From Death to Life with Melissa

Melissa grew up in a loving family, but did not have a base foundation in Jesus Christ. She looked for love an acceptance through sex instead of a relationship with the Lord, and found herself at the young age of 19 facing an abortion and its numbing after effects. Later, after an encounter with Jesus, Melissa gave her life to God and began the process of post-abortion healing with other likeminded women. Today Melissa is walking in freedom from shame and guilt, and with the Holy Spirit is helping to lead other women to freedom and life through HRL (His Redeeming Love) Ministry. Have you read my memoir, Healing Wings, by Natalie Sherwood? If not, go grab a copy on Amazon today CLICK HERE to walk along side my healing journey from Guillain-Barre' Syndrome. You will hear much more than a recovery story and see the hand of God in my life and yours today. I also have a marriage workbook called The Mission of Marriage CLICK HERE that can help you and your spouse either reconnect or connect for the first time. Dive deep into the mystery of WHO your spouse is and what makes them tick. Want to get your very own Young Living Essential Oils? CLICK HERE and grab yourself some of my favorites like Lavander, Thieves, Frankincense, and Lemon. Honestly, I have so many favorites it can be hard to choose.

Dream: Freedoms Lost and Restored (2019)

I had this dream back on September 15, 2019. At that time this dream was shared with multiple churches and key family members and friends. Today I share this dream with the entire body of Christ in order to spur us on toward prayer, and bring hope in what people and fellow believers may see going on around them in the world today. This dream specifically speaks about freedom in the United States of America being lost and restored through unity and prayer. Have you read my memoir, Healing Wings, by Natalie Sherwood? If not, go grab a copy on Amazon today CLICK HERE to walk along side my healing journey from Guillain-Barre' Syndrome. You will hear much more than a recovery story and see the hand of God in my life and yours today. I also have a marriage workbook called The Mission of Marriage CLICK HERE that can help you and your spouse either reconnect or connect for the first time. Dive deep into the mystery of WHO your spouse is and what makes them tick. Want to get your very own Young Living Essential Oils? CLICK HERE and grab yourself some of my favorites like Lavander, Thieves, Frankincense, and Lemon. Honestly, I have so many favorites it can be hard to choose.

Healing Wings - a memoir; The Writing Process, and Order Today

 It is finally here...Healing Wings!  

After many years of arguing with God and telling Him that I would not be writing a memoir about surviving Guillain-Barre' syndrome, He finally won.  

I knew in my heart that I was suppose to put pen to paper and tell the details of my deathbed experience, and the hope and miracles that abounded during that time, but there were just two problems.  One, I HATED writing.  That is not an understatement; writing was my nemesis.  Moving words from brain to paper was extremely difficult for me -- my former English teachers Lori Kerr and Beverly Still can attest to that.  Yet, with the Holy Spirit and having lived the ordeal myself, this book practically wrote itself.  Two, although I was able to verbally tell people my testimony about the horrors of Guillain-Barre', sifting through the emotions to relive and tell the story on paper was an entirely different experience.  To put it mildly, it was a painful process.

I have had dozens, if not hundreds, of people tell me that I needed to write a book about my journey.  I nodded, smiled, and said, "Maybe one day."  That is until I met Ashley Soden.  Ashley was in my life weekly for our children's home-school co-op, and we immediately hit it off as friends.  Ashley was a writer.  One day I told her part of my testimony of being healed from Guillain-Barre and she said those famous words, "You should write a book."  I looked Ashley straight in the eye and said, "I know!  God has told me to write a book, but I've been running from Him in that area.  Will you help me?"  Ashley agreed to help me, and every single week for the next year she would ask me, "Have you started writing your book yet?"  And I would say, "No, not yet."

On August 18, 2017, after I tucked my children in to bed, I sat down at my computer and began typing.  That was the evening of my 37th birthday.  The next morning I let Ashley know that I had started my book, and would not stop until it was finished.  

I didn't know then (August 2017) that we would have a world wide pandemic at the time of my book release.  It never crossed my mind that we would be having the roll-out of a new vaccination during my book release.  The timing was not planned by me, but I do believe God's timing is always perfect.  My memoir is based on my journey through Guillain-Barre, which in my case was caused by a vaccine injury, but this is not an anti-vaccine book.  The cause of my syndrome is mentioned, and not harped on in these pages.  I believe all vaccines (along with other life altering decisions such as surgeries, medications, marriage...) should be taken before the Lord in prayer and each person and family should ultimately obey God in those decisions.  Having said that, I will say that Guillain-Barre' is listed as one of the first side effects on almost all vaccines, including the newest one being released, so this book could lend an ear to anyone that wants to know what on earth that side effect is or could look like in real life, or give hope to anyone that does suffer from Guillain-Barre' or other vaccine injuries or any long term illness.  

It took me 3 years to write and rewrite my manuscript.  With my first draft I wrote during the night after the kids were asleep, and would weep heavy wracking sobs as I relived every moment and emotion.  That first draft took quite a long time to complete as I would take weeks off at a time to allow myself to heal emotionally when writing a particularly difficult chapter.  

During the second draft I only cried during the truly brutal parts of my journey.  

There were no more tears during the revisions and edits beyond the second draft.  I felt free from the pain that I had apparently held without realizing it was even there.  

Once my manuscript was complete it took another 5 months to have it professionally edited, proofread, formatted, cover designed, and all those details that go into turning a manuscript into a book.  I had no idea what I was doing, so I called in the "big guns" in the form of my dear friend Kiersten Oliphant; a fellow author.  She gave me the skinny on how to self publish, and I muddled through until I had a product that hopefully shines.

Watch one of my book trailers here:

Pick up Healing Wings - a memoir on Amazon in either paperback, Kindle, or Kindle Unlimited format, and feel free to share it with family, friends, ministries, small groups, long term illness groups, libraries, hospitals, birth centers, or anyone else you believe would benefit from a story of ultimate hope and healing.

Click HERE to order.

PS - don't forget to leave an Amazon review once you've read the book.  Leave comments below, I'd love to hear from you.

Freedoms Lost and Restored

 For lack of a better title I called this dream: Freedoms Lost and Restored

I had this dream just over 1-year ago on the night of September 15 / morning of September 16, 2019.  I have shared this dream with a handful of people over the last year, and they can vouch for the fact that I had it BEFORE this election and the time we are currently in.  

I tend to lean toward this dreaming being for now, but as I do not know the future it could certainly be for another time.  Time will tell, or you can feel free to ask God yourself.

 Setting:

A beautiful white sand and blue water beach on the shores of the USA.

 Dream:

As this dream begins I am standing alone on the beautiful white sands of a beach somewhere on the shores of the USA.  I can see the crystal blue water, feel the soft gentle breeze and even taste the slightly salty air.  It is pristine and peaceful. 

 As I stand there I begin to look around and notice very specific items dotted around the beach.  The first thing I see is the Bible lying on the sand.  Then I see the American flag.  As I look more I see prayer, then the Ten Commandments, marriage, food, money, homes, jobs, the justice system, law and order, and the white house. 

 As I spy each new object I realize two things.  One, these are our freedoms; and mostly freedoms that we take for granted like food and prayer.  Two, these freedoms had been gathered and placed in this one location.

 While making these observations I begin to notice other believers popping up all over the beach with me, and each of them had the same bewildered expression on their faces as to say, “Why have our freedoms been gathered here?”  There were hundreds (maybe thousands) of believers dropped onto this beach at this same place and time.

 While we were all standing, pondering and observing the waters began to rise like a high tide and covered all of the freedoms set about on the sand.  The water rose until every last freedom was under the water, but as we stood on the sand above we could still see our freedoms just under the surface of the clear blue water.

 Then a thick, putrid, oily sludge began to move across the waters starting from the horizon line as far as the eye could see and moving toward the shore.  This foul smelling toxic sludge was thick and sticky and moved to the shore to cover every drop of water, quickly burying our freedoms under it until they could no longer be seen or felt.

 The believers gathered there on the shore began to weep, mourn, wail and cry out to the Lord in deep groaning prayers to restore our freedoms to us.  We cried out in unison as one loud wailing voice of a mother that had lost her child, full of grief.

 While the believers were falling to their knees weeping and praying, a riotous mob formed in the distance on the dry land behind us.  They were screaming and uttering foul and diabolical threats while charging toward us to kill us and make us stop praying.  As they ran toward us in one evil accord the large hand of God slammed down in front of them creating a wall between them and us.

 We were unmoved and continued to battle in prayer on our knees.  The more fervent and united we became the more I saw what looked like a sweet smelling incense rise off of us into the heavenlies above. 

 Once this fragrance reached a thick cloud a strong, fresh wind began to blow across the face of the water.  The wind pushed away every last speck of that thick putrid sludge and restored the beautiful beach and clear waters.  The wind also brought the water level back to normal and exposed our once hidden freedoms. 

 We praised and thanked the Lord that our freedoms had been restored, but then I had a deep internal knowing that the restoration of those freedoms was temporary.

 

The dream ended.

To me, this is a call to prayer right now.  Believers, call out to God for our freedoms to remain on earth as it is in Heaven.  

Surrender

Today we spoke openly about Surrender.

Each and every one of us surrenders to something; or rather someOne.

1. We either surrender to our-self; doing what we choose and consider alright within our own moral (or immoral) boundaries.

2.  We surrender to the Lord; doing what He wants us to do, and living by His standard of morality.

Oftentimes, I find it particularly easy to surrender to my Lord in certain areas of my life which can lead to me (or others) thinking I have it all together while still clinging to other areas of my life where I want to maintain my delusional modicum of control.

Surrendering only portions of myself or my life to the Lord is not surrender, but rather a pick-and-choose buffet.  Taking what I want and leaving the rest.  It is choosing what is 'comfortable' and 'easy' and leaving the other social norms to be dealt with at a later time, or simply to be swept under the rug to hopefully never surface again.  But that is just hiding sin, not submitting to the one that can break the chains that hold me down.

Galatians 5:19-21 says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries and the like..."

I don't know about you, but it's pretty easy to see that adultery and murder are wrong, but 'outbursts of wrath', 'selfish ambitions', 'jealousy' and 'envy' are things that I have struggled with at least once in my past, and more-likely something that I would rather allow to harbor and stew inside of me instead of laying them down before the throne of Jesus.  Laying down those seemingly petty issues is actually an act of sacrifice that leads to freedom.  We are in essence giving God the permission to do what He may in any given situation instead of taking the judge and jury all upon ourselves and enacting limited and pitiful judgement.

I listened today as a man told of how alcoholism was his father's vice, and something that he refused to surrender to the Lord.  The consequences of his lack of surrender was a horrible and slow death where he slowly bled out of every orifice of his body until he finally perished.

Can you imagine giving up your life in that fashion where you actually chose that death?  No, he didn't want to die that way, but choosing to NOT surrender his alcoholism to the Lord was a long therm choice to die a slow and painful death.

If that is what a man's choice to continue in alcoholism can do in the flesh, in the body; then what more can that same lack of surrender do in the spirit?

Jealousies listed above in Galatians 5 can also lead to a slow and painful death.  Maybe not like the one I just mentioned, but still just as painful where the soul of the person clinging to their jealous ways becomes embittered and twisted until that is all they can see.  Where relationships are ripped apart, and even their love of the Lord can be thrown away.  All leading to a lonely and painful life where everyone else is to blame except yourself.

How many other ways can we trap ourselves by choosing what we want instead of what the Lord has for us?

Are you hemorrhaging physically or spiritually?

Who are you when you are alone?

Do your reactions to circumstances reflect the Lord, or show what is really hiding inside your heart?

The other option is to Surrender to the Lord.

This is not always an easy step, but it does get easier the more we do it, and it is the step that leads us to true lasting freedom and fulfillment.

Galatians 5 goes on to say, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..."

These things may not be easy to obtain, but once you (and I) surrender to the Lord and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit these things not only become obtainable, but flow through us with a full measure of grace and joy.

My husband had a dream the other night that I feel describes this freedom in surrender.

'A man appeared in his dream and wanted to do him harm, so he began to wrestle with this stranger.  The wrestling was long and difficult and seemed to never want to end.  The longer the two men wrestled together the stranger began oozing slime out of his very being.  That slime was thick, sticky and slippery, like a toxic sludge.  The strangers slime began to surround both men as they wrestled.  My husband wanted to give up, but felt it was important to keep going and finish the struggle that had begun even though he was now covered in this strangers trappings.  As time went on my husband won the wrestling match and the stranger was SAVED!'

Who or what are you wrestling against today?

Is it dirty and messy?

Does there seem to be no end in sight?

Don't give up!  Keep fighting and wrestling to win the fight that has begun.  Surrender All and Call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ...solicit Him to fight your battles for you and with you so that salvation from the battle, victory from the war can be won.

His plan is perfect and we can fully trust Him.