Keeping it real My Journey of Becoming "Normal"

So lately I have enjoyed eating healthier a diet full of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and grace and some how that has brought about some thoughts on my past I just wanted to share :))

I have discovered that there is something very liberating in loving ourselves, when we love ourselves we no longer perform or compare ourselves. Secure people can't get rejected because inside of them is an unshakable acceptance: that they chose to agree with long before a situation that challenged their self love arose.

So here is a little bit on my journey of becoming healthy. Growing up in the Midwest probably one of the least healthiest places in America I thought little about health, if ever. I mean wasn't that a class I was forced to take in school every few years. Everyone in my family was either on drugs, ate REALLY unhealthy, or smoked so it never was modeled to me on what it might be like to care about myself. A mentality of what happens happens permeated our culture. I never thought about consequences. Most of the people in my life were very careless of their words and from a very young age I felt "fat, ugly, and unwanted." I remember these emotions determining and being my identity from the beginning of elementary school. I remember thinking no one could or would ever love me and I remember intentionally doing things to isolate myself. I think a lot of people say things about more negative sub cultures things like "they are only doing this or that for attention." For me I never believe that was the case I think it was a desperation to not have an opportunity to be loved because I really didn't want to discover my inadequacies deeper. I think drugs and bulimia/anorexia was my way of disqualifying myself.

Growing up I remember being very shy, insecure, fearful, and seldom feeling loved. Hating my body and mutilating it, whether that meant burning my flesh, taking pills, drugs, starving myself, ect. From the ages of 9-16 I remember purging at least 6 days a week and becoming so freaked out with the feeling of food in my belly. So freaked out even after I got saved just crying because I couldn't handle the feeling of food.

I think even in the deepest darkest places in my life I have always wanted hope even when I truly felt there was no way out. In this season I am celebrating four years after my decision to ditch eating disorders. It was a long battle a hard one. Two or three times between then and a  year and half ago I seriously thought of going into rehab for eating disorders. Even in places of feeling loved I had a hard time feeling like I had a voice in this area of my life.

I remember being in deep encounters with God and Him pouring His love all over me and telling me how beautiful I was and how He made me and still thinking "God it's cool you feel that way but I just can't."  remember God telling me how loved, wanted, special, valuable, gifted, lovely I was and writing down what He said about me and looking in the mirror saying it over myself and crying, Crying not in a good way. Crying in a this is SO HARD way. This hurts so bad way.. weeks went by and I remember in January 2008 catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and just thinking wow i am so beautiful. I AM BEAUTIFUL.. I really can do this!! Something happened inside of me I didn't even notice. I had begun to actually start to love myself through agreeing with how God saw me. It was crazy. Confidence and security become a part of my life through who God said I was. It was so good, it was like what I believed finally agreed with what I did. I hadn't been participating in any ED stuff but finally my heart loved me!! I now look in the mirror and feel beautiful, secure loved and joyful because I see the father made me and He calls it GOOD! hahaha!!


We can't be ashamed or embarrassed to be confident to be proud of who God has made us to be. That He has made us to be wonderful and lovely!

There is something about just being around God in His presence all fears and insecurities melt off and we receive His mind and thoughts towards ourselves and the world our perspectives are shifted. It truely is indiscribible and only experience can truly do it justice. Let His love go deep experience a new level of freedom and security to be who you were made to be.

FACT

Before Bethel (a year and half ago) I consider going into rehab for bulimia and upon moving here was set free from tormenting hateful thoughts about myself

10% of college age women in America suffer from Bulimia

80% of 13 year olds have attempted to lose weight

God is so in love with you and with Him nothing is impossible.

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. -Mother Theresa

 

17 Days of Christmas Wishes

So as many of you know I will be in Redding for Christmas
here is my Christmas list I am asking Jesus for
I challenge you to ask Him for surprises as well..
He is going to rock our holiday season with Joy, Family, Laughter, and Surprises!!

1.to have an amazing Christmas with Sarah Hatch
2.make dounuts with the Harpers
3.see deaf ears open
4.dance party
5.kiss under the missletoe (probably Sarah Hatch ha)
6.box Spring
7.mission trip paid off
8.see some really cute puppies and babies
9.mega encounters with God
10.divine surprises
11. REST!!!!!!!!
12.visit a hot tub
13.drink lots of coco and green tea
14.have guests over
15.Officially Christmas Carol hahaha!!
16.have good times with Coworkers
17.time to write!!

HAVE THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER WITH SARAH HATCH <3 and Redding Family
I wish you the Best of Holidays from The Love Hut 

When I Became a Man

LOVE THIS POEM!!!!!!!! REDEMPTION!!!!!

Revival and Hot Tubs

"When we realize we are in family; we can't fail. Sucess is risk, it is doing what we have never done before knowing our father is in a GOOD MOOD and He can't help but show up when we step out in LOVE!"

Just got back a few days ago from a travel trip with Bethel.
I went with Jason Chin and a team to Ramona Ca.

I really enjoyed all of the laughs, jokes, miracles, testimonies, love encounters, spending time in the presence and soaking.. haha in a hot tub!

We started the trip with a thirteen hour drive from Redding to Ramona (outside of San Diego.)

At one point on the drive we were outside of Starbucks and Daniel one of the guys on the team was fake preaching to us three girls. Saying "Jesus is alive. He is here. He loves you He is healing a neck right now."

Right then a woman started to walk in Starbucks and was looking right at us. I asked her "Do you have a neck problum." She said yes. We released God's presence over her. She totally got healed!! This rocked me we were totally joking and still the "fake" word of knowledge was right. It just shows how easy, simple, and fun it is to partner with heaven. He really just wants to get out of us, and love the world around us!!

The Highlights:

personally stepping out in new levels of risk

experiencing family haha

riding a quad

starting some new awesome friendships

the simplicity of love and miracles

a new confidence to take risk

prayed for a man at a gas station without a leg even though I was scared.

*many neck problums healed

*a woman with 28 years of back pain in her lower back all GONE!!
*a woman who worked at a grocery store feeling God's presence for the first time

*lump disappeared on womans side no one even prayed
*legs grow out people gettting taller
*people touched through prophetic songs and art
*a man with cancer life come back into his body.. color came onto his skin. He could feel his feet and he felt as if walking on springs. A symptom of his cancer was numbness in his limbs. IT WAS ALL GONE!!! He said to me that he wants to start praying for the sick. Before he came to the meeting he had absoulutely no grid for healing or the miraculous but heard we would be able to help him so he came.. and of course PAPA showed up!!
*it was very exciting to see the church we were at get excited about praying for the sick, prophecy and treasure hunts

*people getting names and tons of clues on their treasure maps right and realizing they could her from God even though they felt they were making it up.. hahahaha!!

*it is impossible for us to step out and Him not show up!!
*had the honor of going on a treasure hunt with two 80 year olds and seeing them take risks they never before had taken.
And so many other amazing things!!


God is so in love with us.. He just wants to rock the world with His love!!! It is so easy and fun!
I challenge you to dream with God and take new risks!! But most important have FUN!!!!
hahahaha!! BAM!!!!!!! <3

Shinan This Type Love

Throughout elementary school- high school I remember writing an enormous amount, an average of eight poems a day. It was entirely natural and a way of life for me to express how i felt and a healthy outlet for me. I have always felt like someone who "has a voice" not that everyone doesn't but more like one that wont stop talking. I have decided I am going to get back into writing poetry.. and hopefully slam again in a town near you soon! This is one of my favorite slams I discovered in in the 10th grade. ENJOY!

Invitation to Dream

"Everybody wants their dreams to come true, the world is BEGGING for someone to reveal dreams coming true are possible."- Danny Silk


I remember sitting on my bed at 11 years old, thinking I would be 100% okay if I never lived to be 20. And I remember a chill went through my bones as I absolutely realized I meant it. All my dreams had died at that point and I didn't any longer felt safe to express myself or how I really felt. I had forfeited my dreams for a mentality of survival, living in a world of low self esteem, extreme depression, horrible circumstances, self hatred, and irrational fears. A LOT has changed since then.. okay EVERYTHING HAS!

 I find myself often dreaming and pondering what will the future look like, what can I bring, what do I offer , and HOW CAN I CHANGE THE WORLD!?


The distance between what should be and what will be is us and will we dare to dream?  Or will we remain satisfied with what we have? It takes a lot of courage to dream because most dreams currently appear impossible. I really believe that nothing is impossible and that God wants to see impossibilities bow to His name through partnership with us. AND I'M GIVING MY LIFE TO THAT RIGHT THERE.. that's what I want to be known for a woman who loved God with everything and lived in a way that nothing was impossible.. what do you want to be known for?

What would you do if you knew you could not fail? Or you were ten times bolder or resources were not an issue?

THINK.. those are your dreams

 Your life is meant to feed and inspire those around you.
 When we dream with God it causes a dissatisfaction with a natural life and propels us into a life of purpose.


When your dreams are coming true you are a tree of life, your eyes illuminate hope. The whole world sees it  because everyone is hungry to be fulfilled, to be doing what they were born for, to be doing what makes them come alive.


 So I keep a list of my dreams I believe I have 170 of them and I add to them and check them off as they happen here are a few that have happened since March..

 -Visit the Redwood Forest 
-Paint on stage during worship (at Bethel)
-Visit LA and San Frann
-Go to Mexico
-Hug someone and they be healed (she was blind)
-Pray for people and they be healed of cancer


 Some dreams of mine I have dreamed that have not happened yet, but will!

-Start a spontaneous dance party in public
-Open air preach in America (demonstrating God's love and power)
- People who are extremely starved  bodies get fat and entirely nourished, miraculously
-Visit Cuba 
-Travel throughout Africa
-See Africa completely redeemed the ground grow fat crops, family unit restored, creativity, ect.
-That people getting out of wheelchairs would be normal (in my life)
- Adopt beautiful and amazing kids 
-That when I shop people would fall out in God's presence and encounter Him just because He lives inside of me.
-Give away a house
-See healing recognized in the world wide church as part of the atonement.. a reformation!! hahaha!



I AM NOT GETTING OFF THIS PLANET UNTIL... CANCER and AIDS BECOMES COMPLETELY ERADICATED I just love dreaming with God and staying expectant and looking for what He does and how we can partner with Him and take risks. Living in this place of dreams and having vision in our lives are like a compass directing us where to go. Our dreams (or lack of dreams) literally steer our lives. I CHALLENGE YOU to start dreaming more with God and writing them down and looking out for how He shows up. (these are things I have been thinking about for a few years and a few of my lines were inspired by things Danny Silk has said) <3

 

Cuba {Desire fulfilled}

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

This time last year I was often seen walking around with this tall, peciular Norweigan girl who I befriended. I remember long talks and dreams. Dreaming of photography, fashion, and driving a pastel, junker car in Cuba and potentially hitting a Cuban Cigar.. okay maybe not the latter. I have never understood the American and international fascination with Cuban cigars. In those moments of expressing our dreams. I was awakened to my childhood thoughts of Cuba and young boys with the name of Elian Gonzalez. Do you remember him the illegal immigrant from Cuba? Well I do and I remember running home from school at nine years old to hear about him, communism, and what kind of country I would grow up into. During this time something inside f me burned to see his culture transformed and I didn't understand that fire burning in my chest at all.. now I can a bit.. here it is..  read this letter I recently wrote.

Dear Friends and Family,

Wow, Jesus is Amazing!  It seems He is always looking for opportunities to partner with us to show His miraculous intervention into the everyday world around us. Here are a few things that have happened recently in my life. Just this week, at church during Baptisms a blind man  Sunday was getting baptized and as he got up from the water he could see figures which then progressed to him reading signs and seeing clearly!!! Wow, that is good news! He loves us!!! Also, this week at the healing rooms, a man who was completely paralyzed got up out of his wheel chair laughing and full of joy walked for like 20 minutes around the room with assistance. We just laughed with him as he continued to get more and more breakthrough! It has become extremely normal to see people radically touched by God in public, encountering his love, being radically healed, rocked with His joy, or saved.  Every day I am reminded why I am alive, to love God and love the world around me!

As many of you know I am in my second year of Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry and God is doing many awesome things in my life! I am writing to share with you about the opportunity I have to go to CUBA on a mission trip. Our goal is to rise up leaders in Cuba who will influence their nation from within their country with Kingdom core values, love, and the power of God. I wanted to let you know about all the exciting things God is doing in Cuba and also partner with you to see your own breakthroughs! I am praying that God's love and goodness would be rocking your worlds daily, that God would change your world and the world through you!

This is the first time Bethel has taken a team into Cuba, but we have some very strong connections with some of the national church leaders.  Our main objective will be the implementation of two healing schools, one on each side of the island.  Each school will serve as many as 400 pastors, equipping them with tools to impact their areas of influence. During the evenings these schools will be open to the public.  It is believed that as many as 1000 people will come to these evening conferences to be trained in signs and wonders. We will also spend some time doing ministry on the streets and within the communities.  This is an amazing opportunity, and we are expecting God to do AMAZING things that will LITERALLY change Cuba's history. We are expecting blind eyes to open, lame people to take their first steps, dead to raise, many people to start walking in miracles, and of course everyone’s lives who we encounter to be transformed by God's great love and His unspeakable joy! "IT IS TIME FOR CUBA TO BEGIN TO MOVE IN SIGNS AND WONDERS AGAIN!"

 I am very excited about what God is going to do in Cuba not only the time we’re there but in history. Cuba is definitely shifting and changing in a very good way. Please partner with me in dreaming and praying for Cuba. If you would like to give to what God is doing in Cuba, financial gifts may be made online at ibssm.org. Click give to a mission trip, then type in Naomi West, and fill out your card info. This gift is tax-deductible and you will receive a statement at the end of the year for your tax records. If you wish your gift to be anonymous, please check the anonymous box. This will allow you to receive an end of year statement, but will not allow the student to see your name.

(If online payment is not an option, donations can be mailed to Bethel Church Attn: Bethel International 933 College View Dr. Redding, CA 96003. With my name on a paper enclosed

 with your tax-deductable  gift)

Thank you so much for being a part of my life!! I am so thankful and grateful to know you. I would also love to get an update about what is going on in your life and how I can pray for you. My trip dates are March 26- April 7th, I look forward to telling you all the amazing things that you helped make happen and about God’s provision for this trip. My trip payments are $1,250 due January 6^th and $1,000 due February 18^th. Thank you so much for partnering with my team and I in prayer and support!

Even though we’re separated by the miles, it’s really important to me to keep in touch with you!  Feel free to send me an email at naomigracewest@yahoo.com I pray that the life changing power of Jesus invades your life and sends encouragement, joy, and hope your way today. I’ll keep you updated on what God is doing in my life and would love to hear what’s going on in yours as well. Thank you so much.

Sending my love,
Naomi Grace West