How We Ended Up in Redding, CA

The Lord can heal me anywhere, and open up opportunities anywhere at any time. However, for this season in my life, God called me out of my everyday norms and asked me to take a new adventure with him to a place I had never been before, where he is establishing something great inside of me. In my previous posts I wrote about how I had spent the past 3 years encountering the Lord and exploring the Spirit realm daily in my closet. I learned in three years what some people never find out in a life time. To some people this may sound too fictional, too easy, too unrealistic, but when you encounter the Lord, and experience his nature, his kindness, love, gentleness, he holds up a mirror and shocks you with how beautifully he created you.  You begin to see who you really are. You are his child and you look just like him. All the weaknesses and failures mean absolutely nothing. I began to see a glimpse of my true core, my innocence that was stolen from me as a child was beginning to be restored. The pain and the shame of my past were in the beginning stages of being washed away and forgotten and what was beginning to be uncovered and revealed to me was my value and sense of worth. It was as if the long adventure we explored on the inside was now being tested and proven true on the outside. Now he was asking me to go on a geographical adventure so he could finish the work he began in healing my soul, my body and my heart.

The newest adventure I am on with Holy Spirit, is one where he asked me to move from Atlanta, Georgia, across the USA, to a little place called Redding, California. Today, I will share with you what this trip is about and how the Lord encountered me asking me to come out here. I’m not sure God needed to encounter me as many times as he did or the way he did in order to convince me to move out here. By nature, I am already a curious and adventurous type of being, but I really think he pulled me out of my body and profoundly encountered me so many times so that I understood the weight and cost of what he was asking me to do. I needed to be anchored within to the reassurance that I was to stay as long as he needed me to be out here, no matter how difficult it was.

In all honesty, this has not be a cushy, easy time for me this has been one of the hardest things I ever said yes to. Coming out here I was physically spent. I have battled narcolepsy my entire life. Waking up daily feeling like I had never slept at all. I was on an illegal dose of stimulants just to function and now it was all crashing down on me. Before coming out here, I knew I did not have much longer to live my major organs were starting to fail me, my mind could hardly grasp thoughts or remember what I had just done 2 seconds ago or keep up with everything going on around me, but I knew I would be healed on this trip not just physically but emotionally. Everything happened so quickly after I had encountered the Lord,  I sold everything I could within a 2 week period, and moved across the country with my 3 year old, where I knew no one. I had a few hundred dollars in my pocket, no bank account, no credit card, no car, and no real solid plan or place to live. Needless to say, things got rocky real quick but that’s when I learned how close God is to me. The Lord had told me before this trip, “Fear is the opposite of love, but if you walk through it, you will find love.” During my time here, I have had to confront fear after fear of my own. This was something I learned how to do internally over years of time with the Lord alone but never had I experienced facing all these outward fears in a physical sense and having to take courage and process them internally as I walked right into some of the most uncomfortable, humbling circumstances. I have been stretched beyond my limits, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and I have been in situations where I knew if I had chosen to agree with fear on the inside, I would have ended up defeated on the outside. I have been in situation after situation where the only answer left was a miracle in order for me and Skye to survive. Despite all the discomfort along the way, I have gotten to know the goodness and kindness of the Lord for myself. The best part, has not been the trail of miracles that has accompanied us the entire way, but the experience of getting to really know the heart of the Father and how real and responsive he is every moment of my existence. I knew this trip was going to be challenging, but not to the extent of discomfort that it really has been. I’ve been hungry, angry, cold, exhausted, irritable, unsure of what was next, afraid, but a deep peace accompanied me here and won’t leave and I know I will be more than okay.

The Lord very creatively worked on me getting here way before I was aware of what was going on. He had given me 5 bold dreams over the past years, where I woke up body buzzed with his presence. Meaning, my entire body felt like it was radiating and circulating with bliss and love. The dreams were vivid and specific and I knew they were from God so I wrote them down. The most profound dream I had was 5 months prior to me saying yes to this trip. I wrote about this dream in my blog about how God healed me from Narcolepsy. That dream I awoke from I did not realize was literal, but in it he revealed to me he would heal me from Narcolepsy during my trip here.

The dreams were a side note compared to how the Lord got my attention over this past summer, 2017. During July 2017, a revival broke out in Atlanta and the surrounding cities. This continued going on for weeks and the presence of the Lord was so intense, and so tangible. There were 4 nights in particular where my entire being was so overwhelmed by the bliss of God that I literally left my physical body and encountered him in heaven. The feeling of being overwhelmed by God is more euphoric and encompassing than any drug I have ever tried and more loving and gentle than any connection I have ever felt with any being. I was so overwhelmed with this current of love I couldn’t stand, I was on the floor. I will never forget every time this has happened to me, everything gets so quiet.  All the sounds around me of all the people talking fade and sound so far away. I don’t know if this is a good description or not but it’s like putting your ear up to a conk shell, it’s similar to that distortion of sound.  There was this stillness surrounding me and this warmth of love wrapped around my entire being. Each time this happened, God would begin speaking to me really loudly and clearly and I would see things in heaven I had never seen before while he was speaking to me.

The first night this happened, he began talking to me briefly about some things that were happening in my life at the time. He ended the conversation with, “In one week from today, you will know where I want you to go.” I came back into my body thinking, what does that mean? I had forgotten about it and exactly one week later during the revival, I was knocked out again, I couldn’t move my body, I just laid there and again the sounds around me got really quiet and far away and I was somewhere else with waterfalls and clouds and Jesus. This time God said, “This is a time of art for you. You will learn the art of love. I want you to go to Redding, CA, and I will teach you the art of love…” He went on, speaking to me for a long time about what some of that would look like.

About 2 weeks later, this happened again, and this time, as soon as my head hit the floor, I saw these angels standing on either side of my view. They were blowing gold long horns that looked like trumpets but old ones. As I looked straight ahead, Jesus was standing there holding a large open scroll right in front of me. It looked like he was holding it against a tree. I tried to read it but I couldn’t make out what it said but there was an understanding that it had something to do with what he was asking me to do. Right as I was about to ask him what was on the scroll, I heard God’s voice loudly and boldly and he said to me, “Katherine, it’s time for you to step into your destiny. I want you to pack your bags and move to Redding. I want you to go to Bethel Church and I will heal you and teach you many things.” Then I saw God from a distance. He was in the form of a transparent man. An older man with a big belly, white hair and a white beard, standing on a cloud a short distance from my view. He looked almost like Santa Clause except he had this royal robe on that a king would wear, the colors were so rich. His robe was red velvet and it was embroidered in this thick gold silk rope material. His crown was gold with beautiful deep colored jewels in it. He was standing on a cloud holding this scroll, it was really long. It rolled off the cloud and went down for miles and miles and miles, I looked down and couldn’t see the end of it. I was standing a good distance from him like 100 yards and I said to him in my spirit, “Father, what is on the scroll?” He said, “These are all the things I have planned for you to do on the earth. And you will do them all.” Then he got quiet for a long time.

In the silence, everything really began settling inside of me like, oh this is for real, he really wants me to go. My thoughts felt like they were moving a million miles an hour and I began anxiously bombarding him with questions. I could see a faint image of his transparent face made of gold light with this huge beaming smile and I could hear the smile in his voice as he gently answered all of my questions. One of my first questions was, “Lord, how am I going to get there? How am I going to have the money to do this?” He said “Katherine, if you step out in faith and do this, I will do a financial miracle for you. I don’t want you working while you are there. I want you to learn how to trust me.” I continued with question after question until I didn’t have anymore in the moment. Then everything went quiet again and I saw this blinding bright light. In an instant, everything I was seeing was swallowed up in the light and completely vanished. I was back to seeing my dark eyelids. I opened my eyes. My whole body was buzzing with euphoria, my eyes were squinted from this current circulating through me. I felt so light and blissful. I sat up on the floor for a moment in this weird daze, all I could do was stare at the floor as my mind was trying to process everything that had just happened. My whole body felt like energized jello.

Not too long after that encounter, I went to an early service at Bethel Church in Atlanta. I was standing there with my eyes closed as the worship band was playing, and I just kept saying Lord, pull me deeper, I just want to get so lost in you that it feels like only you and me are in the room. I kept saying that over and over. The Lord then quietly spoke to me and said, “Do you know what your destiny is?” I said, “What is my destiny Jesus?” He said, “Your destiny is to be one with me.” And when he said this, I was so overwhelmed with him, it was like he breathed his breath into my lungs for the first time. I was so captivated by him and again my entire being was overwhelmed with the euphoria of his presence. Worship came to an end, but I couldn’t stop. I was in this place with the Lord that was so deep. I could hardly open my eyes and I could hardly walk straight and stumbled over and sat in a chair. I sat down and the rest of the time I was there, I could not open my eyes, my head just rocked back and forth as I was so so deep, so far away from reality in what was like a trance like state. I remember seeing the most beautiful swirls and currents and pieces of heaven as I was having a conversation with him. He said to me, “I really want you to go to Redding, I have so much for you there, but it is your choice.” I could faintly hear the pastor in the background preaching, all sound was distorted at the time and sounded so far away. The Lord kept repeating throughout our conversation, “Your destiny is to be one with me. Your destiny is to be one with me.” At some point in our conversation, he hadn’t asked me anything, but I saw this diamond ring he was holding out toward me, as if he was proposing to me. As I looked at it, I said, “Lord, I want you to know, that I love you, and my answer is yes. I will go. I am scared, but I will go.” Not even a second after I finished my sentence, I began to come back down closer to my body and I heard the pastor say to the congregation, if the Lord is asking you to step into something right now that you feel like you are afraid of, but he’s asking you to take the risk, I want to give you a moment to respond. Does he have your yes?” A huge smile was across my face. Then, the deep, weighty, pull in heaven lightly lifted from me, and I was back in gravity and able to fully open my eyes again.

After these encounters, I spent more time with the Lord talking about the trip. I certainly heard the voice of fear many times before leaving, everyone around me, even my closest christian friends were really concerned and uncertain but I could not deny what I had experienced. My family on the other hand, thought I had completely lost my mind and were really upset with me, but I was at a place inside of myself where it didn’t make sense not to go. I knew that I heard God. I also knew that even if somehow I completely misunderstood or was completely delusional, I would rather take the risk, to walk through fear to grab hold of love, with the possibility of failure, than sit back and let fear drive my life and possibly miss what God was calling me to do. So within 2 weeks I sold everything I owned that I could sell. A family friend said he would split a storage unit with me so I put the rest of the things I owned in there. I packed up 3 large bags, took my sons stroller and his massive bulky car seat and took a flight out to LA and a 5.5 hour train from LA to Redding, CA.

Thanks for reading!  Click here to read about the beginning of our trip in Redding, CA, and how the Lord tangibly showed up from the start.