Daily Devotional – 1/13/20 “I pray, again, this year…”

I shared this on last year and I think I’m going to share it every year. Why? Because my prayer for you, doesn’t change. See, this year, just like last year; I’m praying this will be the acceptable year of the Lord, concerning you. This year, I pray you give God a full yes, become more faithful to Him and His call on your life, find and connect with a church home, take the limits off God, love yourself more, make your time valuable, end fruitless relationships, speak against fear, take off the glasses of hurt, be healed and made whole, overcome, be set free, find comfort in your grief, refuse to let depression have the last say, deal with the buried anger, apologize for your wrong and make amends, gain the strength to say no, forgive yourself, forgive those who hurt you, stop counting those who don’t support you and appreciate those who do, tap into your courage and strength to love yourself enough to get out of a bad/abusive relationship and learn your worth; secure the bag (bag i.e. money), learn how to manage said bag, become debt free, charge your worth and be okay when ‘they’ decline to pay it, publish the book, get your business license and step out on faith, get that check-up (physically and spiritually), take your medicine, talk to a therapist, go to rehab, take your medicines and own your truth!

Yeah, this is one long run on sentence but for this year to be “THE YEAR,” you’ve got to repent, go and sin no more. For this year to work for you, you’ve got some work to do and it doesn’t start by making resolutions you know you will not keep. For things to be different, it starts with you. Let go of what you’ve gotten comfortable in, if it doesn’t fit with your purpose. Walk away from what doesn’t have the ability to push you to be better. Stop giving yourself away to what used to make you feel good, temporarily. FIND YOU! I pray this year; you change your way of thinking and how you react. Change your expectations and trust the power of God and what He created within you. Be more specific in your prayers to God. Spend more time studying the bible and in communion with God. Take time away from social media. Fast and consecrate yourself. Learn the value of tithing and sowing seeds. Find your purpose, learn it, study it, craft it, pray about it and faith it.

18, biblically means bondage; 19, biblically means faith but 20, biblically means, the cycles of completeness connected to a perfect period of waiting, labor or suffering that is compared to a trial and rewarded. I pray this year … your cycles of struggle, lack, unforgiveness, unbelief, self-sabotage etc. ends and with everything you’ve endured; you get a double portion of inheritance and your joy never ends (Isaiah 61).

Dear God | TOP Shelf 1st Place Christian Fiction Book of 2019

Dear Lakisha Johnson,

Dear God: Hear My Prayer has won 1ST PLACE in the category of Christian (Fiction) in the 2019 TopShelf Book Awards!

This is the email I just opened. My first full Christian Fiction novel has been awarded 1ST PLACE in the category of Christian (Fiction) in the 2019 TopShelf Book Awards! Y’all… to say I’m ecstatic, blown away and honored would be an understatement.

Who am I kidding, I am beside myself.

This book, Dear God, was released a year after I purchased the cover. See, I had every intention to release it in 2017 but God said NOPE! I didn’t understand it and I questioned God. “God, haven’t I been faithful? God, what else? God, why me?” All the questions I asked the many months I toiled, the many nights I cried and the days of wanting to just throw in the towel.

But I pressed!

Bible says in Philippians 3:12, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”

God shut me down but it was the best thing for me, even when I couldn’t see it because in 2018, I released 7 books with Dear God being my very first full Christian book. I was nervous because it was different from any I’d written previously. This book didn’t have sex and minimal to no cursing. Yet, it has been one of my best sellers. This book deals with sexual abuse at the hands of a pastor who should have been praying instead he preyed. And while Jayme’s story is one of fiction, this same abuse is happening in houses all across the world but there’s hope. Hope to overcome, hope to press and hope to be restored.

I just want to encourage somebody. Press on, even when you don’t know what the end will be. Press on, even when it hurts and you don’t understand. Press on, especially when it takes you out of your comfort zone. It’ll pay off. I’m a witness. A bold, declaring and decreeing witness.

Get your copy today HERE

Dear God | Top Shelf 1st Place Christian Fiction Book of 2019

Dear Lakisha Johnson,

Dear God: Hear My Prayer has won 1ST PLACE in the category of Christian (Fiction) in the 2019 TopShelf Book Awards!

This is the email I just opened. My first full Christian Fiction novel has been awarded 1ST PLACE in the category of Christian (Fiction) in the 2019 TopShelf Book Awards! Y’all… to say I’m ecstatic, blown away and honored would be an understatement.

Who am I kidding, I am beside myself.

This book, Dear God, was released a year after I purchased the cover. See, I had every intention to release it in 2017 but God said NOPE! I didn’t understand it and I questioned God. “God, haven’t I been faithful? God, what else? God, why me?” All the questions I asked the many months I toiled, the many nights I cried and the days of wanting to just throw in the towel.

But I pressed!

Bible says in Philippians 3:12, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”

God shut me down but it was the best thing for me, even when I couldn’t see it because in 2018, I released 7 books with Dear God being my very first full Christian book. I was nervous because it was different from any I’d written previously. This book didn’t have sex and minimal to no cursing. Yet, it has been one of my best sellers. This book deals with sexual abuse at the hands of a pastor who should have been praying instead he preyed. And while Jayme’s story is one of fiction, this same abuse is happening in houses all across the world but there’s hope. Hope to overcome, hope to press and hope to be restored.

I just want to encourage somebody. Press on, even when you don’t know what the end will be. Press on, even when it hurts and you don’t understand. Press on, especially when it takes you out of your comfort zone. It’ll pay off. I’m a witness. A bold, declaring and decreeing witness.

Get your copy today HERE

Press on, dear writer!

Dear God, hear my prayer.

Can I testify?

I purchased this cover a year before I even released the book. Why? Because I had intentions to release it in 2017 but God said NOPE! I didn’t understand it and I questioned God. God, haven’t I been faithful? God, what else? God, why me? All the questions I asked the many months I toiled, the many nights I cried and the days of wanting to just throw in the towel.

But I pressed!

Bible says in Philippians 3:12, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”

God shut me down but it was the best thing for me, even when I couldn’t see it because in 2018, I released 7 books with Dear God being my very first full Christian book. I was nervous because it was different from any I’d written previously. This book didn’t have sex and minimal to no cursing. Yet, it has been one of my best sellers.

This book deals with sexual abuse at the hands of a pastor who should have been praying instead he preyed. And while Jayme’s story is one of fiction, this same abuse is happening in houses all across the world but there’s hope. Hope to overcome, hope to press and hope to be restored.

Thank you to everybody who has read it, reviewed it, recommended it and got release through it. I appreciate you. For every email I received, I prayed for you. For every inbox, I covered you.

And to you who seems to be in a season of little to no return … press on! You will recover all! Don’t stop writing, press! Don’t give up, press. Don’t look at the royalty checks, trust in the gift God has instilled in you.

And when it feels too heavy and the enemy is speaking in your ear … I am praying your faith does not fail.

❤️

If you haven’t read it, here’s the link –> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079G68BN3
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#AAChristianFiction #totalbooknerd #bookphotography #bookclub #bookaholic #ChristianFiction #metoonomore #bibliophile #AllAuthor #metoonomoresilence #survivingabuse #Bookshelf #UrbanChristianFiction #OfferingHope #LifeafterAbuse #Youcanheal #Youcanbemadewhole

Daily Devotional – 12/30/19 “Cycle of Completeness!”

I was going back through some older devotionals, looking for one to share again. I couldn’t find it, but I stumbled across this one and I’m led to share it again (with revisions). It’s not that God doesn’t have more for me to say but somebody needs this word. Somebody who is feeling like God can’t use them. Somebody who feels like rejecting the calling on your life because of who you think you are. This is for somebody who’s having a hard time believing that God can and will use you. Maybe you feel like this woman. A woman who didn’t always feel useless but now she walks the streets, in skimpy clothes, selling herself to every person she thinks can fill the emptiness on the inside of her.

See, her son passed away, a year ago, at the age of two; heart disease, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t bring herself out of the depression that called her name day after day. Her family loved her, but they couldn’t help her. She tried drugs/alcohol but even they didn’t help. One day she got into the car of a man she’d serviced before. He had a smile that made you trust him, and she did. But this day the smile faded, and the monster appeared. He raped and beat her, leaving her at the edge of the city for dead.

She was in a coma for nineteen days.

On the twentieth day, she opened her eyes and saw a man walking around her bed. She couldn’t make out what he was saying but he kept touching her. She tried to speak, she tried to move but couldn’t. So, she closed her eyes and whispered within her spirit, “Lord, I surrender,” before drifting off to sleep. The next day she is awakened by the sounds of her mom calling her name. She opens her eyes and after the tubes are removed, she asks about the man. No one knew who she was talking about, but she kept whispering, where’s the man?

After a few days, the hospital chaplain comes in and she recognizes him. She asks him about that night and he explains that God allowed her to sleep until the 20th day because 20 represents the cycle of completeness. 20, biblically, is connected to a perfect period of waiting, that sometimes comes with labor and suffering. Think of it as serving a sentence and it’s now release day.

This woman’s cycle of guilt, shame and depression was now complete.

For whomever you are that’s reading this and thinking, God won’t use you because of your past mistakes and present sin; you’re wrong. Beloved, your cycle of shame is about to be completed. Your season of lack, it’s about to be done. But you must surrender and wait on God. I don’t care about your past or your present, God has need of you, but I need you to make it to 2020. Can you do that? Will you trust God enough, even in your labor and your suffering? Will you believe God’s promise to never forsake you? Will you take God at His word? Your cycle of completeness is on the way, but you’ve got to make it.

Psalm 138_8