The Princes/Prostitute Situation

We moved to a place where there are lots of opportunities to be able to partner with God as our protector.   Really that's a Kingdom perspective spin on drive by's, prostitution, gangs, drugs and what not
s that have happened by our home in the last 4 years.

We sometimes get "flack" from others about how it's not safe to have our children in this neighborhood.  My simple response is that we are in the safest place because we are in His will. There are countless amounts of times where Jesus gave us dreams, sent people, and feelings on how to pray and be safe.  To these I will talk about later.

What we get to be a part of is teaching our kids to love people and see them how God sees them and to refrain from judgement and fear from people that obviously need a new touch from the Lord.  As hard as it is we are visually confronted with people doing drugs, drunk, yelling crazy things, mostly naked, etc and our kiddos see it.  We try to protect them with what we can but also it's such a great opportunity to be a teaching moment of love.  "How does God see this person?" "What do you think happened to them?" "Let's pray for them."

About 3 years ago the kids and I were weeding the extensive rock wall outside our home and battling the PNW blackberry vines that never seem to end, we heard some yelling.  I quickly sent the children in the fence and told Benji to call 911 as it seemed like it could escalate quickly.

It was a woman and a man outside our home and he was emptying her purse looking for her money that she owed him.  She was crying and obviously distraught.  I marched across the street and stared into the man's face and told him he needed to leave because I called the cops.  He looked at me and left ( I fully believe there was an angel standing behind me).  I started helping this poor lady (which was obviously a prostitute) pick up her purse and clean herself off.  I grabbed her arm and told her to look into my eyes and began prophesying over her who she is.  Jesus showed me how much of a princess she really is and how she deserves to be treated like one.  This kept going for a little and she was finally calm and the guy showed up again.  I chased him off and watched him walk three houses down from ours into his house.  Yep. This was my neighbor and I wasn't aware.  She left and I went back into our house.

The kids asked me what happened completely freaking out.  I told them there was a bad man that was trying to take away this princesses purse and take her money, but Jesus took care of him.  Perspective is everything.

The kids will still bring this up to us.  "Mom remember the princess and that guy?" We walked them through healing of fear and how God protects us and that your parents will as well.  Also, guess what? My kids are changing that woman's life by prophesying out loud that she is in fact a princess. Our words are crazy powerful especially when we partner with God's words over people and situations.

An update: The guy has recently sold his house and moved out of the neighborhood!!!!! I have not seen a prostitute by our house since.

Kids Can Hear from God in Dire Situations

So picture this . . .

My 4 year old Snow and I in a car in a foreign city, phone dies, and the address to the house we were staying at was on my phone.  I had two choices.  Pure and legit panic and scar my daughter for life with possible choice words fleeing from my very large mouth OR take a deep breathe and make this a learning moment.This time I chose the learning moment.  Key phrase "this time" hahah.

So I asked Snow to ask Jesus in a very rehearsed calm voice which way we should go.  In her sweet little tiny voice she said to turn left, then right, then go left.  So I did just that.

I thought I knew where I was going so I took matters in my own hands and took a left.  Wrong!!!! She piped up and said "Mom, Jesus said that wasn't the right way to go you were supposed to turn right."  Can we sing/say in an Oprah voice "Conviction?"

So she promptly told me which way to get back on track.  Within a few minutes we were home.

We laughed and thanked God for getting us there.

The take away: Kids are super powerful.  Sometimes they hear right and sometimes they don't.  Just like us.  We don't sweat the "mistakes" but cheer on that we tried.  Remember adults this is for us as well.  I've learned God just loves to take a dire situation and make it beautiful beyond our imagination.  This is a story we will remember always and what a great one to remind our kids of how powerful they are and that they can hear from the Creator of the Universe.

Blessings of sudden inspiration and creativity to you all in any situation.  May you notice them like an amazing pair of mom jeans.  hahaha
Abbi Rodes

Hearing from God for lost things and learning God is fun!

Hearing from God can be tricky as we are constantly learning His voice and because God loves relationships, He sometimes changes how He speaks to us.

We have learned more and more how much of a friend Jesus is to us.  He loves to play with us, help us find things, joke around, and be silly.  

Lost toys:
Sam was pretty good at losing his toys especially baseballs, soccer balls, and various items.  Notice I didn't say he still does it? Mostly because I'm trying to be prophetic and not curse him for the future. hahaha.  When he was about 5 he lost his baseball somewhere and we well, were tired of looking.  Benji (my husband) asked him to ask Jesus where it is.  He closed his sweet little eyes and stopped for a second, opened his eyes and took off toward the bushes.  Reached in and found the ball. BOOM! Legit hearing from the Lord. This launched a whole new way of parenting for us. Because really the question, "Do you remember where you had it last?" doesn't do any good.  If we knew where we had it last we wouldn't have lost the item. haha. Sometimes he finds it, sometimes he doesn't.  Sometimes he wants us to ask Jesus and sometimes he just wants us to find it because he was being lazy.  That is when another type of tool for parenting comes in ha.

Hide and Seek:
About a year ago my kids who were then, 7 and 4 were playing hide and seek.  Sam (7 year old) had a large advantage to finding hiding places through his years of wisdom from this so called game of hide and seek.  Snow (4 year old) was still at the stage where she was so excited she would tell you where she was hiding.  The challenge in front of us was how in the world this could work fairly.

Snow was spending an enormous amount of time looking for Sam and getting frustrated.  Sam, always winning was loving the game and Snow was kinda fed up.  Insert learning opportunity here.  In the middle of trying to find Sam, Snow came up to me crying and worn out from the game.  God gave me an idea . . . ask Jesus where Sam is.  She yelled out, "He's upstairs in the closet!" In about 3 seconds Sam was found.  This happened about 3 more times where Snow was hearing exactly from the Lord and we were so excited and proud of her.  Then Sam was angry.  "Mom, Snow is cheating!  She's asking Jesus where I am and Jesus is telling her!" Bahahahahaha.  Who would have ever thought that would be something a 7 year old would be angry about.

So we encouraged Sam to ask Jesus where to hide. hahaha. 

I'm learning more and more that as my kids have a conflict there is such a great opportunity to partner with hearing and listening to Jesus and what He is doing or saying.  I am still learning to do this myself and I super fail mostly until I get hit upside the head either by my friends or the Holy Spirit reminding me His perspective is always the right one.  His perspective is way better than what we can see in front of our eyes.

Abbi Rodes

Girls