A year ago, I went for three weeks to KY, where I was raised, to visit my ailing dad. My specific intention was to honor him, whatever that might look like, before he died. It didn’t come as a surprise when I got the call less than 6 months later saying he had passed on.

It was by far the hardest trip I’ve ever taken anywhere in my entire life. It was my first visit “home” since my salvation, just three years prior, and it was the first time I had seen dad in seven years. We’d always had a very distant and unhealthy relationship. Difficult does not begin to describe the reunion or the warfare my soul encountered while on the land. It was almost unbearable at times. I told Michael and Gloria that I felt like I was taking a mission trip to my past. The following is a very transparent journal entry I made while there, and I trust each of you with my vulnerability…

“Oh God of my salvation, how humbling to meditate upon your great mercy. Though I’ve only seen small glimpses of your beauty, enough has been revealed for my heart to know it’s unparalleled. The Creator of the universe, and everything in it, is the Lover of my soul? How can this be? Your compassion, oh King… Your compassion…

My soul is learning to call you Papa as your Spirit mothers me back to health. How I adore you, Jesus. There’s nothing found in the Earth, or below the Earth, or above the Earth that could compare to all You are. You are everything holy and pure and just and true and loving and noble and good. My mind marvels equally at all the things you aren’t. You are not prideful or cruel or manipulative or easily angered or a promise breaker or arbitrary or weak. There is no lack in you. You are not a God who abandons His children. You are not an orphan-maker.

Oh how I see your redemption woven throughout the tapestry of my life. I would have never picked me – but You did. Indeed, it is written that You chose me before the foundations of the Earth. You planned out every single event of my life and recorded it in Your book before I ever took my first breath. You knew my name and declared I would be a vessel of redemption – a minister of freedom – a mouthpiece of the King. Even in my pain, even on the threshing floor, You fill me with hope for the future.

Though my soul wants to hide away in comfort, You speak to my heart and call me forth from my cave of Adulum to confront and conquer the giants of my past. And on this original battleground where I was betrayed, pillaged, left bleeding, and abandoned – this territory where I met shame and humiliation, hopelessness and oppression, poverty and abuse, addiction and bitterness, hate and rage – this land where I first came into unity with the accuser of the brethren… I now worship You. My Redeemer! My Lover! I sing a new song – a song of shalom, a song declaring your goodness, a song of freedom sung from a heart who knows the secret place; a heart who now knows intimacy without the price tag of shame.

Oh, God, I am undone! You alone are my Magnificent Obsession. You alone are my cup of blessing. You are my inheritance, Papa! You guard all that is mine. You have cloaked me with a divine passion to free all those who are oppressed and in bondage.

And, Papa, no longer do I accuse you for the darkness of my childhood, but I thank you for letting me drink from Your cup of bitterness. For a Kingdom perspective will change being stressed into being stretched. And, Lord, the purpose of stretching is so we can be continually and increasingly filled to a deeper capacity, that Your glory may first fill us, and then fill the Earth through us. Oh God of great kindness, You have removed the scales from my eyes that once kept me blinded to Your Truth, and You have replaced them with Kingdom eyes. You have taught me to see things with Your perspective instead of leaning on my own understanding. Lord, I thank You for my past. For when I look at it from Your vantage point, I now see that my past was a privilege. Father, I declare YOU are the God on the throne of my past. YOU are the God on the throne of my present. And for as long as I live, You are the God on the throne of my future.

Surely You have placed Your hand of blessing on my head. You have turned my mourning into dancing. You have caused great beauty to arise from the ashes of my dark and tainted past. You have caused this barren woman to be pregnant with faith and hope, for You have kissed me with promise after promise after promise. No wonder my heart is glad. No wonder I rejoice. For even as I sleep, You send angels to minister to me, yes to sing over me all throughout the night – songs of freedom and healing – songs of hope and destiny. You send Your Spirit in night visions to whisper to me that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has any mind imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him – and Ohhhh God of mine, how You have caused me to love You and all Your ways.

Praise and honor and glory and power be unto the Ancient of Days Who has turned this bitter, fearful, untrusting woman at the well into a broken, repentant, passionate warrior bride completely abandoned to her Bridegroom, living her life on purpose and with divine purpose to see the Enemy’s demonic strongholds of lies replaced by Your strongholds of Truth and light, to see the captives set free, to see Your Kingdom advanced in the heart of man and throughout the Earth – whatever the cost – until the day that every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord! Selah.”

Love,

Rebecca Lombardo