(VIDEO) ACTIVATE(D): Erika #1 - "Mining My Heart"

Used with permission.

“I’m saved. I’m delivered. I’m healed. Jesus loves me. And that in itself is enough. The beauty of the fact that I’m saved is story enough. There don’t have to be all these other amazing ‘tadas’ that God does with me to show other people how good He is.”

I met Erika for the first time about a month ago.

Six battle-worn believers gathered to begin a journey into why we share the Gospel and how. We all found our way to the ACTIVATE(D) pilot cohort through different avenues, searching for connection with others who desire to pursue Christ ardently and join him in going after the sheep who have yet to come into his fold.

Erika came in as a warrior woman with a captivating presence, marked by vulnerability and fierce passion. I remember my very first impression of her: an immediate, visceral sense of the authority she carries. When she speaks, I instinctively quiet my inner thoughts to listen.

Erika’s life cries, “I am here to smuggle [God’s] children one by one into the Kingdom of light.” She speaks of radical deliverance, mighty acts of God, and otherwise inexplicable healing. She has seen the God who parts the seas and silences mighty storms as easily as He hurls them, and she marches forth unafraid to “kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.” But the other night on our video call, she was struck with the sweetness of her own forgiveness.

“I don’t know exactly what I expected, but, man, this experience is mining my heart…”