Let's go!

Mark it on your calendars…September 30^th the day Ashley Floyd began her life.

 

 What has life consisted of for the past 26 years? Was I breathing, was I living, was I striving? I feel so much drive and energy knowing I’m moving into this new chapter and the rest of my life in comparison feels null and void. However, I know every waking moment has prepared me for this time. Every minute, hour, day, week, month and year was a preparation time for me. Not a minute was wasted in my life. Relationships were built, connections were made and lessons were taught all to bring me to this point. And this morning as I contemplated getting out of my comfy bed, knowing it will be 3 months before I lay in it again, I just began to weep uncontrollably and my heart couldn’t process all the love and gratitude I was feeling. My heart is so full knowing I have so many people who have pushed me, challenged me, taught me and loved me to where I am now and I know once I arrive I will never be the same. Life as I know…the Ashley I’ve always known will not be recognizable. All I’ve known will be transformed. This trip is the beginning of the rest of my life.

 

This is my jumping off point, my launch pad and this is what is setting my destiny in motion and like Alice in wonderland said, “I can’t go back to yesterday I was a different person then.” I cry tears of joy knowing what’s ahead and yet I’m crying tears of sorrow as I watch the last bit of me be crucified. That’s all I had left, who I used to be but that chapter is written and closed and it’s time to walk in the true destiny and call for my life and from this point on I can’t turn back. Things will be unlocked in me that will forever change and shape me. Relationships will be made that will challenge me. Life as I know it will be no more.

 

I’m ready now. I never thought I was say that and when I get there I may think differently but I’m ready for the unknown. I’m ready to walk in blind faith. I’m ready to be in a place where I have to depend solely on him. I’m ready for him to be my only focus. I’m ready to see His face in the faces of the people of Mozambique. I’m ready to share the love he’s shown me with them.

 

So thank YOU! You helped make this happen. You believed in the call and you pushed me forward into this! Your words soothed my doubts and fears, your prayers gave me peace when my mind was battling my heart. Your gifts provided a way for me to go when I had nothing. Your love ignited my heart. And now I will go carrying all you’ve given me and I will share it with those people. I will show them how gracious, loving and merciful God is because I’ve seen Him moving and working in and through each and every one of you. I was your mission field. I wouldn’t have made it there without you. I want you to know your significant and know that this is only the beginning for you as well. OUR lives begin today. We make the choice to get up and let him set our destinies in motions. We choose to lay down all we’ve held on to and let him take the reins. We break ourselves that He may be exalted because in reality, we have nothing to offer the world but to Him we have everything… because all He wants is our hearts!

 

So go and do. Ask for the nations and they are yours. Ask for your workplace, your home, it’s yours. Go and spread His love. Go and encourage those in your mission field. You never know what may come out of it. I’m a living testimony of what encouraging words and love can do. It can take a shy, wallflower and catapult her into the nations as a voice. You made that happen!

So today I leave at 3:30, I know when my feet hit the soil of Africa all those who have poured into me will be released, and all gifts will be returned 100 fold as I fulfill the work of the Lord you will be blessed!

 

So I willingly and excitedly lay my life down that I may be used so that you may walk in the fullness of His goodness and love. So let’s go, let’s run straight into what he has for us. No fear, no regrets, no hesitations. Be brave. Be strong and be courageous! Now is the time!

 

 

Dusty Museums

Church should be a refuge for the hurting, not a museum of pain.

 

This statement isn’t meant for one church but rather a general message for churches across America. I am at the 20 day mark til Africa and I am expecting supernatural miracles and healings to happen before my eyes but then I think why do I have to wait 20 days? Why can’t I see that now? What is holding me back from not only seeing healing take place here but even in my own body?

 

I’m speaking for myself and it’s my own fault that for so long I let tradition and the familiar to narrow my view of how powerful God truly is.

 

I lived with severe back pain for years and by age 24 had two back surgeries and the pain was still there. So I became a name on a prayer request list. I placed my need on the shelf as an artifact in the museum of pain. I looked at it, admired it, observed it and its severity, all the while reliving it each day never once asking Daddy to truly come and take it from me. I would rather have it on display then lay it down and be truly healed. And after almost 10 years of pain, powerful medication, and surgeries it took Him teaching me to let it go to truly be pain free. Each day I choose to pick it back up and claim pain or continue to walk in the healing that was given to me the day He was on the cross.

 

As my trip is getting closer, I’ve been preparing, packing, buying, cleaning, etc, and somewhere along the way I hurt my right knee and as the days went on the pain and swelling became more severe and it became a hindrance. I couldn’t move around as good as before and immediately fear came up. My thoughts were “How will I be able to walk around all day with a bad knee?” “How will I handle being on the floor and getting up and down?  I’ll have to take my brace!” All these thoughts were bombarding me and now I’m a name on the prayer request list. He healed me from a severe back issue and now my knee is messed up 20- something days before I leave… this is going to hinder me!!?!!?

 

 So that brings me to this past Sunday while at church, Pastor Devon begins to talk about how he messed up his hand and immediately began to pray for healing. He didn’t say he worried over it for two weeks until it was really bad and then prayed, instead as soon as it happened he spoke healing over it and what do you know? His hand was instantly healed. It was right there in that moment that the light bulb came on and my heart was so heavy because I was completely overlooking the power of Daddy God, my healer. I was looking at circumstance and  being led by what my body was saying, my knee was crying out in pain so I was living in it. I was taking it upon myself and already speaking that it was going to hinder me on this mission trip.

 

 All the while Daddy was waiting to be given just a minute to have his way, he was waiting for me to shut up so he could show me how I should be living, what I should be thinking, and how I should be transformed and renewed each day because I’ve already been healed.

 

So in that moment my faith was growing, the door was open to me to test God in his healing power and see if I could do that. If I could actually be healed. So as Pastor Devon continued to preach I simply put my hand on my knee and I sat there. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to speak doubt or ramble about things I don’t understand I simply wanted him to have his way and for once I was just going to be still and be quiet. As I sat there, it felt like cold water was running  down my leg as though the fluid was being pushed out and at first I thought, “This is all in my head it can’t be that easy. Don’t the elders have to come pray, I need to fast and use anointing oil”. I’m going through all the scenarios because I’ve seen it done to others but it never worked for me. But what I didn’t know what it isn’t about the vessel it’s about the source. After a few minutes, I couldn’t feel the water ‘draining’ anymore so I went to remove my hand and I heard Daddy God say “No”. I don’t think it was that he needed more time, I think my heart needed more to time to speak to my mind and let it sink in that I am healed and no longer will I speak pain and carry it around. No longer will I be hindered. No longer will I let what I feel determine what I know to be true. If I was going to be healed, I was going to walk away from that moment never again saying my knee was hurting, swollen, etc. It was about transforming my mind and my words to line up with what HE says about me. I am whole and complete. Nothing missing and nothing broken.

 

So here I am it's Tuesday morning and I am still healed. Yet I was nervous about sharing because my thought was what if it comes back? Yet again, I had to renew my mind to what He says. (it’s a constant battle my mind is stubborn) So I’m learning yet another lesson because I know he wants me to experience supernatural healings and many other things but I know He doesn’t want me to be a sitting duck until then. It doesn’t take a trip to Africa to be healed. But we should take notes because when a need arises in the community over there they don’t type it on a prayer list they pray truly believing that if God says we are healed that’s it. They have no other options. Medicines and doctors aren’t a option they only rely on the source and that’s where we’ve gone wrong. We have too many options and temporary fixes and we are missing the true source. That’s why many churches have become museums of pain and even those who die are remembered as ones who suffered for Jesus. They just had to wait to get to heaven to be pain free but I think life should be more than that. I think he wants us to live more abundantly.

 

 So I challenge you as he has and continues to challenge me. When things arise am I putting them on display and carrying them around as trophies or am I laying it down that I may be transformed by his power?

 

It’s time we close up those dusty museums and began transforming those around us. It’s time we stop underestimating his power. He is greater than any other.

He is my healer and nothing is impossible with Him as my source!

 

 

Daily Destiny

This is a gem I wrote back in 2011 and I ran across it today and thought it fitting for this time. We all have a destiny and purpose and although 

they may all look different they are ordained by God! 

So let's live with hands wide open and see what He can do even on the most ordinary of days! 

Destiny is not an endpoint. We travel from one destiny to the next on a journey of greatness.

We become so consumed in what our life’s purpose is. We constantly search for the “one thing” that God has called us to do and we spend our life searching out that “one thing” and if we ever figure it out we spend our last dying days trying to fulfill it. What kind of life is that to live? To live life searching in a game of hide-and-seek that is impossible to win?

Daddy wakes us up each morning with daily destinies. Every morning He awakens us longing to commune with our spirits because He has so much in store for us. How many mornings do we wake up and because of time we are too busy to talk to Him much less ask Him what HE would have us do that day? If we pray we go through our list of needs/wants and then ask Him to bless our day, and we may pray about our purpose but we spend all that time asking Him to reveal what our purpose it. And He simply sits there holding destiny and purpose in His hands waiting and hoping we will stop to ask for it.

So many days and divine opportunities are wasted because we are looking for “it”. The one and only purpose that we have. That one destiny. That one calling. But what about today? He has great things to unfold before you today. This day. This morning when the kids are screaming, the husband/wife is running late for work. The coffee pot is broken and the washing machine ate your favorite shirt, that morning is a morning of greatness…a morning ordained by God!

Our minds are so skewed because we let life define destiny for us. We wake up each morning with a new destiny waiting to be fulfilled and if we don’t ask Daddy what He wants us to do today, then who is setting our day in motion. We are…and we are full of anxiety, frustration, anger, etc.

We need to change our mindset and step back and reflect on who or what we allow to set our day in motion.

Each morning we should come before Daddy with a humble heart and ask Him to order our steps and in vulnerability admit that we don’t know what to do or where to go. Let Him tell you what plans He has for you. There are people who need you today and Daddy is waiting to not only tell you but fill you with the words you need to encourage someone, to speak life to someone’s situation and  to be light in your workplace.

Daddy I want to see each day as an opportunity to not only experience more of you but be used by you in a way I’ve never experienced before! I want to know you more intimately and display your glory in my everyday life. You have not called me to live a normal and mundane life; you called me to live each day in power and anointing. My circumstance, where I work, who I talk to, or where I go does not define the motion of my day. You set my day in motion and you order my steps. Purify my lips to speak your words, to speak life to dark places and to speak joy and peace to every situation in my day.

Each day is a gift. Forgive me for being too busy to accept the gift. So today with a humble heart I come before you and ask, What do you want me to do with this day? What do you want me to say? Who do you want me to encourage? Enlighten me on the importance of the gift of this day. Not tomorrow, you will wake me up and tell me the details of that then. I look to you for today, in this moment. No more missed opportunities, no more wasted days of destiny. Today I accept the divine destiny with excitement and faith that you will do great things, no matter what comes my way!