I hear you loud and clear....

Throughout my life God has always been very real to me.  I was lucky enough to grow up at a pentecostal church that allowed God to move when and how he wanted.  Therefore, I have been witness to many miraculous movements of God.  I have seen people healed, seen people slain in the spirit, seen people who have been completely transformed.  I have been one of those people myself.  I, also, had plenty of sunday school teachers, Missionette teachers, and youth pastors that taught me all about who God is.  I have been involved in ministry since a very young age.  I was apart of a clown ministry that went to nursing homes to minister to old people.  I was on a puppet team that ministered to young kids.  I was on a drama team that ministered on the streets all around the southern states and even in other countries. I have been the leader of my own dance/drama team that went out and ministered.  I have written plays and skits to be used in my church.  I was in the choir.  I was on the worship team.  I have taught sunday school.  I have lead bible studies.  I have helped lead a single's ministry.  I, even, have a minor in religious studies where I learned about Christianity in depth and other world religions.  I know a lot ABOUT God. I have DONE a lot of stuff for God.  But, how well do I KNOW him.

With a class in Junction City, Jamaica where I was there with a team building a church.

Part of the drama team, Toughlove that I was a part of during my teens.

With my mom and brother getting ready to go meet up with other clowns and minister at a nursing home.  I wasn't too happy that day, I don't think.

Practice before church service, I was one of the lead singers on the worship team.

There is a cycle to my life.  I get to where I am drawing closer to God and then when I get a glimpse of who he is and his purpose for me...I shut him down.  Ninth grade, God changed my life miraculously and did some amazing things in my life....supernaturally.  God revealed himself to me in a way that I could never imagine.  He was very real in my life.  God is a personal God, he wants us to have an intimate relationship with him.   Just reading one of my favorite passages, Psalm 139, shows how much God knows us and loves us.  Freshman year in college, again God rushes into my life and makes himself  known and very real in my life.  He began calling me and leading me to a bigger purpose in life.  I was chicken shit and shut him down.  (yes, I said the s word....it means poop).  Several years later, God showed up again telling me to stop playing around and stop running from him.  He showed me it wasn't enough to just do things for him, to be busy with ministry for him....I needed a personal relationship with him.  So, once again, like the times before I drawed closer to him.  Only for after a short time....drift away and began being busy doing things for God and learning about him....but not knowing him intimately in my life.  The last episode in this cycle was when my brother was living in a rehab facility and I was going through an inner healing class there.  God showed me a lot of things going through this class....but one thing that stands out like no other is that I shut myself down instead of walking forward.  I let myself go into a stalemate because of fear.  One day he showed me a vision.  It was a vision of myself sitting in a jail cell.  I was sitting on a stool in the corner facing the wall with one of those dunce hats on.  Beside me was a table with a key laying on it.  God spoke to me like he was sitting right beside me, "Sonya, you punish yourself and lock yourself away.  You even have the key to let yourself out of this prison that you are hiding in."  Several things struck me....one, I have put myself there and two, I am hiding here....I'm not a prisoner here....I have locked myself there....why.  Fear.  God, told me in my freshman year of college that he has a big purpose for me.  He didn't even tell me what it was, but only that I needed to get serious and I needed to build our relationship before I could even be ready to do what he has for me.  Instead of going...YAY, God wants ME to do something.  He has something SPECIAL for me to do.  Instead, I go....CRAP, ME?  I can't do anything for God.  I'm scared....alright so, I'm going to shut down and run and hide here.  There's a lot of personal junk that goes with why I think this way and am this way.  But, I know that God is much more bigger than that junk and that he can deal with that junk....and it's probably that very junk that makes me perfect for what he wants me to do.  So....a stalemate I have been in for the last O, 5 years.  

Last weekend, I went to church for the first time in a while.  What did Louie preach on....John 4 where Jesus talks about if we only KNEW WHO HE REALLY WAS.  The other night I couldn't sleep.  I decided to read a devotional....and it was about KNOWING GOD...and not just knowing about him.  I have been hearing him call my name and feeling him reaching out to me for about a year now....he is telling me to stop being scared and be who he created me to be....but first I need to re-get-to-know-him.  It's been such a long time since I have been intimate with him.  Yes, I read my bible and pray....but it is very one sided....not at all how it is supposed to be.  So, this is what God has been saying sweetly to my heart, my spirit..... are you ready to know me, know who I am.....  and yes, I am.