Stepping into the Roaring 20's

Within the past few years, I have shared many journals with y’all. Several of these journals were written about repetitive struggles that I had faced. Year after year, these things that I thought were behind me would show up again.

Before Passion, I watched a sermon that talked about the circle you keep. One of the points was that if we don’t have the right people around us, we will repeat the SAME cycle year after year. As I thought about this point and the last journal that I wrote, I realized that I was making the same mistakes and going through the same things every year, and that this year was feeling different. I wasn’t feeling depressed. I wasn’t feeling anxious or stressed. I wasn’t feeling like I needed the love of other people to complete me. I have people lifting me up from that place I once was stuck in. Relationships really CAN be blessings, and God was showing me that as I prepared to step into a new year.

Many of y’all know about Passion conference. This year was Passion 2020 and it was my 4th year going. Normally I look for Passion to be the thing to fill me at the beginning of the year and I hope for it to last til the next conference. (Not to say anything bad about my old church, I just didn’t feel like I was being pushed.) So, with my move and my new church, I was feeling so well fed. Leading up to Passion 2020, I didn’t really feel the need to go. I was in a different mindset and a different area of my life. But the ticket was purchased, the hotel room was booked, and my sister was counting on me going, so I went. Little did I know that I God would show me SO much.

Passion 2020 started with a video. It was saying goodbye to things from the past decade, like different songs/trends, etc. From the very beginning of this conference, God was showing me things through reflections. The first reflection being that, at the end of this video, they mentioned how the theme of Passion 2020 was light. I was brought back to the first Sunday that I ever attended Amplify. We sang the song Good Grace but included the line in Echoes that says “I’ve got a feeling the darkness won’t last very long.” This was a line that I had been declaring over my life since I first heard it, throughout this crazy new season of my life. I had been praying bold prayers, and I was praying and believing that this year I wouldn’t struggle with seasonal depression. I remember a Sunday night at Amplify where our worship leader had us grab someone next to us and just sing that line together. One of Amplify’s leaders was behind me, so she wrapped her arms around me as we repeated this line over and over again. As tears streamed down my face, I felt total peace. I was not created for depression. And I was believing that I wouldn’t struggle with it this year but IF I DID, I knew that it wouldn’t last very long. I knew that God would use it and show me something through it.

(Side note: Isn’t it cool how they have lamps to help people that struggle with seasonal depression? What a beautiful symbol that the LIGHT can help you through any darkness.)

After this video, we jumped into worship. The song Way Maker had been in my head. It was the first song that I ever led at Amplify, and I had been considering doing something with it- whether it be a canvas or a small tattoo, something. This song came into my life when I first moved to Pittsburgh, and the words just really speak to me in every season of my life. As I’m thinking about this song, the worship team starts to sing it and I just couldn’t help but get super excited. I thought about what I could do, and knowing that the lines were pretty repetitive, I thought that if there were 12 lines then I would do a watercolor per month of the lines in this song. I copied and pasted them into a note on my phone and counted the lines that didn’t repeat. There were 20. I knew that this song was going to be my anthem for the year. 20 significant lines for 2020. He is and was and always will be a Way Maker! He made a way for me to get to where I’m at right now.

After worship, Levi Lusko hopped up on stage and preached some TRUTH over our lives. He started by talking about the dust bowls in the 30’s. He told us about the damage they caused, how they started, and how they were stopped. The dust bowls in the 30’s were caused by what people had done in the previous decade- they were man made! What you do now paves the way for the 30’s. What you do in your 20’s, you’ll pay for in your 30’s. (This brought me back to the first day of my internship. The interns were told to write down their dreams, no matter how crazy they may seem. We were then told that every single decision we make can either make or break that dream, and that we should be making decisions that would get us to that point. If something wasn’t helping us get to our dream or pushing us in the right direction, then we shouldn’t be doing it. What I do in my 20’s will determine my 30’s.) Levi told us that the dust bowls were stopped by trees being planted to keep the dust from building and destroying areas and lives. This idea was called the shelter belt. The answer was in trees. God also planted a tree for us to hang our shame, sin, EVERYTHING on. It was a tree that could hold it all. It was the tree that Jesus gave His life for us on. We need that strong foundation. We need to be rooted.

We took a short break after Levi to prep for the 11 o’clock service that would bring us into the New Year. The next session started with light. Passion had gone to Jerusalem before the conference and a flame was ignited that would then travel from Jerusalem to Atlanta. This flame went from lantern to lantern throughout the arena, going with the theme of “Sharing the Light”. Then we went back into a time of worship with Sean Curran and then Hillsong United. When we got closer to midnight, a countdown appeared on the screen. But, instead of stopping to count down, we sang through it. It felt like a fresh start. And as we prayed for the broken and hurting, I looked for any feelings of brokenness from within me and I couldn’t find any. I felt complete peace. There are still things that I’m healing from, but I know that I am not broken. I know who’s in control.

As I mentioned earlier, this year of Passion really held so many reflections, many of them being through song.

The Stand, Oceans, How He Loves- Two big songs at the time that I had started attending youth group in the beginning of the decade. Seeds were being planted, there were moments pointing me towards Jesus. I wouldn’t give my life to Jesus in those times of youth, but God knew what He was doing, and here I am at the beginning of a new decade and I’m a youth leader.

O Come to the Altar & Resurrecting-Songs that my later youth group would do during times of worship. This youth group was where I found Jesus. It’s where I first realized that I wanted to do youth ministry.

Do It Again- A song that I turned to in times of big change in my life. It was a reminder that God brought me through it once and He’d continue to do so.

Build My Life- A song that we sang the first year that I attended Passion. It was my prayer. God was worthy of everything. I wanted my life to be built on His firm foundation (look at Levi talking about that same thing!!) and I wanted to fully trust Him with everything in my life.

God also showed me reflections through Cody Carnes. Cody started with Run to the Father, a reflection to Louie’s message last year at Passion, and something that I had been praying for over the past year- that I would be able to see God as a Father. After Run to the Father, Cody sang Nothing Else. I kind of just sat back and listened to the words.

“I’m caught up in Your presence

I just want to sit here at Your feet

I’m caught up in this holy moment

I never want to leave

Oh, I’m not here for blessings

Jesus, You don’t owe me anything

More than anything that You can do

I just want You

I’m sorry when I’ve just gone through the motions

I’m sorry when I just sang another song

Take me back to where we started

I open up my heart to You

I’m sorry when I’ve come with my agenda

I’m sorry when I forgot that You’re enough

Take me back to where we started

I open up my heart to You

I just want You

Nothing else, nothing else

Nothing else will do”

2019 started as a year that I went through the motions. I’d get up on stage to lead worship and I would just sing the song. But He took me back to where I had started a relationship with Him. He reminded me that He is ENOUGH. He reminded me of my calling and my value. He didn’t owe me a single thing, and yet He still gave me everything. I was thriving because of Him.

Thriving.

Around the time that Way Maker came into my life, the word Thrive also made an appearance. “Kendall, you are THRIVING!” It’s something that my cousin said to me. She may have been referring to my move, new piercings/tattoos, and hair color, but the word stuck. I wanted it to be my word for the rest of the year and for all of 2020. I know that people always say “new year, new me”, but I genuinely feel like I’ve been a “new me” since I moved out here in September. I spent so much of 2019 being depressed and distracted, but towards the end I started to step into what God had planned for me. I remember a day that I was walking down to my Gram and Pop’s house. It was the beginning of spring and I was still struggling with some pretty dark thoughts, but I remember a prayer coming out of my mouth that was obviously not from me. “God…I thank you for the beautiful weather today. Everything may look kind of dead right now, but I know that spring has only just begun.” To thrive means to prosper or to flourish! In my winter season, God was still growing me and stirring my calling back up in my heart. He knew that I had forgotten about my dream. He did thing after thing to lead me to a place that would grow me.

And here I was in this moment, fully caught up in the presence of God. The day before we flew out for Passion, I messaged my aunt about my Pop. I told her something that has helped me. Every moment I spend in worship, I spend worshiping with my Pop. And as Cody and Kari led us in worship, I thought about this. I was getting to worship with my Pop. Kari started to lead us in a beautiful song (that I’m really looking forward to her releasing soon), and as she sang, the roof to the Mercedes Benz center started to open. The light started to shine down into the stadium and wind started to flow through. Tears started to stream down my face as I thought about how this is what heaven would be like, I felt closer to God and closer to my Pop than ever before. I felt like heaven was there in that very moment, and as I thought that, Cody started to say it. “Heaven is here, Heaven is coming down on us.”

I later found out that they had tried to open the roof at a different moment, but it wouldn’t work. As Kari led this song, they were suddenly able to open and Louie gave them the go ahead. But Kari also prayed a prayer before she got on stage. She prayed that “the presence of God would feel so tangible that it would feel like it was touching our faces.” She prayed Acts 2:2 that says “suddenly there came a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” Look at God!

As I went throughout the day, God showed me a reflection of my first year at Passion. My first year there, I was distracted. I wasn’t super into worship because I was afraid of what the people around me would think. I was constantly looking around at other people. But this year? I honestly can’t tell you about the people around me. I didn’t care about how the people around me were worshiping. It didn’t matter if their hands were up or if they were moving around, etc. I was focused. I felt God telling me that my distractions were behind me, and now it’s just me focused on Him.

Louie brought the word for Night 2. Something that the video from Night 1 and Levi Lusko had mentioned was the 20’s (how could they not?). The theme that I took out of Louie’s message was the “roaring 20’s”. He talked about how the 20’s are ROARING with potential and purpose for us! And Jesus, the Lion of Judah, is ROARING through us. “It’s time again for the roaring 20’s but this time, it’s time for the Lion of the tribe of Judah to roar. And it’s time for the church to rise up in the power of the spirit of Almighty God so the world can hear the roar of King Jesus.” Louie talked about having victory in this next decade. That was something that kept sticking out to me. Victory. It was in the lyrics, it was in the messages, it was reoccurring. Almost like God was telling me “leave your defeat and your disappointment in the past, this is meant to be your decade of VICTORY.”

2019 brought lots of tears and hearthache…BUT:

• I’ve learned of a love SO true from the God of restoration!

• I’ve experienced the blessings of genuine friendships.

• I’ve learned how to truly worship and how to pray boldly!

• God has pulled back layers to HEAL me, NOT to hurt me.

• I’ve learned that I’m STRONG and I am a VICTOR! I am not my mistakes. I am not a victim to what’s happened to me. I am not a number or a weight on a scale.

• I’ve realized that just because some of my old thoughts may reappear, that does not mean that I am the person that I used to be.

• I’ve learned to focus on God and His dream for me and to not compromise that for ANYONE.

• I’ve learned that it’s SO important to speak the beauty that you see in others.

• I’ve learned that if God’s not done working, then I’m not done waiting.

I am SO excited for 2020 and for this new decade and for all of the victory that it will bring! And I am looking forward to sharing more with y’all soon!