Let me start by saying thank you for your patience with me. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys – you are such a blessing! This is an update I think I’ve been writing in my head at least in part for a while, so hopefully it will make some sense and help some of you all who have been feeling disconnected from me or the ministry.

My Health (physical, emotional, and spiritual)

Things started going awry health-wise late this past fall. By winter, I was doing worse and worse eating-wise and so now in April I have gained back about 2/3 of what I’d lost. You can imagine how frustrating this is for me.

What happened to trigger this has nothing to do with my health actually. The fact is I am great at helping everyone deal with their own emotional ouchies, all while mine stay neatly tucked in an ever expanding emotional closet that is about to burst.  Rather than allow this to continue, Father in His mercy has sent me a wonderful mentor (Diana) who I am meeting with weekly to work through my stuff.

Emotionally I have been at varying stages of being a wreck for months now (it’s been increasing over time), which has caused me to be pretty shut down. I know many of you have felt it. I apologize for not updating you sooner (and in fairness I have tried in smaller measure to do so via FB periodically). I’m not exaggerating when I say the thought of having to do an update could bring me to tears simply because I was in so much internal pain it felt overwhelming.

Candidly it is VERY hard for me to walk through this inner healing as I am much more comfortable dealing with everyone else’s ouchies and prefer to keep mine tucked away… if only I could keep them from festering while tucked away I’d be good LOL 🙂

That said there has been MUCH grace for this process (which BTW the Father said would be slow – I love that He manages my expectations). Often He will tell Diana something specific that He will have already been speaking to me about, so many confirmations and Diana’s style is a good fit for what I need. (FYI – I may give periodic prayer requests based on her insights in the future)

At Father’s instruction Diana and I are on a 10 day juice fast, which Allissa was kind enough to jump in with us. Now at the end of day 3, I have to concede the lack of refined sugar and flour in my system is having a HUGE positive impact on my emotional health.  I know intellectually those foods are not good for me, but seeing the dramatic shift has been amazing.

My hope once I complete this 10 days is to return to a primarily raw and veggie diet allowing for exceptions when there are events and whatnot.

Prayer points in the area of my health are:

• Grace and strength to complete the current fast
• Perseverance to return to healthier eating choices when I stop fasting
• Wisdom and revelation for Diana as she walks me through this inner healing process
• Grace and strength for me in walking through it
• Healing to the wounds that hinder me from being all I’m called to be
• Not sure how to word this, but basically that Father keeps me from shutting down emotionally and blocks whatever would try to cause that

D4Y Covering

In November when Father had us break affiliation with MorningStar, Dyed4you’s covering shifted from a spiritual perspective in a way I didn’t fully recognize until recently. Essentially my home church – Passion for Truth (aka PFT) – became Dyed4you’s covering.

In looking back this totally makes sense because Father has had me devoting an increasing amount of time to PFT. At this point I probably am volunteering about ~20 hrs per week (give or take depending on the week).

You may remember that a little over a year ago I accepted positions on both the Advisory Council and the Financial Board at PFT and the Financial Board has since been grafted into the Board of Directors for the ministry – so I am now on the board as well.

In addition, the Father has given me much favor with my pastor – Jim Staley – and we have a good friendship (obviously with his wife too as you saw in my picture today) as well as with the office manager (who is the #2 guy at PFT), Matt Totra. And just to give context, Diana (my mentor) is married to one of our elders (David) who is also on staff.

All this to say that since PFT is our covering and since it is such a HUGE part of my life, I realized (once Kim pointed it out LOL) that we should be covering PFT/my pastor in prayer simply because from a spiritual standpoint, they definitely impact Dyed4you.

And referring back to the prayer burdens you each shared last June (for folks who’ve joined the team since then I’d love for you to go and read and include YOUR prayer focuses in a comment), I believe Allissa will likely spend a good deal of prayer focusing on what is also her home church. She’s been a big support in this area already.

There is a possibility of Dyed4you coming under PFT’s 501c3 (which is just being completed, they’re currently under another organization’s), but I am not sure yet if it is kosher with me being on the board – so we’re waiting for more info on that and frankly I’m not feeling a rush in that.

PFT has a satellite program and we will be putting together a Dyed4you flag bundle that satellites will be able to purchase. We already have had 50% of PFT’s active satellites buy flag(s). PFT actively promotes Dyed4you on their site and plans to do more in the way of D4Y videos in the future. All that to say, unlike MorningStar – PFT knows who we are, gets what we do, and thoroughly supports us in many ways.

It’s been cool to see how much cross pollination has happened between D4Y and PFT – D4Y folks beginning to attend PFT’s streaming service each week and PFTers getting hooked on our silk 🙂

Prayer points in the area of our covering:

• Protection over all the relationships involved (ministry to ministry as well as my personal connections within the church)
• Wisdom for me in my roles at PFT
• Protection for me/D4Y spiritually as we stretch our reach in uniting with PFT
• For Father to manage my time and relationships (there are always people who will drain you – I deal with this at PFT as well as in D4Y)
• Prayer for Jim Staley (director of PFT, my pastor) as well as Matt Totra – his right hand

Team Updates

None of these are new, but I like having stuff archived in the blog – LOL 🙂  A warm welcome to Nickol our newest member and a VERY belated blog welcome to my dearest sistoiree (pronounced sis-twar-ae) Leslie. We also blessed Elaine as she stepped down a month or so ago. Since I’m not sure I have managed to greet or bless those who came or went let me just say our fantastic team at present is: Kim, Allissa, Donelda (pronounced Don-elda), Leslie, Linette, Nickol, Stephanie, Tami, and Tonia (pronounced Tonna) 🙂

Finances

Just a quickie, but prayer over sales appreciated.  I’ve had odd stuff going on – people ordering who aren’t ready to pay or won’t call me back or whatever. Big time wasters and frankly we need the money. I’ve had $700 in my shopping cart from my supplier for weeks and I have $200 of the needed funds so far :/ That doesn’t even touch bill needs. So again, prayers appreciated!

In Closing

Whew that was a lot! Hopefully you don’t feel overwhelmed, you just feel more connected 😉

I love you guys so much – truly you are such a blessing to me. Thank you for extending grace to me in my moments of mess and well – being human – LOL! I treasure each of you and what you bring to the team 🙂