Some Things Have to die in order for the New Things to Live

Sisters in Services is embarking on a new precipice of Grace and Faith. At this time, the above quote was given to me one morning in the early hours. I had become so comfortable in my life lived in Louisiana with counseling, occasional mission trips, our homeless projects as well as serving our sisters in Christ coming out of incarceration. God wanted to bring everything to a higher level. Last year, I took over a 450-acre ranch on the south Texas border which had previously been owned by me and my ex-husband. In 2021, just as the Lord parted the Red Sea for the Israelites, He parted it for me and my children and enabled us to leave an extremely abusive (in every aspect) living environment caused by my ex-husband. We started over again in Louisiana where my family originates with the intention to never return to my ex nor the ranch which held so many very bad memories. My children and I went through years of healing, Glory be to Jesus, but I had no idea what God would do with the many broken pieces of pain that I had become during the 13 years of marriage with this man. He took those pieces of me, healed me, and set me free mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. It was so profound and overflowing, I knew this healing must go to others. When God heals you, it does not just go into one area of your life. He heals and restores, and this is what He did for me. In fact, I was restored to a greater capacity than I ever had functioned in my life as well as with my relationship with Him. Where the enemy meant to destroy, God turned it for the good. Last year, my ex was incarcerated, and I was asked to come back to the ranch to help disperse things for selling as he incurred a tremendous debt. Reluctantly, I went but only for the notion of seeing and making sure the horses that I had raised and loved so very much would go to good people. He had put the ranch up for bankruptcy and then defaulted. So, I went, and although I did not have the capacity to walk into our old house, God gave me a vision of women and children in this large home that was in the process of being built on the property. This is something that could only come from God because I only wanted to find places for my horses and leave again, never to return. I had learned during this time that there was no place for battered women within a 45 mile radius and not to mention the lack of resources in this area for victims of traffiking. The Lord kept bringing it to me, and so began my obedience and process of getting the ranch out of bankruptcy. God was able to bring this chaos-filled shipwreck (which is what the bankruptcy judge called it) to surface upon the waters, and it was restructured and started to show signs of redemption. Which brings us to the current last three months. Everything started to fall apart. In the back of the ranch is a large facility that I had started to manage, and through it, the ranch was paid for. This facility literally started to shut down in every way, including the electrical grid. At first, I thought my ex's ways had cursed it, and so I ventured into the oil wells on the property possibly functioning to help pay for everything; yet, to this day, I have not found a person with integrity to help with this project. I would watch the unfinished house, remembering what God had put in my heart for the women and the children for this area who had suffered in the same way as I had. I had also felt so deeply a need to help victims of trafficking in this home as well. My eyes would look at what was happening in the physical, and yet, God was saying different. He spoke to me, "Some things have to die, in order for new things to live." I knew that everything that had been touched by wickedness had to die so that the Lord could bring forth the new beginnings that originated in His heart and that He had placed in mine. This rings true, though, for everything. Every pain, every tormented thing of our past must die, we cannot hold on to it at all because when we let go of it all and let it die, it is in that very place that new beginnings start. Our environments, our self-reflection, and image that has been tainted must go, and even though it looks terrible, we speak the promises of God into it and believe that all things are possible for those who trust in Him. Even now, the house is not built, and the ranch is making no income whatsoever, yet I choose to believe in the word God spoke to me; after all, this place is His and all things therein. I speak the promises of life, that God will take care of this ranch, that where there was once abuse and tears, that He will bring restoration and through it, be a blessing and a safe place for those who have endured the same. That He can make gardens in the dry, desert lands.