The Gateway to Joy

On September 11, God answered me by gracing me with a horrific experience. God personally doesn’t cause horror, but we release horrific consequence upon ourselves by living in sin. It is because of His love that He revealed my error to me so horrifically (Job 33:16-18).

This is a shortened encounter of my experience. I had fallen asleep and woken up in a vision and I had a sense of being extremely ungrateful. I then saw a huge flood in the distance coming towards me that was wiping out everything in its way. God had already told me that over the next few years He would be bringing deep cleansing to the House of God to prepare the body of Christ for the greater glory he wants to release for the end time harvest, so I understood immediately that this was that! I said to the people in the room “this is the biggest flood Australia will ever experience in all time!” I just didn’t realise it was coming for me personally.

That was until the flood literally swept over me and I blacked out assuming I was dead. I woke up in another room (still in the vision) and a spirit walked towards me. At first i thought it was an angel, but she was saying unkind things and she was cold hearted. I knew in the vision that her name was Mary and that Mary meant “bitterness” so I sensed she was a spirit of bitterness. I automatically felt the feelings I had been feeling about not having joy and always feeling weak. I felt however this encounter was to benefit me with the current problems I was facing, so I asked her “are you here to help me?” 

She then proceeded to explain to me that I would need a court hearing for the help I needed, and she told me very loudly that I was UNGRATEFUL, the same thing I realised in the first part of the vision. I said to her “please I just need help, I am so weak, I need strength!” 

Then terror struck me as she pulled out a giant chain with padlock and went to wrap it around my right leg and said “your whole right side will now be removed from you” and I sensed I was about to have a stroke. In a split second, I realised how much strength I had all along and now it was being taken from me. I would not be able to play with my children, look after my home or do anything God had called me to. I was going to lose everything. In an instant my life flashed before my eyes that I had taken for granted EVERYTHING  which God had given me and I was flooded with deep guilt and fear at what was about to happen. I wanted to scream with repentance, and Just before she went to lock the padlock, I woke up. I woke up in terror expecting the stroke, and that it would happen soon. It was midnight and I literally RAN to the other end of the house and fell on the floor in the deepest groan of heartfelt repentance I have ever felt, begging God to forgive me. I begged for 4 hours. My soul was in that much agony of repentance that the ground felt too high of a place to be repenting from. My soul wanted to sink far into the depths of the earth and it hurt physically that I could not go any lower. We are truly so unworthy in our sin to even have a place on the earth!

Scriptures flashed into my memory that He is faithful to forgive those who repent (1 John 1:9) but I was in such terror, I was shaking, and the devil was saying “it’s too late”. I had to repeat this scripture over and over. I was reminding God that His word said this, something I had heard a thousand times in my Christian walk but had never felt the need to cling to so tightly. 

After about 4 hours of repeating scriptures to God about Jesus being faithful to forgive and how the blood paid for my sin, I felt a weight lift and I forced myself to go to bed. 

The next day - you better believe I woke up with the most supernatural gratefulness and joy I had ever felt in my life. I couldn’t believe all that had been keeping me in bondage was ungratefulness. To be honest I was still a little afraid I was going to have a stroke for about a week, I had to post the scriptures about being forgiven everywhere I could see! Yet all my joy returned to me. I loved everything I owned, I loved housework, cooking, toddler tantrums,  everyone I knew, and every thing I once hated doing I was now excited for and not only that, I had extreme amounts of energy from the immense joy. I felt like I was in heaven. I loved everyone and everything. There was not one thing I was unhappy about! 

Maybe you have been lacking joy or strength like I was and don’t even know why! I didn’t even recognise that I was ungrateful let alone that being grateful was the only key to joy that I was missing. NO ONE IS INTENTIONALLY UNGRATEFUL, but many of us are not INTENTIONALLY grateful and often complain about our circumstances. After the year has passed, and life hits with its usual challenges, being INTENTIONALLY grateful has never failed to rise my joy levels back to where they should be in awe and wonder of the great blessings God has given us on this earth, not to mention his great mercy that I am still alive. I have since learnt how passionately the Holy Spirit dislikes ungratefulness, so much so that when the Israelites were in the wilderness complaining and ungrateful, He sent destruction against them and many of them literally died. Although it’s old testament, Paul says we should look to them as an example of what happens to ungrateful people (1 Cor. 10:10-11) and now you have another example in me! It really matters to God! If you are reading this - you have reasons to be grateful, please think of them and live a life of gratitude so that you may be blessed! “