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Welcome to Vlog 3 of my mental health journey…

In this third vlog on my mental health journey, I will be sharing with you how the Lord stretched my faith in regards to if He still heals today.. and spoiler alert.. He does! This challenge for my faith to grow deeper in Him was the launch of myself being catapulted into a season meant to disrupt my faulty foundation in order for the Lord to rebuild it in Him alone. Enjoy!

Joseph, betrayed by his family and wrongly imprisoned, walked in forgiveness and purity and remained faithful through it all!

In this video, I will be sharing with you my favorite takeaways from studying the life of Joseph in Genesis. I wrote this Bible study a few years back and the impact it has made on me personally has been very powerful.

This study was birthed out of a season of great healing for myself and it is my prayer that as I share with you these favorite takeaways of mine, that you would receive the hope you are searching for.

Worship and praise, the studying of God’s Word, prayer and having a heart of gratitude are valuable weapons in spiritual warfare.

The Word of God is our sword for a reason. If used properly you can cut at every lie and deception thrown your way. But the Word needs to be consumed often for it to be an effective tool.

Worship and praise of the Lord aligns our spirit with His, granting us vision to see into His heart and deepening our faith.

Prayer vocalizes to the Lord our petitions and requests, and reminds us of the importance of inviting His help and power into our lives and those we pray for.

And a heart of gratitude positions us in a humble posture as we welcome our need for God and exalt Him high.

When spiritual enemies come up against us, they work hard to plant a lie in our mind, to distract us from the goodness of God, to tempt us to a position of discontentment or entitlement. And all these persuasions have the potential to lead us to walk away from a full understanding of our true identity in Christ.

But if we remain consistent in our worship and praise, in the reading of His Word, in prayer and in keeping a thankful heart, we become like a house built on a solid foundation and the storms of attack cannot sweep us away.

The time we give to focus in on the Lord in these simple, yet powerful practices becomes our protection and armor. It reminds us of who we are, of who we live for and serve, and helps us keep His perspective on our lives.

We cannot afford to not take time to do these activities. It is a must for the follower of Christ. And, yet we do these not out of duty, but out of an understanding that we need the protection provided us when we make an effort to develop our relationship and intimacy with God.

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.” 

Ephesians 6:13-18a

In this second vlog on my mental health journey, I will be sharing with you how God healed me of a benign brain tumor and the impact it had on me and my walk with the Lord. Be blessed friends with this testimony!

As a follower of Christ and one who has struggled immensely with my mental health over the years, I felt compelled to document this journey via video logs. A lot of my healing has taken place already, and no doubt there is more healing to come, so I will be sharing with you parts I have already been through, how I am doing today, and the expected moments of more healing to come.

In this “uncut” video, I am breaking down a prophetic word I shared on social media with you this week. The Lord led me to further discuss His promise of instilling confidence in His children in this season to serve Him and be a light in this world.

Prophetic Word Here:  https://thebarbes.com/god-is-instilling-confidence-prophetic/

God is instilling in you confidence. This confidence is an assurance of the call He has given you on your life.

You might have doubted that call or thought you misheard what He was saying, but be assured beloved, you heard Him correct that first time.

As you allow the Lord to shape and mold and cut off the sharp edges on your life, that confidence will have more room to grow and solidify.

And as the Lord formed in Ezekiel a strength he needed to stand up against an entire nation in sin, so will He place a similar strength within you.

“But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious people.”
Ezekiel 3:8-9

Without arrogance or pride, you will move forward in a humble confidence of what the Lord put in you, of what He has equipped you with, and of how He will work through you as you step forward in service to Him.

Real confidence lacks in arrogance and pride, because the two latter are rooted in insecurity and a fear of lack.

This confidence that comes from our Maker cannot be duplicated by man, it is a supernatural confidence from His Spirit alone.

The Lord is asking you to step with faith into this confidence that He has for you and is allowing you a clarity of mind to know this comes from Him and it is not of your own making.

We need such a confidence as we are and will continue to be faced relentlessly by opposition from the enemy.

The season we are in no longer affords us to be intimidated by the attacks of the enemy, or affords us to doubt the very marching orders we heard from the Lord.

We can no longer shrink back in faith, doubting our abilities in the Lord and our callings, every time we face challenges and attacks.

No, we must clothe ourselves in this promised confidence of the Lord and choose to be unmoving in our individual tasks directed by our God.

As a follower of Christ and one who has struggled immensely with my mental health over the years, I felt compelled to document this journey via video logs. A lot of my healing has taken place already, and no doubt there is more healing to come, so I will be sharing with you parts I have already been through, how I am doing today, and the expected moments of more healing to come.

Whether you are a Christian or not, it is my hope that as I open a window into this part of my life, that you would be encouraged to remain hopeful where hopelessness taunts and find comfort and healing in God as I am.

Join me as I share with you a recent vision I received from the Holy Spirit concerning the division found in the body of Christ.

It is my prayer that the Lord will bless us with more wisdom and discernment in order to see clearly any deception we have been receiving into our lives. May the Lord help us to combat this deception with His truth. Some of this deception is the root cause for the terrible division we see in our nation and in the body of Christ in this season.

I will protect you.

No matter what happens, it is I who will surround you on all sides, it is I who goes before you and behind you.

I have called you to be resilient, yet I see your hesitation because of the hurt you have experienced multiple times in your past.

But be rest assured that as you move forward in obedience again, coming out of a season of turmoil and exhaustion, and choosing to allow me to make you stronger and more resilient as a result, I will protect you.

Lean into me as your Protector; fierce in defending you and strong in guarding you.

I am the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, roaring mightily beside you.

Take courage and don’t mind the opposition with their empty threats.

Move forward with confidence from knowing I am here with you.

I will protect you.

As many of you know I removed myself off of specific social media platforms roughly three months ago in response to those platforms censoring conservative and political voices. 

It is still extremely unfair and controlling of these platforms to do such a thing. And not to mention very frightening and very similar to the control of other nations that claim communism works well for them.

I stepped off those platforms confident that I would not be returning to them and confident that the Lord was leading me to do so. I was moving in obedience, standing on a conviction that these platforms were and still are in the wrong. And I felt a huge relief once I did.

And I did not look back.

I was content with a small ministry as a result of this decision, knowing that pulling off of these larger platforms would diminish my reach tremendously. And I was willing to do whatever the Lord wanted me to do rather than seek out any ambitious goal or dream that was not of Him. 

I have had three months of peace to be honest. And three months to focus on important things in my life like caring for my grandmother, my family and my own health, rather than being caught up in how people are responding to the tumultuous and confusing events in our nation. 

And the Lord used those months to speak into me things I had not heard before. He led me off for good reason and I am thankful for the time He hid me. He allowed the vision of my ministry to continue to take shape, for my relationship with Him to deepen even more, and for the discerning of His voice to strengthen in me.

However, during our time away at the beach a couple of weekends back, the Lord started to speak to me to return to some of those platforms despite them being guilty of censoring and restraining conservative and religious voices.

He is now calling me out of this season of hiding, and once again, leading me to put my ministry on platforms that, though are not perfect and evil lurks in their leadership, still need His light to shine on them.

As I was grappling with my decision to return, the Lord helped me to remember that He sends us out to be a light in the darkness. 

So even though I am not pleased with the silencing of voices, and I am very aware that my voice will be just a drop within a sea of chaos, there will still be an impact to be made and a heart to be encouraged that will make it all worth it.

Jesus came into our evil world, was not deterred by the perverse generation before Him, but chose to give His life for it in order to be THE LIGHT that overcame the darkness. 

So in a nutshell, what I thought was a permanent move, was in fact, only for a season. It was right for me to step away, to point out the obvious wrongs of censorship, and to re-align myself more with the Lord. And it is right for me to respond to Him in the affirmative telling me to return back.