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I have spoken often about how our sin and the sin of others against us creates the perfect conditions for our wounded souls to grow the lie seeds planted by the enemy. Recently I have received a new depth of understanding about this I’d like to share. In John 8:44, Jesus says of Satan, “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” He is the father of lies…He fathers every lie…. Not unlike modern day dead-beat dads, he plants the seed and leaves; for his work is done. He waits for sin to create perfect soil conditions and then comes in and plants his lie seed. He knows that in this fallen world there will be multiple occasions for people to come along at the most inopportune moments and water those lies. Every watering adds a new depth to the pain of the lie and each a new “issue” to deal with. The truth is, we don’t have to relive every tortuous memory to find freedom. When Holy Spirit reveals to us the moment when the sin that created that perfect soil condition happened, forgiving those involved in it’s creation fully uproots and ejects the whole plant/tree (size depending on how long it has been allowed to grow and how many times it has been watered) from the garden of your soul, taking ALL those wounded memories with it.
The father of lies is going to continue roaming the earth looking for fertile soil to plant his seeds. But radical love stunts the plants’ growth. Remember Jesus’ amazing examples of love for the broken people with full gardens of terrible plants? His words and actions could never be used to water lie seeds. Instead, His love showed them the Way to the Gardener who could ultimately set them free. When we walk like He did; with tremendous outpourings of love to everyone we encounter, absolutely the hands and feet of Christ, we will never be the enemy’s watering can again! I want to love like that!

Birthing a new business with God is very exciting! We have seen His hand at work in so many ways; dropping people we need into our lives at the perfect moment to help with a part of this launch we don’t have any idea how to do, having ads pop up on our phones for something we actually need for this too! He has been so good and inspiring and encouraging. He has been whispering prophesies for years and lately has been bringing them back to the forefront and saying to get ready for their release!
…But we’ve drawn some unwanted attention too. The enemy made a sneak attack that took me a while to perceive; in my excitement and hunger to eat up everything other mentoring women are releasing right now I stopped focusing on the most amazing thing, Jesus and what He’s doing right here, right now. I began to look in to the future more and more and fail to live in today; finding discontentment in the daily grind of life with 8 other special people and looking with expectation to how much better it will be when we’re off and running around the world spreading freedom and healing and relationship with God everywhere we go. It makes dirty floors and laundry mountains, farm chores and spills seem unimportant and a waste of my precious time; but it is not!
God is in the journey, not just our destinations. There is so much joy to be found, so many extremely valuable lessons to be learned, so much of my own healing and freedom to receive along the way that I would miss if I jumped over this growing time. And those 8 other people living in this house make it such a special home filled laughter and learning, tears and comfort, and especially Jesus. We are not a family thrown together by chance. God gave me this family to love and cherish.
New phases are coming for all of us. Change is inevitable. But each step of the journey is not just to be mastered, but to find joy in, for the Lord is in each new place. With my eyes on Jesus, I find joy and am honored to serve this amazing family for the precious little time we have to live under this one roof. While I’m serving here, He’s cleaning out my soul garden and correcting the pH of my soil. And here and now… I am a planting of the Lord by His streams of righteousness (Is.61:4) My tree may be little right now beside all these giant women of the faith, but my tree is beautiful and growing mightily as I continue to live in the joy of today.
“You will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever.” Psalm 16:11

Jesus’ radical example of love is a tough act to follow. Living in a fallen world with broken people (and don’t forget about that plank in your own eye) challenges His mandate for us to love. Our selfish society tells us to cut out people who are difficult to love and live contrary to our moral values, but Jesus himself did no such thing! He sought out the morally questionable people and invited them WITH love; HIS LOVE INSPIRED CHANGE, He didn’t demand for them to change in order to be loved.

Did you know that addiction’s roots can be found in feeling unloved, leading to fear of being alone opened up and addiction providing false protection? Addiction has many faces: drugs, alcohol, pornography, work, food, gaming, exercise… they’re all used to escape the intense lie that they are unlovable. Then in response, we push these hurting people away and tell them to change before they can come back. Our response is to be counter-cultural and even counter-intuitive; sometimes they can give up the addiction we hate and replace it with one we can tolerate (like the smoker who puts on 30 pounds while quitting smoking). Sadly that just tells us that they still haven’t had a radical revelation of love, they just desperately want to lessen the rejection.
So what is Jesus asking us to do? LOVE. When their actions hurt, LOVE. When they test your limits, LOVE. Don’t play in to the enemy’s hands and be an agent of rejection; Be Jesus agent of unconditional love. (to be clear, this does not mean endangering yourself and other.) Yes, praying for them to have a revelation of love is really important. Helping them find help for their addiction is important. But did you know that Jesus asks for His chosen to be His hands and feet and even His heart to show His love through? Spend lots of time in His presence filling up your heart with His love so that everyday you can pour it out to those He has entrusted to you to show His love to. It is challenging, I won’t deny that. But it gets easier with time as we practice responding in love instead of out of our own selfish entitlement. (yes, Christians can be selfish and entitled.)

I would like to support you through your own love revolution. Comment below if you feel comfortable sharing your journey and we will pray with and for you. Or if you don’t want it to be public, pm and we’ll support you privately as well. Please “like” and “share” this post, I know there are many people out there loosing the people they love to addiction. Let’s come together to encourage one another to love and good works to those who need it most.

Do you see how these pictures of trees look so different but they are exactly the same? Some of us have such lovely, orderly sin in our lives; so well contained. Some of us have sin in our lives that we can’t pretend away or deny how their ugliness invades the entirety of our lives. The sin is still there no matter how hard you try to clean it up….honestly, if we could manage away our sin, we wouldn’t need Jesus. His beautiful gifts of grace and love are the perfect tools to purify the garden of your heart, remove the very roots of sin in your life and make you Simply Whole.

What’s the PH level of your garden? Is your soil clean; a safe environment for pure seeds to grow? Inside each of us is a garden; It is the garden of our soul. We don’t realize that there are things planted in our soul that effect how we understand the world around us.
We can plant some awful things in our gardens sometimes. We may not understand that our choices effect the condition of the soil of the soul, and we may not even realize we are sowing anything. We are planting none the less. Sometimes others sow in our gardens through their terrible actions and their seeds grow and thrive in the wounded soil. Our wounds and sin and the sins of others against us create fertile soil for the things of this world to flourish in our soul; fear, anxiety, anger, depression, deception, hatred and worse….
There is such great hope for us. Jesus tells us in Matthew 15:13, “Every plant that my Father did not plant will be pulled up by the roots.” He promises to get it all, leaving nothing behind to grow again later. I love Soul Gardening; there is something truly wonderful in partnering with Father to uproot everything that doesn’t belong in the garden. It is an important step to being made Simply Whole.