Created by: Leanne Collins-Scott

I attended a Shut-In with a Group of Ladies this past Friday, Presented by Pausing With God, a ministry ran by a Good Friend of mine Sheri Powell. This was an awesome night of Prayer and Ministering! Sheri came prepared with notes of preparation but even she did not know how God was going to move!

All the Ladies had not arrived yet and God was already beginning to confirm his agenda. We learned that night while sitting at the King's feet how important it is to just that! To stop all that we are doing and "PAUSE, with God. Those good acts of service are robbing us! We need to PAUSE and allow him to serve and minister to us! Allow him to clean our basement, our bathroom and even our attics! If we are so busy doing and doing and doing there is no time for him to meet us where him need him at! That could your past hurts, you hang-ups! addictions! Stop being Martha with an offended soul, a broken heart or a wounded Little girl Spirit in a grown body and sit at your Father's Feet and Heal! Then climb up in his lap and learn who HE is as God YOUR FATHER!

One of the ladies that attended posted on a blog this question, How can you know God as Father is you had no Earthly example? She understood serving God as a King! But how does she relate to him as God her Father? I responded to her, that knowing that God had formed her in Mother's womb, knowing the number of hairs on her head and creating one with a purpose and destiny where all forms of Intimacy! Intimacy, In to me see! Who can see into you and know you better that one who created you!

Other Lessons Learned:

You may be called to Ministry but if you are not delivered from that AREA (Example: called to minister to recovering sex addicts but you are still struggling yourself) you will targeted by Satan because you are week.
Prioritize Your Time Wisely.
Fear is a Lack of Faith: If God called YOU, He will EQUIP you! Launch it to the DEEP!


Scripture Reference:

This past Friday I was blessed to Shut IN with some very special ladies. Ladies willing to let God use their gifts,their hearts and their experiences with God. As we where praying and worshiping our way through the night one of the Ladies came up to give her testimony. Her testimony was one of a past of drug use, prostitution and low self-esteem. She had sank so low she found her self behind bars. This would be her time to discover truth! The truth that she was created for a purpose. That there was purpose behind her pain and that she was loved. Her story of recovery continues. As she brought her testimony to an end I could feel the tears welling up inside myself. My spirit was witness with hers.

I had also spent a season of my life giving myself away to men for a love I could not find and for NO MONEY. I too once used drugs. I too was not fit to raise my children even though I was saved from that disgrace. This was a new experience for me. This was the first time, as tears flowed down my face, that I publicly admitted to what I had been saved from! I had written it down but never had the courage to speak it out loud! Finally the shame and worrying about what others might think or say was gone!

One of ladies thanked us for our willingness to share, she said we where RENOVATED WOMEN! I like the sound of that! I have been RENOVATED by a Savior that has at all points been tempted as I have been. I am Saved by a Savior that knew what I WOULD DO before I did it and chose me anyway! Is there anything that needs to be RENOVATED in your Life?

As the evening continued on till the morning we all witnessed the power of the HOLY SPIRIT! We experienced a Night with the King! We where encouraged to have a fighting faith that takes it by force! And we where asked, "What is that one thing you have been waiting for God to do because He is here!"

For me, I had been asking for a wall to fall down that was preventing me from ministering as effective as I could. I believe my prayer was answered. I had been asking for direction, I believe direction was given! God is up to something!

Thanks for reading!

~Leanne

When I was six, my parents divorced and my daddy, and everything he was to me, left. My life was shattered and my heart was broken. I was daddy's baby girl, his “Pumpkin Eater.” After this, I experienced many harsh realities and incidents that changed my life forever. I grew up wondering if love was even real.

I was taught that I had to perform to receive love. I had to do things to make some happy or walk and talk like a puppet that doesn't have control of its own strings! I began to lose the innocence of my heart, which was becoming hard and closed. I grew up wearing different masks, showing just what I thought each person wanted me to be. I scarcely allowed a tad of the “real me” to come out and then, it was only when I felt I was safe.

By the time I was an adult I was alone and lost!

Bill and I had been married four years by the time I realized I was one messed-up girl. I went into our marriage performing for Bill just as I did as a child, thinking this would secure his love for me! This didn’t work because I couldn't be real. I didn't know how to be Cherie; I didn't even know who she was. I wouldn’t allow myself to feel an emotion, especially when it counted the most: loving my husband. Love is the core of who we are! Good or bad, love is at the core of who we become.

I was tired and lost. Emotionally I didn't know up from down, who I was, or what I liked. I didn't just lie to everyone close to me, I lied to myself. I didn't even fully love Bill. I liked him more than anyone in my life, but didn't know how to love him. Something had to give because I was making Bill and myself miserable.

In the summer of 1997 I gave my life to God. Within a few days of my salvation, God began to teach me about letting go and trusting Him. I decided to test the waters by opening my heart one area at a time. I was so surprised that I even allowed this to happen because I guarded my heart so closely. I read the scripture that God loves me more than the sands on the beaches. I thought to myself, “That's a lot of sand, Cherie.” It took a long time to let go and let God break down my walls--walls that I had spent the majority of my life building. But even with all the rocky roads, we were on our way! :)



For those of you who have been with me from the beginning of this ministry you know and have witnessed the changes God is doing within me. I love freely now and my marriage is healthy. I have even let myself fall in love with Bill--my husband--the man God chose for me! I have learned to love Bill and others in my life unconditionally.

"See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." Isaiah 49:16

If any of this resonates in your heart and spirit please know that God loves you regardless of the fact that you didn't know how to love Him in return or how to accept His love.

Cherie ♥

If any of you have read the main SALT Facebook Page posts recently you would have seen that I have been given blessings to add the names and links from the Pastors who govern the Bible College that attended in Martinez, GA. I am very excited about this. Why would this matter to me, you may ask.

SALT Ministries purpose has been about Healing the Hearts of Women. Calvary Deliverance Evangelistic Church is were my healing began from some very bad choices that I had made in my past.

I wanted to give honor were honor was due. Pastor Brenda preached a message about taking back what the devil stole. Through God ministering to me through her teaching I indeed began to take back what the devil had stolen from me.

Last week I took at a look at the spiritual realm, of whom God is the Most High. My key scripture passage was Colossians 1:15 &16. I made the observation that the Church of Jesus Christ in the Western world seldom confronts or even addresses that there are spirits, all of whom move counter to our purpose to pursuit the Most High, God Almighty. I asked three questions.

1. What do we do with those invisible "thrones or powers or rules or authorities"? (referencing the key scripture passage.)
2. What is it to be Children of the Most High?
   
3. What does it mean to worship Him (God, Most High) in spirit and in truth?

1 John 4:16 "We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." (NASB)