A ring nev­er mat­tered to me before. My engage­ment ring was my first piece of jew­el­ry, ever. (I’m a low-main­te­nance, no-frills kind of girl. It’s the Pen­te­costal in me =p) And we stopped wear­ing our rings after the first year or so (aller­gic reac­tions to white gold). But now, every wed­ding ring I see, brings a pang to my heart. And when I put an out­fit togeth­er, I find myself think­ing a glim­mer on my left hand would com­plete it. I’m glad I real­ize I don’t need one to com­plete me. I am already com­plete in Christ. Yet I find myself mas­sag­ing an emp­ty ring fin­ger, as though it had only just now been deprived of its ring.

Add to that trig­ger list the sight of cou­ples in min­istry togeth­er. I already see it every Sun­day, as the wor­ship pas­tor leads with his wife by his side. And now there’s a famous cou­ple whose min­istry is help­ing me… and yet read­ing about them trig­gered me: Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes.

I’ve fol­lowed Kari ever since she record­ed “Rev­e­la­tion Song” while at CFNI. This live ver­sion of “For­ev­er” cap­ti­vat­ed Daugh­ter when she was 1.5yo. She was sit­ting on her brother’s bed for bed­time prayers when this song came on, and of her own voli­tion, she raised her hands and start­ed sway­ing. My heart melt­ed, my jaw dropped, and I was mes­mer­ized. We’d nev­er sung this song in church, so it’s not like she was mim­ic­k­ing some­thing we’d already done with her. And from then on, she would bab­ble her request to hear this, her pos­ture chang­ing as soon as I final­ly select­ed this song while I prayed them to sleep.

I recent­ly dis­cov­ered Cody’s song “Run to the Father,” and it piqued my inter­est in the rest of his music. So I lis­tened to his most recent album on YouTube, and of course, many songs fea­tured Kari. I looked up their sto­ry, and that’s when the hurt hit me. X and I were not Cody and Kari by any means, in either tal­ent or influ­ence. But as I’ve said before, that wor­ship call­ing was heavy on both of us, and inte­gral to our indi­vid­ual and mar­ried lives.

I’m sure I’ll get over this trig­ger. Pray it through, like every­thing else.

Btw if you’re inter­est­ed, their engage­ment web­site and Ama­zon reg­istry still up: 

http://codyandkari.com/    

https://www.amazon.com/wedding/a/registry/24LSRE3UP4BFJ?_encoding=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&%2Aentries%2A=0

In the mean­time, God is still using their music to speak to me, via my friends even! This was my exchange today with Darby.

You crush all my fears with Your per­fect love.

I had all
But giv­en up
Des­per­ate for
A sign from love
Some­thing good
Some­thing kind
Bring­ing peace to every cor­ner of my mind

Then I saw the gar­den
Hope had come to me
To sweep away the ash­es
And wake me from my sleep

I real­ized
You nev­er left
And for this moment
You planned ahead
That I would see
Your faith­ful­ness in all of the green

I can see the ivy
Grow­ing through the wall
’Cause You will stop at noth­ing
To heal my bro­ken soul

I can see the ivy
Reach­ing through the wall
’Cause You will stop at noth­ing
To heal my bro­ken soul

Ohh, You’re heal­ing bro­ken souls
You’re heal­ing, You’re heal­ing bro­ken souls

Faith is ris­ing up like ivy
Reach­ing for the light
Hope is stir­ring deep inside me
Mak­ing all things right

Love is lift­ing me from sor­row
Catch­ing every tear
Dis­pelling every lie and tor­ment
Crush­ing all my fears

You crush all my fears
You crush all my fears
With Your per­fect love
Oh-ohh, with Your per­fect love

Now I see redemp­tion
Grow­ing in the trees
The death and res­ur­rec­tion
In every sin­gle seed

Do I feel this way because I’ve let go? I’ve let go of the sliv­er. Maybe it was the thought of him tak­ing the kids to meet her. That God wouldn’t pre­vent such pain from com­ing on us. Com­ing on me.

Psalm 42

As the deer ^[b]pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the liv­ing God.
When shall I come and ^[c]appear before God?
³ My tears have been my food day and night,
While they con­tin­u­al­ly say to me,
“Where is your God?”

⁴ When I remem­ber these things,
I pour out my soul with­in me.
For I used to go with the multitude;
I went with them to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and praise,
With a mul­ti­tude that kept a pil­grim feast.

⁵ Why are you ^[d]cast down, O my soul?
And why are you dis­qui­et­ed with­in me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
^[e]For the help of His countenance.

^6 [f]O my God, my soul is cast down with­in me;
There­fore I will remem­ber You from the land of the Jordan,
And from the heights of Hermon,
From ^[g]the Hill Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls;
All Your waves and bil­lows have gone over me.
⁸ The Lord will com­mand His lov­ingkind­ness in the daytime,
And in the night His song shall be with me—
A prayer to the God of my life.

⁹ I will say to God my Rock,
“Why have You for­got­ten me?
Why do I go mourn­ing because of the oppres­sion of the enemy?”
¹⁰ As with a ^[h]break­ing of my bones,
My ene­mies ^[i]reproach me,
While they say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”

¹¹ Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you dis­qui­et­ed with­in me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The ^[j]help of my coun­te­nance and my God.

Psalm 43

Vin­di­cate me, O God,
And plead my cause against an ungod­ly nation;
Oh, deliv­er me from the deceit­ful and unjust man!
² For You are the God of my strength;
Why do You cast me off?
Why do I go mourn­ing because of the oppres­sion of the enemy?

³ Oh, send out Your light and Your truth!
Let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your ^[a]taber­na­cle.
⁴ Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceed­ing joy;
And on the harp I will praise You,
O God, my God.

⁵ Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you dis­qui­et­ed with­in me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The ^[b]help of my coun­te­nance and my God.

---

Oh, Hosea, how did you do it? How did you live each moment know­ing Gomer was with anoth­er man, heed­less­ly liv­ing her waste­ful, depraved life? What did you do in those inter­minable moments? Did you have a sliv­er? Did you let it go? Did you busy your­self with work? Hope that maybe God would have some­one else for you? Or did you just think, this is God’s plan for my life, and I will ful­ly embrace it, for I know His heart, and He is good.

Lord, I need You to be the Defend­er of my heart. 

Psalm 48:3 (ESV) — God him­self is in Jerusalem’s tow­ers, reveal­ing him­self as its defender.

Psalm 68:5 (ESV) — Father to the father­less, defend­er of wid­ows— this is God, whose dwelling is holy.

Proverbs 22:23 (ESV) — For the Lord is their defend­er. He will ruin any­one who ruins them.

Isa­iah 19:20 (ESV) — It will be a sign and a wit­ness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the Lord because of oppres­sors, he will send them a sav­ior and defend­er, and deliv­er them.

Isa­iah 51:22 (ESV) — This is what the Sov­er­eign Lord, your God and Defend­er, says: “See, I have tak­en the ter­ri­ble cup from your hands. You will drink no more of my fury.

Hope I Found Online

Sid Roth 2019 Prophet­ic Out­look – Cindy Jacobs (34:05 on)

God is going to tip the bowls of heav­en. All the prayers you’ve prayed for your loved ones, the pow­er of God is going to vis­it. Extreme sud­den­lies, extreme vis­i­ta­tions — the kind that just arrest you in your path. All of a sud­den, you’ve prayed for years for your child. Bam! They turn… 

The Lord kept say­ing, “I’m get­ting ready to man­i­fest My pow­er in the glo­ry.” 2019 means birthing. God is birthing such a new thing. God is get­ting ready to do such new things for you. If you are watch­ing, and you are feel­ing hope­less, shake it off! God is get­ting ready to do things for you that you can­not imag­ine. God is going something!

This is a time of joy­ful increase. Don’t let satan steal your joy. You make a deci­sion… No way that is going to hap­pen. God is going to mul­ti­ply you. This is the time of great mul­ti­pli­ca­tion. The great­est mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and increase, a joy­ful increase. You want to see the increase? Be joy­ful. We can­not line up with the accuser. We have to say what God says. 

I decree you’re going to have the fruit of the Spir­it of joy. God is going to mul­ti­ply through you this year.