Hallstrom Heart & Home
How The Lord Sees You When You Pray
One morning, during a particularly hard season of our lives, my son woke up early. He was teething at the time, and in pain. I went in to get him and noticed he was still really tired and I thought, "If I bring him to bed with me, I bet he'll fall asleep again."
I brought him to bed and within a few minutes he had completely fallen asleep on me. I started scrolling through my phone and opened up YouTube. The first video that popped up was a sermon, and I clicked on it. I had been listening to the sermon for 15 minutes or so when the pastor shared a story of something that happened with his daughter. She had lost something and they couldn't find it, and the pastor was going to give up on the search when the Lord said to him, "are you willing to let this go?"
In that moment, something that I had been praying about for months bubbled to the surface of my heart and I said to the Lord, "I'm not willing to let this go." And then in my heart I screamed to Jesus, "I won't let this go!"
As I spoke, I was suddenly transported in the Spirit to heaven. In the vision, I was looking at myself through the eyes of someone else, and I could see myself standing before the throne of God.
I was wearing a crown of gold, dressed in silk finery with slippers of silk on my feet. The floor I was standing on was made of pure gold. As I looked at myself, dressed as a princess in the courts of heaven standing before the throne of God, I realized this is how God sees me when I pray. He sees me as His daughter, His princess, His child dressed like royalty.
As I watched myself through the eyes of another, a boldness filled me that I hadn't had before, and I said to the Lord, "Father, I'm not willing to let this go! I'm not willing to give up on this dream You have given me!" As I said those words I was suddenly in my own body, dressed in finery, looking up at the throne.
I knew I had a crown of gold on my head, but I didn't feel the weight of it. I looked down at the slippers on my feet, they fit perfectly. I stood on solid gold, and the steps before me were made of pure gold. I looked up at the throne of gold and it was completely shrouded in white light, yet I could discern through the light that the Father had a shape. My natural eyes couldn't see His figure, but my spiritual senses understood He had a form.
I looked up at the throne and I said to my Father, "Lord, I will not give up this dream You have given me. I will stand and I will fight. If I have to fight for years I will!"
As I spoke, I discerned in the Spirit that the Lord shifted His weight and leaned forward to hear me better. He cared about what I was saying. He desired to hear me. He wanted me to know that He desires and yearns to hear from His children. He wants us to come into His presence! He wants us to pray, to talk to Him. He cares about what we have to say!
I lifted my left hand in the air, and as I did I noticed my arm was covered in gold bracelets of different thicknesses, and there were many of them. My vision ended with me staring at these bracelets, and I knew it was significant but I didn't know why.
And then I was back in my body. The sermon was still playing in my headphones and my son lay on my chest completely asleep.
The Gold Bracelets
I mulled these bracelets from the vision over and over in my mind throughout the entire day. I asked the Lord, "what does this mean? What is the significance of the bracelets?"
As I was in the middle of asking the Father the next morning, a full 24 hours after I received this vision, suddenly God gave me a picture of a tree trunk. He showed me how the tree trunk has rings for each year, each growing season, and each ring shows the type of conditions that happened during that growing season.
As He revealed this picture of a tree trunk and what it means for a tree, the Holy Spirit then explained to my heart, "each bracelet represents hard experiences and challenges in your life. The harder the experience, the thicker the bracelet. When you give your hardships to the Lord, He spins them into fine gold, and they adorn you."
I immediately understood this to mean that every thing we go through has a purpose. Pain has a purpose in the kingdom of heaven. When you experience something extremely challenging, and you invite Jesus into your pain and hardship and walk that journey with Him, He shapes you and molds you and changes you until you are refined like gold. Your character becomes more stately and polished. And you come out of the challenging season with far greater patience and perseverance, strength and determination, beauty and loveliness. You end up walking taller and more assured of who you are, because you are more assured of who Christ is in you. It's a difficult process, with a worthwhile end.
The Lord explained this all to my heart, but what He also wanted me to know is this: He knows everything that we have gone through and our difficulties are not cast aside. He ensures that we are adorned with our hardships, that we are rewarded for walking through painful trials with Him. He doesn't cast aside our tough seasons, instead He gives them places of honor and we wear them as a badge. How beautiful is that? How wonderful is our God?
You Are Royalty
When you pray, this is how the Lord sees you. You are dressed in finery. You are crowned with gold and standing in a throne room. The Lord moves forward to hear you. He desires to commune with you, to be near you, to have you ask Him questions and be with Him. He desires your presence!
Therefore let us [with privilege] approach the throne of grace
[that is, the throne of God’s gracious favor] with confidence and without fear,
so that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find [His amazing] grace
to help in time of need [an appropriate blessing, coming just at the right moment].
Hebrews 4:16
Come with boldness. Come with expectancy. When you mess up, don't cower and fear and hide from the Lord, but instead enter into the throne room with confidence knowing that His grace flows freely for you. There is nothing that can separate you from His amazing love for you - for Jesus has bought you with a price and placed a crown of righteousness on your head. "Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing." (2 Timothy 4:8)
If you have given your life to Jesus, and loved His appearing, then you have this crown on your head. The Greek word for appearing is epiphaneia - it's where we get our English word epiphany. It's the idea of suddenly receiving a great revelation or realization. This is the moment when you surrendered your life to Christ, and received Him as your Savior. This is the moment in which you realized your need for Him to save you from yourself. At that moment, you loved Jesus and His appearing in your life, and a crown was laid up for you in heaven. This is the crown of righteousness which Jesus bought with His precious blood, and the Lord will bestow to you on that day.
But today, today when you come to the Lord with your prayers, your tears, your angry screams and every word spoken to Him, you come into the throne room dressed in finery with the softest shoes on your feet, and a gold crown on your head. You come dressed as royalty for you are royalty.
Be bold. Be courageous. Be brave. Pray. Your Father loves to hear your voice.
With joy,
Jessica
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