The Retreat-Praying Moms

Thursday, May 26, 2022 

I’m driving in my car and I hear the still quiet voice that sounds like my own stating “you and Kim need to go on a retreat. I need you to get away from the chaos that you’re in right now at your homes. I need to speak with you and do a great work in you, but I cannot in the chaos that you are in. You need to get away to a place that is out in nature.” 

I immediately text Kim and tell her what I believe God has told us to do. She immediately starts looking into cabins. We both start praying that God will direct us to the correct place he wants us to be. Shortly after, Kim hears the word Ark. She starts looking at places around the Ark down in Kentucky. She finds a place, Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. We take a look and agree that that’s the perfect place for us to be. Out in nature. No one really around and she books it for the weekend of June 17-19, 2022.  

The battles begin…..

The weeks leading up to the retreat were a battle. Kim was going through panic/anxiety attacks for which she ended up being put on medical leave by her doctor. After prayer and confirmations Kim started applying for jobs. After 2 months of being on medical leave, she gave her resignation. Work was getting worse and worse for me and it didn’t make any sense. It was like I had this major block in my brain that wouldn’t allow me to understand the simplest things. After prayer, I decided that the position was not a good fit and started applying for other positions. 

June 15, 2022 around 3:30/4am. Woke up by a knock on my bedroom door with my daughter saying that my vehicle window has been broken out. I thought my windshield had finally given way with the cracks in it. Nope! Someone smashed the front, passenger window in with a cinder block and stole my daughter’s MK purse she had forgotten to take out the night before. My car was locked and parked up against the garage door. None of the other vehicles were hit. Just mine. The outside garage lights had burned out and our security cameras decided to do a system reboot so none of it was recorded. Then my daughter had to use her vehicle instead of mine to get the kids to the sitter and got pulled over for a headlight being out. Later that morning, while she’s taking care of credit/bank cards, etc. she calls me on the verge of a breakdown because her jeep won’t start. All this while I’m trying to work a job that’s not working out. Needless to say, the trouble didn’t end there, but went into the evening. 

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

I’m in my morning prayer reading time. I had decided to start journaling my prayers. After I had done that for the morning, I started writing down words directed to my son. I struggled whether it was me or did God actually give me a word for my son. I’ve prayed for the gift of prophecy for quite a while, but it didn’t happen. Because of this, I prayed on it and said nothing to my son about it. I thought it was just my words/thoughts. 

Friday, June 17, 2022. Journey to the Ark

We leave my house around 6:30/7am. We are really excited about what God is going to do and reveal to us over the weekend. The trip down was uneventful, but full of good conversation and worship. We reached the Ark around 1pm and we’re awestruck at the enormity of it. It’s one thing to hear and know the story. It’s a totally different thing to actually tangibly see and experience it to the best of one’s ability without being there when it happened. The research and details were amazing! Our eyes were opened more to the reality of it. We took A LOT of pictures. By the time we were done, it was after 4pm. 

The drive to the cabin….

It was a 45-minute drive to the cabin. So peaceful on the tree lined winding roads. Picturesque even. We maybe passed one or two vehicles on the way there. We were excited that the road was so peaceful and that there wouldn’t be much traffic while we were at the cabin on the front porch listening to God and learning. 

We arrived at around 5pm to our delight. The cabin wasn’t done in modern style, but in rustic which is one of the things we loved about it. It was perfect! After unloading our things and bringing them into the cabin, we made short work of anointing the entire place, inside and outside, with anointing oil from Israel. There wasn’t a place untouched of anointing oil and prayer. Afterwards, we then settled in and prepared supper. That evening we started a video teaching called, The Prophetic Warrior by Emma Stone. It’s a 9-part video. We purchased it about 2-3 weeks prior and hoped it was worth it. Oh my! We were not let down in any way. It was incredibly power packed of the Holy Spirit. Our spiritual eyes were being opened in ways we didn’t expect. Answers we were seeking, were being answered. With each session, the power of the Holy Spirit was even more powerful. The glory of God was starting to come down little by little. We got to bed around 12:30am. 

Bedtime. My first battle begins…

Being in a new place sleeping is always a little nerve-racking for me due to my past and imagination. Looking back now, as a child, I was always sensitive to the spirit realm. Growing up I would have nightmares. Not just any nightmares. Demonic night terrors. Shows. Movies. The initial downbeat of a song would bring images to my consciousness that would haunt me. I’d walk in on movies that my mom would watch that I should have never seen. It only took a moment seeing it to cause the damage. 

So back to bedtime in the cabin. I took the bed on the landing because the other bed was in a closed, tight space. We had a light on dim downstairs because of the stairs being offset and steep and I needed to be able to see my surroundings. My imagination of demons or someone creeping up the stairs or popping up somewhere around the bed kept playing in my mind. After all, we just watched the first few sessions of a very powerful teaching on the prophetic. I took 2 melatonin denounced the spirits, prayed and put on Amanda Grace to try and fall asleep to. Every time I’d start to fall asleep, my eyes would spring open and scan around me. I finally put on shofar / spiritual warfare music and somehow, finally fell asleep. 

Saturday, June 18, 2022. 

Woke up at 7:16am. Kim was already awake and moving downstairs. The coffee made and getting things in order for the day. It was an absolutely beautiful day. We opened the windows to the sounds of nature, including chainsaws in the backyard, and ate breakfast. 

Around 10am we got our books and Kim’s laptop and ventured out onto the front porch. We had our next bible study on Monday and had nothing put together for it yet. We figured we’d do a bible talking points game, BUT GOD had different plans. He had us work on what we had originally planned on doing. The anointing and power of God and leading into the gifts of the spirit. Kim had started working on the anointing and I had started working on the gift of tongues. What we thought would be a day of accomplishing multiple tasks turned out to be a 9-hour in-depth, powerful, bible teaching to us from God. Remember when I said that the road in was very quiet? Not this day. Every time we started speaking the Word, a whole slew of Harleys would come by and we’d have to stop until they passed because we couldn’t hear. That was the entire day until we were done. We saw it for what it was and started calling the spirits by name and commanding them out in the name of Jesus. They didn’t win. We kept going as if they weren’t hindering us. In return, God had given us a powerful bible study for Monday. 

After supper, we started watching our Prophetic Warrior sessions where we left off. Each session was even more powerful than the one before. God’s presence was really strong upon us. It was during these sessions that God confirmed to me that the Word for my son was from God, not me, and that I was to give it to him Sunday morning. We finished the last session at 2am.  

Time to go to bed again…

Remember my trouble going to sleep on Friday night? Saturday, or technically Sunday morning, was worst. Weirdly worst. We’re in bed. Kim has music and the fan going. I have Julie Green on along with doing my evening prayers in the spirit. I keep seeing Kim’s phone light turning on in her room. I figure she’s looking at something before going to sleep. I keep waking up with a feeling that I’m being watched. I begin to look all around, telling myself that the shadows are just from the lights downstairs. It just felt weird. It was about 4:30/5am before I fell asleep finally. Next time I open my eyes it’s 6:30am, but I refuse to get up and fall back to sleep. 

Sunday, June 19, 2022

I finally wake up at 7:16am and decide to just get up and start the coffee. This is two mornings in a row that I wake up at exactly 7:16am. I tell myself that there must be something significant about 7:16. So I pray for answers and start looking up verses. Nothing. I mention it to Kim over breakfast and July 16 is a Saturday. The Bible study is having a cookout/worship/prayer day at my house. We knew God said a Saturday in July, but not the date. We took this as God giving us the date for the cookout. 

Later, I started talking to Kim about my experience during the night. She then told me that she was having the same issues. We both thought it quite interesting. Her room was so black that she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She kept turning her phone on to see because she kept seeing shadows, she thought. Here I thought she was reading something.

When the cabin would be rented out, we saw that guests would leave the owner a note of thanks. We decided to leave our mission statement and pray for a Word from God to give her. God never disappoints. A Word was given and it was written on our mission statement to leave for her. We then packed the vehicle up, took a final sweep of the cabin and left. Before coming back home we stopped off at the Rabbit Hatch General Store. The owner of the cabin owned that as well. It was like a town that was frozen in time to the early 1900’s. After checking it out, we began our journey home. 

Our journey has just begun….

On our way home, we discussed how powerful the retreat has been and it was just what we needed. Little did we know that God had just begun….

We’re talking and worshipping with the radio. While talking I state that I really thought this weekend was going to go different. We were going to be in prayer, reading and planning. We didn’t go into prayer and reading like we normally would and hoped that we hadn’t missed the mark, so I start praying. I prayed and repented if we missed the mark this weekend and immediately God spoke through Kim. God told us that there was nothing to repent of. We did not miss the mark. The weekend happened exactly how He wanted it to. That immediately brought us to tears. About an hour on the road Kim gets a text stating that someone at church and in our bible study is in real need of prayer. Kim told her mom to give the person her number and if she wanted, we’d be happy to pray with her. She didn’t call. She may not have been able to call because of the situation. Immediately, Kim and I began praying in the spirit and in the common tongue. Decreeing, denouncing and declaring in the mighty name of Jesus. Then a Word for this person came pouring out of me. Afterwards I dictated it and we sent it to the person in need. It was powerful. Kim called her mom to tell her what just happened and her mom could feel the power through the phone. We decided that my son was next to be prayed over at some point when we got home. 

Little did we know, it was just the beginning. He was nowhere near done yet….

We finally reached the Indy area and on US 31. Kim and I just switch to me driving. Within 10-20 minutes the power of God hits. We started praying in the spirit and common tongue for my son. Then each person in our families and bible study by name. Declaring/decreeing and naming the spirits by name, casting them out in the name of Jesus. Breaking generational curses and chains in the mighty name of Jesus. Declaring that the Lord loosen His spirit to fill the voids. We were then praying over our mothers for healing, claiming that by His stripes we are healed. We were praying over each other. Kim came down with a piercing headache during this. I reached over and commanded the spirit to leave and loosed the spirit of God to fill the space. She said that it left immediately. We received answers to questions for some family members. During our time of prayer, God told us that He has put a new anointing and gifts upon us. We were not returning the same as we left. The glory of God came upon us so strongly that we, literally, thought the doors were going to bust off. There were a few times that I just started laughing and had no idea of why in the natural. It was God laughing through me. We couldn’t stop the flowing tears of joy because of His presence. I can only imagine how we looked to passerby’s on US 31 during this. Next thing we knew, we were getting off US 20 at Luvs. 2 1/2 – 3 hours of the most powerful encounter with God we had ever had. So many answers, breakthroughs, and spiritual knowledge given in one weekend. We did not return the same as we left. We were renewed in Christ.

Monday, June 20, 2022

Just after 4pm, I receive a phone call telling me that I had been accepted for a remote position with my previous employer at my previous rate of pay. Another answered prayer.  

Bible study…

The group wanted to hear about our retreat and we told them what God had done and the Words God had given for each one of them. The tears flowed as we spoke God’s Word for them and the power of God came down upon us throughout the evening as we went into the Bible study God had given us over the weekend. 

Normally, when something happens and especially to this magnitude, I tell my husband about rather quickly. It wasn’t until 5 days later that I was finally able to tell my husband everything that God had done over that weekend. This was on the way to drop him off at a friends to go on his weekend trip to Tennessee.  I am so honored that God chose me to be on this path for His glory. That He gave an amazingly spirit filled woman of God to journey with in this ministry. God knew what He was doing! To God be the glory, honor, and praise!! God is absolutely good!!!!!