This post is not my usual, friend. It’s filled with a lot – encouragement, transparency, warning and weightiness. It’s prophetic in nature, but it’s also an open invitation to be honest with yourself. Before we jump into what I feel the Lord is speaking, I am setting this post up with a deeply personal experience. It’s not pretty, but it’s important. As a prophetic voice in this generation, I am learning to be comfortable with the trials and seasons I used to avoid speaking about. Perhaps it’s my courageous husband who has helped me be comfortable with sharing more of my valleys, or I am just finally embracing my boldness. I’ll say it’s the perfect collision of both! I also believe it’s critical when we face trials and are released to talk about them, we should be doing so. Ministry is not pretty, but thank goodness the testimony of His love is so beautiful.
Generational Anxiety
I have been quiet lately on my blog, but not because I really desired to be. My husband and I got married in April and I was so excited after returning from our honeymoon to jump into the next thing God was going to share with me. However, I know my Father’s voice well and out of obedience I decided to sit with Him. I am a pro at waiting and listening, so this felt no different than before. I knew something significant was coming, but I could have never imagined how tough this trial would be. Coming off of my mind being blown with my first published piece in a magazine (shout out to Testimony Magazine), I would have never thought God would require three months of silence. And looking back I am thankful.
Anxiety, out of nowhere, spread like a cancer throughout my mind and my body began feeling the weight of my mental load overflowing. This is a bit more transparent than I ever want to be…but it’s super important, trust me.
For over three months, I was juggling life as a newlywed wife and trying to find my mental balance. Panic attacks, insomnia and so much more invaded my normally peaceful and quiet life. Lies I would have never imagined began swirling in my mind and I felt like most days I was gasping for air. My husband helped to break some of those lies, but most of it was rooted in generational fear and anxiety. Anxiety and fear are really the same, and I was experiencing the nasty attack firsthand. I was worried about every ache and pain in my body, and my mind replayed scenarios on repeat. (I will go into a bit more detail later.)
On one\Tuesday in June, it came to a head as I started having a full blown anxiety attack in the middle of the workday. I called my husband thinking I needed to go to the hospital because my heart was racing. At his discernment, I rushed home from work and paced through my house crying. I could not believe what was happening to me and I didn’t understand where this was coming from. Finally, I went into my prayer closet to sort it out. While in my closet several things shifted in my life (the power of prayer, saints!), and I was prompted to read a few scriptures. I was delivered that day from anxiety and fear by His grace, and I haven’t struggled with those thoughts again.
But I wanted to take a deeper dive into the scriptures I was brought to during that moment in my prayer closet – Psalm 34 and Malachi 4:2.
Taste and See
Three weeks ago I experienced a dream like I hadn’t before. Before I saw any of the dream, I was looking into a black space and heard loudly the Holy Spirit speak to me – taste and see. The dream opened to me standing with my mom, husband and my husband’s friend in a very expensive supermarket. We had a cart and were very reluctant to put anything into it for purchase. Finally, my mom dropped a huge piece of waygu beef into the cart. As we traveled throughout the store, everything felt like it was getting more pricey. With inflation already high, I knew in the dream there was no possible way we could afford anything in the store. However, as we turned a corner my dad came sprinting down the aisle with an armload of expensive foods and filled the cart. So much so we had it overflowing with anything and everything we could want.
When I woke up my mind immediately went to Psalm 34. Psalm 34 has long been a passage I read for an uplifting remembrance of God. I have hand lettered and sold many pieces with “taste and see that the Lord is good” on them for kitchens. (No, seriously.) I love Psalm 34, because I relate to it so well. That dream was a culmination and a smile from heaven towards me that although a quick season of deep rooted anxiety had come and gone, I really was free and able to see that God was and is still good in my life and His faithfulness will evermore be known in the coming generations of my family.
The Bride and Fear
Over the last few months I have ministered through prayer and deliverance to many women who have been dealing with the spirit of fear. To the point that in the last month, I have repeatedly came home and throughout the week been heavy in knowing it’s not just me who has been assaulted with this spirit. It’s unclean and it goes against the very nature of how God intended for His children to live. Fear grips and binds us in many ways, but notably it prevents us from being free in God. We quote 2 Timothy 1:7 often – “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.” I have released that verse and watched fear be broken off of many women. However, I know many are still walking in its grips and it is time to rise against it. God never intended for His children to be bombarded with fear from the enemy. If Satan can keep you in a toxic cycle of fear, shame and anxiety, then he knows you can’t move forward into what God has for you. Fear at its core paralyzes us and keeps us stalled. I can testify that in my secret place, God delivered me privately from a nasty grip that was consuming me inside and out. I am ready to come not on my power or strength to tell you this – If you have been feeling the assault from a spirit of fear and wrestling with anxiety, this is your encouragement that God is wanting to break that off of your life. Daughter, He is after you and power, love and a sound mind is something He is wanting to bestow upon you. You have the key to the chain of fear binding you and it takes one prayer to unlock and bring you into freedom. I believe the onslaught of fear attacking the daughters (and sons) of God is for a greater purpose, but it is also to make you bold, strong and to establish you in your identity in this moment.
Fear goes against the nature of God and it lies to you about your identity. I can testify that I started to believe I was unhealthy and not worth what God was preparing for me. That I was not a Proverbs 31 woman and that my husband was only there out of obligation. But His word goes against all of those lies I was starting to believe. For me, I began praying and saying over myself that I was “fearfully and wonderfully made” and that “her husband delights in her.” Why? Because my mind needed total renewal from generations’ worth of women in my family not believing they were good enough for God or for their husbands. But no more in the name of Jesus!
I have walked in past seasons of preparation before, but this was a deeper issue of dealing with anxiety and fear which haunted my family for generations. And I know there is a reason I went through what I experienced. I know this will resonate with many women who have been experiencing something similar. And I want to be a voice of reassurance that you are not alone and that you are not your fears or anxieties. We often avoid topics like this and spare our openness out of, ironically, fear. But I want to see women free in their minds, marriages and walk with Christ. I want you to taste and see that He is good and that joy, rest and peace are part of your portion.
My family history might be similar to yours – a lot of great people who struggled with fear. Fear kept them at the surface level. Fear never allows us to step farther because it quenches our faith. It convinces us that we are only meant for this or that, but there is no way we can that big thing over there.
As I sat on the floor of my closet that Tuesday afternoon, I was reading Psalm 34 over and over. Here is a snippet for you:
I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.Taste and see that the Lord is good;
Psalm 34:4-11, New International Version
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Come, my children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
As fear and anxiety were being broken off of my spirit, I was starting to look at this passage much differently. Fear in relation to humanness is mentioned one time in the above verses, but fear in relation to God is mentioned three times in the above verses.
Fear, when reversed from us to God, sets us free.
What I walked through and was delivered from in the last few months has been nothing short of His grace and love for me. I want to remind you that He can, will and is doing the same for you. It takes courage and transparency to be set free. I prayed bold prayers, I repented for my generational line and I began doing the hard work of uprooting lies buried within me. It was so tough, but I am so thankful for the accelerated work He has done in my life. I can testify boldly of it!
Sis, it’s time to taste and see. If you feel the pull of the Spirit to go deeper to break off fear and anxiety, then this is for you. Ask Him to search your heart for those things buried deep within which are acting as barriers and begin to pray boldly. Approach His throne and seek His face. He is bringing swift deliverance to His daughters.
The Fear of the Lord: Healing in His Wings
But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.
Malachi 4:2, New Living Translation
If you’re like me, at the drop of a pin you can start swelling with tears over the most ridiculous things. For me lately it’s been a video of people gathering in Sweden to watch cows be let out of the stalls for spring. During the harsh winters, farmers put the cows in stalls for them to be warm and when spring arrives, Swedes make it an event to watch the cows be released.
When I first saw one of these videos on Instagram a few weeks ago, I couldn’t stop watching it. And this morning while trying to find a video to share with you, I started weeping. I didn’t know why until I was reminded of that Tuesday in my prayer closet when I felt the weight of anxiety break off my family line. I have a prayer shawl from Israel that the Lord told me to cover myself with as I prayed, and unbeknownst to me stitched into the cloth is Malachi 4:2. I have held tight to this verse in the last few weeks as a reminder of what He did for me. Now being able to share with you is so powerful in knowing what He is going to do in your life.
The fear of the Lord comes with healing in His wings. Many of us have been trapped in fear, and for some of us (like myself) it’s fear I never asked for but that was passed to me. Over the last three months I have heard lies for myself that have come against my health (major health issues, mind you), my family, my marriage, my future as a mother, my relationships, my finances, my calling, my anointing, my gifts and my faith. All of those lies needed to be swiftly broken off of my life as I step into a new level of His freedom, and He did it for me.
Friend, you are not meant to live in the shadow of death. I have experienced first hand a spiritual assault of death coming against my husband and I. We have a lifetime of testimony and sermons just from the last six months of being faced with spirits trying to take us down. While many might not understand that, I feel strongly we are not the only ones who have been faced with a reckoning of spiritual assault during a season of transition.
Your private battles in this season are about to prove a public victory. Not just in accolades for overcoming, but in His power and authority. Your prayer life, your inmate space with Him and your confidence in what He has called you to is exceeding your own expectations because of what you will be broken from.
Leaping for Joy
Part of what I wrote in my Testimony Magazine article, Tending To, was rooted in Isaiah 61:10.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
As silly as it sounds, my mind immediately went to those cows in Sweden jumping at the warmth of spring. Many of us have felt lost in the coldness of winter. A spiritual winter has fallen on many people and you have felt frozen in time. Frozen in this season and thinking you are only meant to be stalled up. That your gifts and call have been put on hold. But this isn’t the case. The stall of winter wasn’t meant to harm you, but to protect you and prepare you for the warmth of the new thing. And at the onset of what God is opening and doing in your life, you shall come out leaping for joy.
Healing in your heart, healing in your mind, healing in your relationships, and healing in your body is coming because Jesus is rising over your life like a banner.
Fearing the Lord produces victory and freedom. Instead of fear itself, be challenged in turning those fears of life to the One who gives life. Fearing the Lord is having reverence towards Him and following in His ways so you become righteous.
A Feast of Joy
Every time I think about those people watching the herd of cattle being released in relation to Malachi 4:2, I see heaven cheering. Can you imagine? A peek of this is seen in Hebrews 12:1-3 –
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Let me encourage you with this – I believe the freedom God is releasing over His daughters is coming with such joy that it is cause for celebration. A feast of joy is coming to your table.
A bountiful table of joy is being prepared for you to feast from. Like those cows coming out to graze on the harvest of spring fields, you are stepping into a great abundance of joy. And, heaven is cheering. I see in my spirit people all around you cheering as you walk to this table because of what He has done in your life through this trial. Don’t give up. Leap like the calves as you step into this new field of glory. And whatever you do, do not get sidetracked by the enemies who will try to stop you. There is a reason Psalm 23 says “you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Fear of man is breaking off of your life, and a fear of the Lord is being established in your inner most being.
But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.
Malachi 4:2, New Living Translation
The Bride’s Intimacy
On God’s calendar we just switched into the new month of Av which is a reminder of several things. One thing it reminds us of, is that it is the ninth month on the Hebrew calendar which the number nine is a reminder of fruitfulness. I will spare going into this until further revelation is given, but I will remind you – the intimacy you cultivate with God now is preparation for your fruitfulness later. We know during intimacy conception happens, a seed is planted, and later that gives way to birth. He is planting seeds of joy in His daughters despite their trials.
He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.
Psalm 126:6, English Standard Version
He is also reminding you of His love because we know there is no fear in love and fear is an indicator of a lack of revelation and belief in knowing God loves you.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
1 John 4:18, New International Version
Lastly, Isaiah 43:1b says,
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.
This verse is a call to our identity which is found in the secret place with Him, our Bridegroom. All of this happening in your life is for those in your circle to be impacted by your testimony. Continue spending time with Him and learning who He is so He can remind you of who you are.
My best,
Hannah F. Gillespie
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