Hi friends! I can’t believe that 2022 is already upon us. If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering where on earth the time has gone and what on earth you did in 2021. This year has been a wild one for me and for so many others, but through it all I have seen the goodness, grace, and faithfulness of God. I opened my prayer journal to my entry on this day last year and was so overwhelmed by how God had answered my prayers for this year. My prayers were not answered in the way that I thought they would be, but I can see now how much better God’s way is than the way I would’ve chosen for this year to go. I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you all the ups and downs of this past year, and how God has moved in power in my life. I’ve been pretty silent for the past several months, and I’m so excited to finally share with you what Jesus and I have been up to. Not to show you how “spiritual” I am, but to encourage you that what God has done for me, he can and will do for you!
This blog post will probably be a longer one, but I pray that if God wants you to hear this message you will read it to the end, the Holy Spirit will touch your heart, and you will experience the power of God in your life! As most of you know, in 2020 I auditioned for the 19th season of The Voice. Although that was one of the most exciting opportunities I’ve had in my career, it also led to one of the most spiritually dark seasons of my life. Coming home from LA I got so many opportunities to work with people in the industry. I was writing more than ever, working on an EP, recording, and even marking off a bucket list item of helping produce my own music. I was doing everything I should to make progress and achieve the dreams I had since I was a little girl, and yet I had never felt so discontent in my life. I began to push my friends and loved ones away, and was plagued with shame and guilt over addictions and sin patterns I had dealt with for years that I couldn’t seem to find true freedom from. I had no ambition and no joy. My attitude was, just add me to the list of young adults who battle with some form of mental illness. I distinctly remember crying out to God one day, “Would you just deliver me from it all? I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I remember the joy and fire I had for you when I was a little girl, learning about you, falling in love with you, and telling all my friends about you. Would you give that to me again?” Sometimes we don’t know exactly what we’re asking for, but when we ask God to do something in our lives, we can expect him to do it!
When I came home from LA, I jumped right back into church and leading worship. I noticed a drastic change in one of my friends, Collin, who had opened up to us about his struggle with severe anxiety. I didn’t even have to have a conversation with him to see the change in his life. I decided to talk to him and another friend, Tajee, at church about the health issues I was dealing with that I felt were contributing to my mental health, and for the first time in my life, they laid hands on me and prayed for my healing. It was one of the sweetest moments I’ve experienced with other believers, and Tajee even prophesied that Collin’s healing would be my healing. Being the Southern Baptist girl that I am, I just nodded and smiled and walked away saying, “Well that was different!” I know we’re really in the weeds here, and I hope this isn’t hard to follow, but little did I know how significant that word from God would be.
Flash forward several months, and although my friends prayed for my healing, I didn’t feel any different. So often we have experiences like this where we get a glimpse of God’s promises to us, but instead of pressing into them and believing that they’ll happen in God’s timing, we fall back into the same old patterns. One Sunday I was talking to my friend, Collin, and he began to tell me that God had been doing so much in his life; that he was truly experiencing God’s goodness. He peaked my curiosity and I just wanted to experience that for myself. I asked him if we could go get coffee and talk about what God had been doing in his life. I feel like this has been a common theme in my life over the last several months, but sometimes we really don’t know what we’ve asked for, and I was SO clueless as to all that God had planned for me.
Thursday, August 5th is a date I will hold close to my heart forever. God has never been so evident to me, nor has the reality of demons and spiritual warfare. August 5th was a busy day, but not much different from any other day of the week. I had lunch planned with my friends Leah and Jaylen and Mrs. Donna, our mentor since middle school, coffee with my friend from church, and then I was going back to a friend’s house to watch the Netflix series Outer Banks and spend the night at her house. Per usual, lunch with Mrs. Donna was a time of prayer and encouragement. She’s always excited to hear what God is doing in our lives and how she can encourage us to serve him. But here’s where the good part really starts. Remember Collin from earlier? Well, I went to coffee with Collin, previously riddled with anxiety, and he began to tell me how God had delivered him and healed him. This is someone who had tried everything the medical field had to offer. Therapy, counseling, traditional medicine, functional medicine, you name it he had tried it. Now, what I’m about to tell you is difficult for so many of us to hear, but I want you to stop up your religious ears, and read this from the perspective that Jesus is still doing today what he did 2,000 years ago when he walked this earth. Jesus had delivered my friend from demons; A born-again believer, set free from anxiety, depression, severe allergies, etc. because of demonic attack upon his life and calling. Although I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was being said to me or what I was witnessing from his deliverance video, I knew in my spirit that there was truth to this. In that moment, I began to feel the shame I had carried with me since I was a little girl dissolve. The habitual sins that I had struggled with for so long, that I didn’t even want to participate in anymore losing their grip on me. The cloud of depression that I had lived under for the past year begin to lift, and the joy of the Lord begin to flood my soul. We talked that day for four hours about the goodness of God, the love he has for his children, and that he wants to see them live out the calling he has placed on their lives.
That night at my friend’s house we were watching Outer Banks, and I couldn’t help but feel like we didn’t need to be watching it. I had watched the first season and didn’t have a problem with it, but something in my spirit just said, turn this off. Around midnight we laid down and I couldn’t sleep for the life of me. I laid there for an hour praying, “God just give me rest, just let me sleep, I’m so tired.” Around that time Leah got up and turned the bathroom light on so it would shine into the bedroom. I asked Leah, “Have you fallen asleep?” She replied, “No, I can’t sleep I just feel this…” “Heaviness?” I responded. Then, as if in one mind she and I just began to pray. Whispered prayers as to not wake our other friend up. We began to proclaim the name of Jesus over ourselves, our families, the house and to demand that the spiritual forces of darkness at work in that moment to leave. I distinctly remember Leah saying in a whisper scream, “Satan, you lose! You’re a loser!” And isn’t that the truth? We know how the story ends, and Satan is already a loser when he comes against believers. After what felt like maybe 10 minutes of prayer, we finally felt this oppressive spirit lift. When I picked up my phone to look at the time, we had actually been praying for an hour! This is an experience Leah and I will hold dear for the rest of our lives, because not only did we experience the reality of spiritual attack, but also the reality of the power that’s found in the presence of God.
Now, as miraculous as all this is, there’s more, and I hope you stick with me because the story gets even better. That Sunday afternoon, August 8th, I went to a church in Nashville with my friend and his family that practices deliverance ministry. Again, I want to remind you that this Southern Baptist girl almost chickened out because I expected to see people running down the aisles, shouting in tongues, falling out; but I was pleasantly surprised by a sweet, spirit-filled time of worship, a fiery message from 1 Kings about the need for revival in the church, and a time of response and prayer for healing. Then Mark walked on the scene. Just to paint the picture, Mark is not your average looking, bible belt church goer. He’s at least 6’3”, has long, black hair, and was wearing a black suit jacket with fringe on the back, and black snake skin boots. Immediately, the conversation in my mind was, “I thought I was going to get out of here without anything weird happening. Should I leave, or should I stick around to see what happens? I’ll just stick around for a few minutes to see. It won’t hurt anything right?” Well, it certainly didn’t hurt anything, but it did change my world forever. Mark began to actually rebuke the demons attacking my friend and cast them out. Now, this went on for quite a while and all the while I’m trying to decide if I should go or stay when Mark turns to me, looks me in the eyes and says, “Can I pray for you?” Of course, I don’t turn down prayer, but at this point I’m not really sure what to expect. He began by just praying over me, but then looked at me and to my surprise said, “Why have you stopped writing? Satan sent someone to try and steal your song, but you are going to prophesy to many, not only through song, but also through spoken word.” How did this guy know that just a few weeks earlier I had told my mom I didn’t think I’d ever write songs again; that I just didn’t feel like I had anything worth writing about? He spoke directly to a diagnosis I received when I was 15 and said, God is healing reproductive organs and the diagnosis you received is false. He has healed you! He even spoke to the shame I have walked with for so long and told me I don’t walk in that anymore, but I am a daughter of the king, treasured and loved by him. This man, I had never met or even heard of before this moment, was speaking directly to my situation the light and life of God’s word. For weeks after this I wrestled with this question, “God, do I need deliverance?” And almost as if the Holy Spirit spoke directly to me he said, “I have already delivered you.” I saw and felt the change in my life, but in trying to understand how this works in my flesh, I wasn’t sure if I had been delivered or not. God gave me the assurance I needed and the eyes to see that the depression, lack of motivation, lack of purpose, were all an attack on the calling God has on my life and that he had delivered me!
If you’ve made it this far, you’re a real trooper, and you probably think I’m either a psycho, maybe there’s something to this deliverance thing, or you were already on board with this and its old news to you. I have so many more stories of the miraculous things God has done in my life over this past year, but these are the most pivotal experiences God has used to change my life, perspective, and priorities. So, what is God doing in my life right now? Well, I’m still leading worship, I’m currently working on writing Christian music to release this coming year, and I strongly feel that God has called me into ministry. That was always something in the back of my mind, but I was never sure that he had actually called me into ministry. Now I know and I’m seeking the opportunities he wants me to have in his timing! Also, remember my friend who prophesied that Collin’s healing would be my healing? Well, God certainly fulfilled that and has used his story greatly for my own healing and deliverance. I shared this story with you because I want you to know that if God can pull me out of the darkness I was in, he WANTS to do the same for you! I’m not here to debate theology, although I can point out in scripture that deliverance is for believers as well as non-believers and would be happy to have a conversation with you about it. My desire is for every believer to experience the full power of God through the Holy Spirit, and if God can use my story to do that, then I’m willing to share with whoever needs to hear it. If you want to talk more about everything I’ve shared and how you can experience God’s power in your life, please don’t be afraid to reach out! Psalm 34:4 says, “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” God doesn’t want you to be afraid to approach other believers and ask for help, or to approach his throne and seek his deliverance. I hope my testimony will encourage and draw you closer to the God of love!
Love,
Emma