Freedom Week!!! (and photos of our Santa Cruz weekend)

My Family!

Santa Cruz

Z and I enjoy the water

Sharing a cone on the pier

Z and Daddy building roads in the only shade we could find

Z getting cleaned up at the "little shower"

   So, we went to Santa Cruz for the weekend... all I can say is that the enemy really did not want us to go back to Chico for Freedom Week.  Z and I were both sick, we had brought friends along and were sharing a hotel room, and we spent both nights up with crying and coughing, and wishing we hadn`t driven all that way to be miserable.  But there were also great times, playing in the waves at the beach, shopping in the big city, and spending time as a family.  Going back to the base I was very upset, and I was close to breaking down... which I now realize was because I was about to be set free from a life of guilt and shame.  About to become alive. 

   

      This week we have been going through something called Freedom week.  We had time to confess things from our past, cut soul-ties, and find peace and forgiveness in Christ`s blood.  To accept God`s true love for us, and to believe that I am worthy to be called His child I have to renounce every lie of the devil I have believed.  The lies that I am unlovable, unworthy, and drowning in unbelief.   

 
     There was sin in my past which had made me hate myself for my whole life.  I have been on a path of self-distruction since my teens, and for the first time I was freed of that.  I accepted forgiveness from God.  Love from God.  My heart was returned to me from the places where I had given it away.  My soul ties to ex-boyfriends were cut, they no longer can haunt my marriage.  Our marriage was blessed, and we were re-united in purity.  The old is gone, the new has come.  
 

     And I fell in love with my husband for real.  I gave him my entire heart for the first time.  I tried to give it before, but I failed to realize that I didn`t possess it.  I had given it away because I viewed myself as unworthy, unlovable, unforgivable.  But God does not see me that way... and neither does Dave.  In Jesus` Name:  I am whole, I am loved, I am forgiven, I am worthy.  Because of the love of God, I am redeemed and I have a whole heart to give to my husband. 

   We are planning to renew our vows in a few weeks, and rededicate this marriage to God.  I am marrying the same, wonderful, man.  (Although he has been freed from things of his past and power prayed over him too!)... but he is marrying the woman he has been waiting for.  I am filled with more joy and peace than I have ever known.  

     That is a very quick description of a huge event in my life that happened this week... but it`s the best I can do for the moment... from now on, I`m the real Shawn.  Our teacher told us a quote that says, "The glory of God is man fully alive."   I am finally alive.  Fully alive and ready to live life to the fullest.  

    I am so ready.