 and be the fire, and be my sword to your beautiful face. For this next session, we have Anna Asbury with us. I know she has already led us in worship, but for this afternoon session, it's going to be interview style. We're going to have conversation, and I'm going to ask some questions for Anna to answer. Anna has just on her heart a ministry time that we're going to lead into, where I'm going to just play piano, and my wife Rachel is going to come back up and sing, and Anna will facilitate that. So we're just really excited for what the Lord is going to do for that. Anna, this is fun. Welcome. It's fun. Super glad to be a part of this true North experience. Yeah. Anna, she has been in this community with a lot of us that moved about four years ago, but Calvary's and Asbury's, we've been friends for going on 15 years, and so it's one of the fun things about this event. It's all of our family, and so there's just such a rich history of just relationship, and Anna just within our community, obviously, a wife and a mom, but is a creative painter, worship leader, songwriter, prophetic singer, and so it's going to be really fun to kind of get an inside look into her life and just let her speak into a lot. So I'm sure you've been excited to be here and been wondering how I'm going to grill you with these questions. I mean, I'm a little nervous. Yeah. I don't know what you're going to ask me. No, I do know. I actually do know a couple of things he's going to ask me. I'm not sure of all of them, but as we were talking and preparing for this moment, sometimes it's fun to just have a window into people's lives, and it's hard to express that in a teaching or in a preaching moment, and so Corey is my husband. Caleb and I were just asking and talking with each other on how we could do this the best way, and it's so fun to just be interviewed and ask questions, and I just want to give you guys a vulnerable and honest look into my life, into Corey and I's life, and with our kids and our ministry and how we've been doing this for the last 15 years. Yeah. That's awesome. Cool. We'll jump right in. So first question, because I feel like a lot of creatives, we have this stereotype of just kind of being all over the place and chasing a million different things, and there's kind of this, what am I called to? I'm supposed to do this, I'm supposed to do this, and so I just want to start just ask that question like, what is your calling and how did you discover that? Yeah, well, a lot of different places for where I fit, and some of you may actually identify with some of my story, but when I grew up a Christian, I grew up in a Christian family and it was great. My mom was a worship leader, and my dad was a teacher, and my grandmother was a preacher, there was just a lot of ministry, a lot of songs, a lot of singing around us, and I just remember singing lots of songs to Jesus. With my guitar, six years old, I remember playing songs and writing songs and just singing to Jesus, and people would ask me as I got older, what do you want to do, and what are you going to go to college, what are you going to do with your life, and I could not find a description for what I felt in my heart that I wanted to do. I just knew I really loved worship, and I loved the arts, and I loved, you know, I was in a ballet company for a while in my teen years, and traveling around and doing ballet, and I loved art, and I loved, I mean, there's just, they name it in the art world, and I just fell in love with it, but especially worship, and singing songs to Jesus, and I could not find a description for that, so I would just come up with something and I told people all the time, I'm going to be a teacher, and even though inside, I was like dying, sorry for all of you that are teachers, I just, it was just a way to get out from their question or their judgment, because I didn't know, and I was about 15, and I was invited to go with my youth group to what was called a one-thing conference, and I went, and it was out in Kansas City, and for those of you who don't know, it was the International House of Prayer out in Kansas City, and Mike Bickle was leading this charge, and there was all of these young adults that were there, and my heart just came alive with the worship, Misty Edwards, and you know, there's just a lot of awesome people that came to that conference, and I remember my heart just coming alive in that moment, and me going, I don't know what they do here, but whatever they do here, I feel like I'm called to do this, so I just needed to graduate high school, so I got through high school, and the first thing I did was I showed up at the one-thing conference, or not conference, one-thing internship, which actually Caleb happened to be at, and we showed up at the same thing, and it was there that I discovered for the first time that I could be a worshipper, that I could do the arts, that I could do all of these things that are so deeply in my heart, and they be just for the audience of God, and that there was a description for it, and now I have an actual scripture to go with what I felt called to be, but it's the Anna calling, and in Luke 2, it talks about Anna, who was in the temple day and night, she was a widow, and that's where she stayed, and she actually ended up meeting Jesus while they were on their way to the temple, and that's what she did day and night, she was in the temple worshiping Jesus, and I feel like that is my main calling. I have a lot, there's a lot of things that I do, but that's my main calling is to stand before the Lord and minister before Him, and it's Psalm 27 for one thing have I desired, and that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, and just to see the beauty of God, so I would say that that was my main calling, my second being I'm a mom, and I love being a mother. I didn't always love it, it was hard, it's been a progression of me falling in love with my calling and my authority as a mother, but I love my four kids, and I love the creativity that comes out with them, and I love being a mother in general in the ministry. So let me let me kind of follow up on that because you laid out this progression of kind of discovering your calling, and you know when you're 18 that's when the Lord whispers that, and you know coming out of that you're in that, but you're kind of young adult, and you know you don't really have a lot to do with your time, and so you kind of it's easy to just kind of have a single focus, you know, but then a few years later you're married, and now kids come along and you're calling develops, and now you know it seems like there's a tension between well I'm called to do this, but I'm called to do this too, and so you know for you now and those things just pile up, you know, because you are like you're called to be an Anna, and you're a wife, and you're a mother, and you're a worship leader, and you're a decipherer, and you're a painter, and so you know these these things that are all in your heart coming out, but surely that there's a tension there, and so what does what did that look like for you, and you know is there an unsettleness, or what does that look like to walk out all of those callings? There is definitely a tension, especially in the beginning of having I had Gabriel when I was 23, Corey and I were both 23, and there was this tension of I still had all of these desires to be in a prayer room, to be leading worship, to be leading and teaching, and there's all these desires in my heart and dreams in my heart, and then I had this little infant baby that couldn't live if I didn't give him all of my attention, and I adored him, but the tension was how do I how do I do both, and it was there you know Gabriel our firstborn he was such a gift from the Lord because I don't think that I would have ever been able to meet God in the in-between and in the mundane had he not come, and it was the mercy really it was the mercy of God to bring me into motherhood so that I had to find him in the hidden place, and so I had to quickly discover how to meet God outside of a conference, outside of a worship session, outside of a prayer room, outside of church you know, I had to find him in the times when I was feeding my baby, the times I was doing laundry, laundry actually has been a great place of encounter with the Lord, you know, late at night early in the morning in the middle of the night when I'm waking up with a baby, now waking up with four different children, I had to discover how to have my activate my calling in my home and with my kids and with my husband, and so that that looked practically like me really having to dive in deep and how to become a friend to the Holy Spirit, and I would say more than anything else I had to discover who he was as a person because I was like okay Holy Spirit you have swallowed up loneliness I can't make it to the rooms all the time I can't make it to all the conferences I can't make it to every teaching but you're with me and I know you swallowed up all the loneliness you came to do that so I just started talking to him all the time and when I couldn't sit down and spend two hours in the Word I was you know just grabbing my Bible five minutes or even two minutes or just even 30 seconds before the baby's screaming and I was diving into those scriptures and then the rest of the day I'm either singing them or I'm talking to the Holy Spirit about them or I'm forgetting about them and then he's reminding me of them and while I'm brushing my teeth whatever and I had to activate the calling outside of the space that I thought in my head for so long was the only space it could be and I realized I could bring his presence into my home I could bring his presence into wherever I was at in the moments with my kids on in my car at work you know wherever and that's where the tension started just everything a piece came through me diving into to really have relationship with the Holy Spirit yeah yeah let me just ask kind of a you hit a little bit but let me even zoom in a little bit more on the practical so you you know hearing God's voice in the midst of the mundane but but maybe also amidst like the chaos like you wake up you know to a screaming child and maybe into children that there's just kind of non-stop noise and so you you you mentioned like stealing away for five minutes but yeah you said you're talking to him all the time I mean is that are you just looking for windows where you can get away or is there conversation happening even while the noise is happening what does that look like for you um both I would say in the middle of the noise sometimes I'm talking out loud and my kids are like what are you saying mom I'm like I'm talking to the Holy Spirit you can either join in or you can ignore me um and other times it's just the inner prayer my inner prayer life that is in my head and I'm just inside I'm just saying God Holy Spirit give me strength right now give me might right now I feel weak this morning I don't feel like I I feel overwhelmed whatever and I'm just asking I'm praying scripture honestly in my head over and over and over again um you know like Ephesians 3 I'm praying give me might in my spirit give me might in my spirit give me strength empower me let me know the length of width the depth and the height of your love and I'm I'm literally throughout the day I'm I'm I'm asking the Holy Spirit for help and I think that that's become one of my greatest strengths honestly is that I know how weak I am and that I cannot get through the day without him and um it's just it's become it's become the only way to get through every day and I also find myself um more than ever now looking for ways to say thank you and when I wake up in the morning like this morning I looked out the window and I was like I don't think I've said thank you for that tree and so I mean I'm just finding how can I just conquer this day with thankfulness and when I find myself just starting even if I don't feel it you know the feeling I think so many times we're led by our feelings but I'll wake up first in the morning I may feel like crap and not not good at all and especially in the days right now that we're living in that just there's just a ton of noise everywhere and you can wake up feeling that especially if you go to bed and you're feeling yourself with that and so I wake up and I try to just conquer them learning with thankfulness and it is crazy how the Holy Spirit will just start welling up inside of me and thankfulness then begins to overflow and then what I see with my eyes it begins I start to see everywhere that God's moving in my life and I see his hand prints on everything and it changes the direction of my day. Yeah let me let me ask what's what is the enemy of that like if if the goal is just this constant communion you know abiding in him being grafted into the vine and what is the enemy of that like what pulls you out of that place whining um focusing on the negative and that's hard to do hard not to do especially if you have a sick baby especially if you've lost your job you know what the list goes on and on the big things but I would say that the thing that steals it more than ever is the complaining and the and and focusing on those things um and when I find myself you know Cori and I we are we sharpen each other in that and we can call each other out you know in the beginning of our marriage when we did that it didn't go over so well but at all but we're really good at like you know telling the other spouse to be thankful not so good at uh remembering to be thankful to receiving it exactly but now we can lead it one of us will just start let's let's be thankful one of the things we've started doing with our kids is when we're having a moment and everyone's just losing losing it uh one of the things we'll do is we'll stand up we're like okay everybody get on the chair if we're in the house or in the car we're like okay we're gonna do we're gonna do five minutes of thankfulness and we'll get the kids up you know one of their favorite things everybody stand on the chair and at first they're like I don't want to do it and they're whining and they hate it and we'll get everybody on it and then we just started screaming out everybody's like thank you god we just start yelling it and then we'll go through and you know and then they're laughing because it's ridiculous and they you know it's just funny and then we start saying what are the things we're thankful for and they each naming their things and it will boom it will shift everything so I forget what you asked me and that's right yeah it was what's the enemy and you just you know hitting that that negativity and just staying in that place it's it's crazy how much that does pull us out of just that communion with the lord and thankfulness really is the door that we walk through into the court of praise and into the place of faith and gratitude and hope and yes I do I love that you know that promise of sama 100 it's it's that the gate is always there like thankfulness is always a bit like I like I don't have great faith all the time I don't walk around being like let's pray for the dead to raise right now because I have great faith but I always have access to to thankfulness and I love that that you know learning the discipline when everything's going crazy and there's chaos I always can stop and practice gratitude and I just I love that example too you know the the kids and getting up and having a goofiness playfulness uh let me kind of ask you on that like when you're talking about discipling your kids in that family environment you know I know we all want to be careful of just not becoming that you know uber religious family where like our kids just kind of hate god and and hate church and all of it is kind of sterile to them and like all right you know we don't want to force it on them but you know that's not an excuse to not disciple our kids and so what what what role does playfulness have in discipling our kids so much um I grew up in a wonderful family but it was very very religious and so I feel like it's taken years to peel back the spirit of religion over my life where I can I see god that he's smiling and I see my I see my father that's happy and delighted in me and so I remind my kids of that a lot like I feel like in my language with them and my prayers over them that's one of the things that I bring into the language and of my prayers and the way that we talk about god I'm so careful to remind them that he's happy and that he's smiling at them the second thing that we would do is I mean we do a lot of dancing in our house and a lot of dance parties um and goofiness if I feel myself getting because I can get really serious quick actually both Cory and I can we're both really passionate but really intense sometimes we get too intense and we need to loosen it up and um Cory does tickle fights I know it seems so simple but it really does it brings in a playfulness and they're always going to remember daddy as the one that chased him around the house and played hide and seek and tickled you know tickle them um I like to do art with the kids like my hands right now are covered in spray paint because Rachel and I just did uh we just did a time of art with the kids and we invited the Holy Spirit to come in and they get to play while the Holy Spirit's there we remind them that the Holy Spirit's there and then he's speaking to them by the same time they're going to use their hands and play and go outside and find elements to bring into art and so we do a lot of art when the when the kids are younger that's a little harder and it can become chaotic and stressful and actually not be helpful in the end but as they get older that's a really fun way to do it and then the other thing that um I love to read to them um as many books I mean as many books as I can get a hold of that will will spark creativity and imagination and then we talk about it and and those conversations from these these books that whether they're they're written by god you know people that love god or not they can be inspired into learning more and about him through our conversations afterwards so those are a few things that we do yeah that's awesome I can't tell you how many times he's got too serious and Cory just started tickling me oh gosh gross I'm totally kidding just just to be clear those haven't happened so Rachel over there googling in the corner my wife I can feel her rolling her eyes over there uh as I told her a joke so recently I did a funeral and my fifth line in was a joke and uh it didn't land super well but I have to be me and just throw a minute you gotta tell everybody the joke now no I'm good but I will say the family loved it they told me after they're like everyone needed that joke so uh I you kind of hit a little bit of of you know bringing the kids in on the art side yeah but uh and you talked a lot about being in this constant conversation with the lord but you know for yourself and your own creative flow yeah of painting of writing of singing like um what does how does it uh how do I want to ask this like how do you stay in the rhythm of constantly creating when you have these other things that are really important and really time consuming but you feel that if I'm not creating then some some part of me is dying and so how are you able to you know carve out time or what is it what does that look like to stay in a constant rhythm of creating that is a really great question and honestly I'm really bad at it I would say that Cory is really great at doing that and I am really bad at it but then he helps me but the thing that I'm learning I will just bring you into my current because even this week I'm going gosh I've got to do this better is I look at the week and if you if you let the week just take over you will never find time all all the emergencies will always take over your week and um and you'll never get to the things that you actually want to prioritize in your life so what for me I'm learning I'm not great at it but I'm learning to take a day to plan out my week and plan the intentional times with my kids plan the meals with my husband and plan the day nights plan the times to connect with friends but also plan the times where I can sit down and write or I can sit down and paint or um and need it when I need to get a babysitter for three hours so maybe I can just go to Starbucks and just have some time and get inspired again for some you know for me sometimes that's just grabbing a magazine and going through and just looking at art and pictures and and then other times it's going out and walking and I can do that with the kids and I love to do that is just take them out and get out in nature and that will bring new life into me whether it's cold or hot we can just get out into nature and that is life um but I would say you've got to plan it out um I know that seems so ironic to creativity because you feel like oh gosh doesn't it just need to happen and that could rub a few people wrong but for me currently in the place of life that I'm at and I would say most people um it is really important to prioritize your time and looking at your week and if you want to get things done um you won't if you are letting life just come and hit you and because you'll always end up being moved by whatever is happening around you you won't ever be able to just move on what's actually in your heart that you want to do yeah yeah that's good yeah I want to stay on the theme of uh art because you know you are an artist and I want to kind of ask a question that ties a bit into uh your heart and uh because I know for a lot of artists one of the most difficult part of being an artist is sharing you know a vulnerable part of you and if it's like something that you feel like God is saying and it's your heart and it's your calling it's like it's every part of you and I just I'm laughing I don't know if you remember you you uh Anna did this custom uh piece for Lee our pastor uh his birthday and he posted that on Instagram it was a beautiful piece it had deep meaning it was awesome and one of the first comments was like that's art it looks like you know it was like some despairing comment we all saw that just looks like so I mean it was so funny like Cory and Lee and me all of you were like let's find this person and just you know destroy them uh you know but as an artist like how do you deal with that like when you put your art out there you put your heart out there and it's what the Lord is saying and then people don't understand it people belittle it people make fun of it like yeah what do you do in that moment gosh there's been there's been several of those moments I remember the first time that I I did this um this show where I was downtown Kalamazoo and I displayed all of my artwork and I had prints for people to come and receive and or come in by and this artist came up and he looked at my artwork and he goes gosh it's good but I can tell you just started oh I was like I was like okay I won't run away I won't then I thought who are you you don't know where's your artwork I don't see you displaying your artwork I just stood in my ground and I was like yeah and I and I took it as a moment to go you know what yes I was filling all of this commotion inside but I just responded like yeah I haven't been doing it very long but I'm not going to let that stop me um so there's that but that one sticks in my head because I sometimes see that person and I'm like bless you bless you bless you bless you um but I would say that one of the things that I have uh so um learned to make a habit in my life is when I finish a painting or a song whatever it may be I ask the father what he thinks about it and I don't ask anybody else I don't look around me first to say like what what are you what do you guys think what are you what how is that because I've learned that will only lead to me finding the most negative thing that was said and then just crashing and burning so I I stop and I say father what did you think about this what did you think about that moment what did you think what do you think about this painting and when I hear what he has to say about it it does not matter what anybody else thinks and I can weather a lot when I know what he thinks and um that has kept me going honestly I know a lot of artists that have stopped because of so much negative there's just everybody has an opinion and they just stopped and instead they should have just kept going but they needed to hear the father's opinion he they needed to hear how he was rejoicing over what they created because he's a creator and uh that it's not too much or it's not too little or I think that that's the the two biggest lies in my head usually are you that was way too much you know you just you laid it out there too much you were too much in worship or that painting is too much or on the flip side is you didn't give enough you know that like the painting for pastor Lee was um I was like is it enough is it enough is it enough and I the father was like this is exactly what I want him to hear and to see right now this is enough you are enough and once I hear that I'm good to go I mean I'll have to you know it doesn't mean that I won't battle some of the negativity but I have that as an anchor you know as a foundation that I can just rest on yeah that was that was so powerful and I was just even feeling the Holy Spirit as you're talking we're not we're not done with the interview yet but I just I felt like you're supposed to just pray I just kind of got this picture as you were sharing of artists that have had people come and say things and that has shut them down and they know that they are trapped right now and they're not releasing the art that's in them because of that that that wounding and the fear of man so would you just would you just pray for those people right now father I just ask right now that your presence would be so thick in every single room every single bedroom or church room or wherever people are watching and right now I just ask that the shame from people's words would be broken off those words were never meant to do what they have done and I just right now I just I rebuke every lie of the enemy over you in Jesus name I release the light of Jesus into every room into every ear into every eye and I release you to create again you were made to create and what you've created is beautiful and what you have to create is beautiful and I just right now I see a massive massive room in heaven with masterpieces in it and God is just waiting to give you these ideas he's just waiting to release through your hands these these beautiful masterpieces that will even bring people to believing in Jesus forever and so right now I just I do I rebuke every single lie every single negative comment that has come against you every single word curse against you we break it off right now in the name of Jesus and I release you to be everything you were made to be from your mother's womb you were called to be something great and and it is okay to be something great some of you have have backed down because you you felt judged by others because they were jealous of your gift and and the most humble thing you could do right now is to admit that you're great and to admit that the gift you have is great and the most humble and beautiful thing to do now would be to activate that and to use it you don't have to apologize for your greatness anymore he's called you from your mother's womb to be great and Jesus amen amen that's awesome that's another question that kind of leads me into last question because I know that this really aligns with just your heart for journaling and I know so much of your passion for journaling is not because you're like oh journaling is it like that's the thing it's it's really a tool for pouring our heart out to the Lord and having him speak over us and so you know you have taught this journaling as a spiritual discipline for years like what does journaling look like for you and what does it mean to to pour out your heart and have the Lord speak over you like how does that look practically and and how does that you know look in your life yeah well I'm done journaling for a really long time probably since I was 14 I um I acquired this gift or this tool I should say um when I went to um what was called a creative worship camp and some of you know the Hellzers they sing the song um I'm no longer a slave and but their dad Jonathan Hellzers dad was the one who taught me how to journal and he had done it for years and he had been an alcoholic and in a in a rock band and done drugs and all this stuff but the thing that pulled him out was when he began journaling the voice of God back to him and that was what created a discipline in his life to remain in in a place of purity and holiness and righteousness and just communion with God so I learned it back when I was 14 and honestly it's been this tool that I've I've used all these years so I wanted to um both share on that but I wanted to teach it to just just a just a really simple way there's there's lots of ways to journal um you know some people do it as the diary type and some people you know just write out their deepest thoughts all of all of that is good but this this way that I have learned to do it has become this compass of turning my heart back to the Lord over and over and over again um so if it's okay I was gonna show some of my journaling and um and then show you I'm gonna use a sharpie because I don't know if that's how else to do it without it being bright enough but what I'll do okay so what I'll do I'm gonna hold it up this is one of my journal entries from this year actually and so for those of you who are really nosy you'll stop and you'll pause and then you'll zoom on my journal and I'm sticking right here okay but I always start I everyone can put their own thing I would start with my date and on some of my other ones I I'll if you're really artistic and you like to do things I usually will will do a picture I didn't on this one um but of where I'm at like what am I doing um am I in a house or am I somewhere else sometimes if I'm at the beach I'll do waves just whatever and I'll put that at the top so when I go back to look and read my journals there's like this feeling and this remembrance of where I was at I didn't on this particular one but whatever you get it then I I don't know if you can see but I put a little coffee cup with steam rising and it's just like my cozy like I'm gonna share my heart to God now some people may want to do something else but that's how I always recognize throughout my journal oh this is my voice and so on this particular day I said Abba how do you feel about me today and that was just I just woke up and that's what I wanted to ask the father and a lot of times I call him Abba and then right here you can see I put a cross and on the cross the cross to me always represents his voice and then I will just take time and I will write out everything that I'm feeling him say um and then again I then I'll have my response and in my response so I'll read a little bit just so you can get a um feel for what the father sounds like to me um he'll sound different to everyone I'm sure Caleb's journals sound very different than mine but I'm gonna say this if it's negative if you hear the father speaking to you negative then you probably just need to take a second and and that's not the father's voice the father's voice always comes in this tender and kind way sometimes he he does yell at me but it's always still kind um so you are my deepest intricate possession I formed everything about you you've gone through a lot in the last year and that I and I knew that you would need lots of help as I healed you I need I knew you would need Corey at home and your mom near and your sister near don't be afraid of me I care for you don't try and produce or work to transition or to put your heart through needed procedures I care deeply for you you need to receive all of my healing do not compare commit your family and your ways to the Lord and he will establish them all I will build your family remember that and so then I I said back to the Lord let your whisper be like a roar in my ear and then I then the Lord spoke again to me I'm going to establish your ways your need for me is your greatest gift please do not be afraid of me my kindness will make you great you are my queen and you are royalty the pearl of great price I'm directing I'm directing your lives and your steps and see how it comes out of rest help me oh this is so god I didn't remember this part here I am help me with the painting for pastor Lee I'm nervous I want it to be so perfect direct me and give me grace and strength to be guided by you that was the Lord I didn't know that was in there so that's how I map it out and I I want us to do it I want us to take a second but I want to first I'm going to just do it in this some of you got this book it's a or this journal it's a little bit small but I just want to I just want to show you with it because my writing is a little bit hard to so usually so oops so I'll put the date what's the date of today it's something nine let's just say 930 20 okay and you can see I put that and then I'll say where I'm at I didn't on that journal entry but right now we're in a loft so I'll put the loft and then I'll write you guys whatever you like this is my little coffee cup whatever makes you happy and then this is your voice okay so whatever is your deepest most honest prayer before the Lord maybe it's a question like I had said I just needed to really reminded how he felt about me I just wanted to hear him say I like you again and that you're my favorite and I just needed to hear him say he was proud so I just wrote Abba how do you feel about me today and that's where I started so you write it might be a ton or it might just be a little bit and that's all you have or sometimes when I'm going through a lot it just might be me saying help honestly and then I write the cross so I can always go back in my journal and sometimes you guys I'll go back and I'll just read I'll find the little crosses and I'll just read what he said over and over and it will bring me back to this place of being grounded and remembering oh my gosh he loves me he likes me no matter what the storm I'm going through this is he's still speaking to me he's still you know he's alive he's present so his voice okay so we do that and you can do that over and over as many times now there's one little thing I sometimes do I do this little cloud and that's when I have a random thought and it could be a good thought or it could be random like order pizza for the kids but that's just a way for me to keep I get it out I get it done and then I go back into whatever I'm doing because that sometimes can happen it could be a good one though and sometimes if it's a good one I'll circle it or you know whatever and it could be a good thought like like I liked what I said in this one spot here um see how it all comes out of rest and remembering for you know this was something that he said to me and I could make that a thought that I go back and I could highlight it like everything good comes out of rest everything from him comes out of a place of rest it can't come out of a place of being going you know nuts so okay so that that is kind of sloppy but it gives you it gives you an idea so I'd like you guys to grab a journal and um go ahead and I want you to write thank you I want you to write your deepest just your deepest prayer before the lord and Caleb and and Rachel are gonna uh just kind of put us in a devotional type setting where you can receive um yeah so don't be afraid to hear his voice it's a little scary at first for those of you who this is the first time and for those of you who this isn't the first time that you've been doing this a lot I just and you think oh I've done this before I've heard his voice a million times that's awesome and but I want you to come to it today like it's the very first time you've ever heard from him yeah so I'm gonna give you just a little bit and Rachel is gonna just sing some songs prophetically over you or the father's voice whatever she's feeling and just take time to receive and just sit in his presence and um after they sing a bit then then we'll come back and we'll bring it to a close this questions of your heart things asking god how he feels about you things that no one knows maybe that you walked through or I just feel like he's gonna come and he's gonna speak to you and you're gonna begin to see him in those places of your life that you never could see him before and it's gonna be like you know all of a sudden in the morning when you hear the birds singing for the first time and place from you hearing your father's voice so don't hold back don't hold back this is gonna be a moment where it's like peeling back layers and layers and I just see more and more joy and more and more laughter and more and more peace and rest is happening as you take time to write down these conversations that you're having with God comfortable if it's a safe place to share some of the things that the Lord spoke to you and to even make this a time of ministry within your group and pray over each other bless each other and the things that the God that God has been speaking take those moments and speak them over each other pray over one another even if there's healing I just it's endless the opportunities the Holy Spirit's just like hanging on the edge going will you give me a chance to show up I want to show up in your in in your room in your homes or if you're at home alone call a friend and tell them what the Father has spoken to you speak it out even if you have no one around you speak it out what God has spoken over you what he's speaking to you and declare it over your life don't don't hide it the more that you get it out the more you believe it that if you want to if you sing if you dance dance to those thoughts create a a painting out of what the Father has spoken over you we love you guys so much and we are we are so happy that you have spent this time with us bless you