possibility while courage moves us into action.

Looking back,…I never imagined that the most painful chapters of my life could someday fuel a mission to protect others. I never saw myself as particularly brave and advocacy wasn’t a role I sought, it was simply something I grew into out of necessity. I spoke up because silence was no longer an option. I kept going because I met others who had endured far worse and deserved far better. It became a solution to consistent barriers that needed breaking down, and an attitude of perseverance and lack of willingness to take no for an answer.

Advocacy, to me, is also about walking alongside others, not in front of them, gently leading and clearing the path just enough so they can move forward with dignity, power, and choice. It’s about changing broken and flawed systems, and rewriting the narratives we’ve been told about who deserves to have safety and freedom.

There’s still so much work to do, but today, I pause to reflect with gratitude. I am grateful to have had enough resilience left after the pause in my suffering to turn it around into resistance of the acceptance of things as they are, and the belief in a world that can be changed. I’m blessed to have gained a community of others like myself where together we fight for a world where the advocacy we do is no longer necessary, and I’m not in this alone. Some days are more tiring than others, but I pray I never lose my fire, nor stop listening to the Spirit that guides it all. I pray that I carry the hope forward with purpose, so I may continue to fight until every person has the freedom, the safety, and the dignity they deserve.

Early childhood sexual abuse and then rape by the age of 14 pushed my fragile mind and vulnerable body into the arms of exploitation after running away from home at 15. Over the next 17 years, I experienced both labor and sex  trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, domestic violence, and servitude. I was labor trafficked 3 times before the age of 18, and as an adult, due to my grooming and volnurability to sexual exploitation, by the age of 21 I had fallen deeply into commercial sexual exploitation through legal chanels of prostitution via strip clubs and escort services. I nearly lost my life at the hands of sex buyers on more than one occasion during this period. I was trapped in a system of prostitution that I thought I could control, but in truth, I was nothing more than an object for sale. Nothing more than a body to be used by men as they saw fit…..but I learned very young that that’s what men want.
When money changed hands, I was expected to comply with every whim and desire, and it never truly felt like consent. If I refused to comply, I was beat or strangled, and then finally…at the age of 22… left for dead. As an adult adapted to my life, I had fleeting moments of false empowerment as I could sometimes have the final say in who, what, when, and where….but this wasn’t empowerment,….it was SURVIVAL…and then finally….through legal avenues of sexual exploitation, I was trafficked again…only this time for sex. I escaped after another near death experience at the hands of a buyer and walked away from that industry entirely….only to fall victim to DV and then labor trafficking once more and forced servitude. This time…taken across state lines all over the US. Now 30 years old, stuck in this life I thought I could not escape, pregnant and hopeless, my only way out was to try and take my life.

My whole life until this point, I  felt as if I was screaming inside for something to change, for a real chance at a life of happiness…whatever that was. I did not know..nor could Idare to dream of my life ahead far removed…but I survived…and at last…I made it out…for as a young mother…I had to find a way to keep my baby girl safe…so a month before her first birthday, I found an out after another beating, and I fled and never looked back.

Today I barely recognize the woman and girl I once was, for I found myself with real purpose…that of being a mother, and that purpose grew not only to protect her, but now to safegaurd ever other woman and girl finding themselves abandoned by systems that were meant to keep them safe, and cast aside by those they loved, left to be used for sexual gratification by the rest of the world that feeds off of their loss, volnurability, and pain.
For far too long, we’ve let people view sex trafficking and prostitution as something separate or as a vitimless or non serious crime, but not as a form of gender-based violence. Not as inherently harmful as it is. Making excuses for those who benefit the most when legislation ignores our pleas and looks the other way. In reality it’s, extreme violence against women and girls like me, and until laws like the survival model are passed, we will continue to be abused and lose our lives while society turns a blind eye to its complicity as it allows perpetrators to go unchecked. Too long these systems have revictimised by adding blame on the exploited and enough is enough. We have had enough. We are dying out here.

The survivor model is the way, and it doesn’t just provide exit from exploitation, but assistance  with funding for victim support straight from the pockets that purchased us and relieves financial burden from the state. It ensures that there are stronger legal tools to target the predators who think they can buy and sell human lives. It also educates our communities and breaks down the normalization of one of the oldest forms of oppression of women and girls.

Hear us now. We can not waste any more time debating the difference between sex trafficking and the harms of prostitution or whether or not there is agency in it, because while you do….we keep dying. DO NO HARM. Listen to survivors and send a clear message to victims that they are heard, seen, and valued.

I’m am long past the pain of what I’ve endured but I’m still screaming inside…only now from the frustration I feel at all the ears that refuse to hear the truth about the harms of prostitution and other forms of exploitation. I’m calling out for help from all of you now… all of you in seats that have the power to offer us hope and safety. I’m calling out for all the Me’s out there still fighting to survive. HELP US. SAVE US. RESCUE US. For those still stuck, do not know the way.

If you knew what I’ve been through,
You’d know why I care so deeply.
If you knew what I’d had to do to stay alive,
You’d know why I fight so hard.
If you knew what I’ve faced,
You’d know why I never stop trying.
If you knew what I have lost,
You’d know why I give as I do.
If you knew how I’ve lived,
You’d understand my tired eyes at times.
But If you knew how I survived,
Then you’d know why I love Him so much

…and how now I thrive.

When I start thinking about us, i start thinking in these narrow tunnels…tunnels that block everything out accept you and me and this growing devotion for you that I feel…and none of the day to day problems seem to matter….you see….it’s because of you that I drop fragments of my emotions everywhere I walk with each smile from my thoughts of you…..that everywhere I go and no matter where I am I feel like it will always be a part of us….for loneliness and despair has faded away and turned to Jubel…hope floats freely with every new step forward….and this…this worship i feel trickling through every fiber of my being…warming my viens, flowing all around as I pass by every place I have been with you and hope to be…leaving a mark in this world that’s lost its belief in love….rewiring my memories….reminding me of possibility…as you’ve moved my heart to want to pursue this life with you…to honor you and bring you glory…so here I am waiting…your extravagant gift…egar and hopeful…charged by your care…drawing out my future on your word….and with your breath in my lungs…I’m grateful as far as the east is to the west…for you see me…you see me dressed in white…