In September, I had everything prepared… The Lord sent me to Leadership Rochester and the Own Your Growth Conference, then allowed everything to switch suddenly the night before just to see if I would still trust Him. After determining that I had the original strand of covid and every symptom there was, it was simply hard to maneuver; hard to breathe, I felt like I was suffocating. Yet doors were wide open for me, I didn’t understand, but I knew that I crossed over somehow into new land.

After leaving urgent care, my Grandma Nani called me and began to speak into me while I was trying to catch my breath and she said, “after this, you will do such a great work and you will come forth as pure gold.” She said that by the authority of God, “you are covered, getting up from this and coming out on the other side with a one-two punch.” She continued saying, “as your protection, you say over your body, I Am The Righteousness of God and I will get up from here.” My Grandma assured me through speaking prophetically that after all I have endured in fire, “pure gold” would be the result for me, that God was preparing me…

All while I heard the end result, I had to endure through the middle of the suffering, the fire. ] The Lord began to fiercely redirect me, He began to pull me back to show me more than I have ever seen about me. Masterpieces that I spent hours on, events, press, etc. He would not even allow me to be present to experience. So, He told me “to let it go,” taking it out of my hands and totally placing it into His hands. What my Father was really saying is… I need you to let this down so that in this season, you will see what I see.

Like Job in Job 23, I too was just wondering, questioning, trying to find a way to simply know “why is this happening” after I was doing so well with my health and healthy enough to finally have movement. Instantly God began to transition me and what I believe that myself and Job didn’t see was another dimension. Instead of overthinking, I began to “just think”… God knows what He is doing. Even after all of the questioning, the uncertainty and the wondering, God Knew… where I was and where I must be. I was being tested!

Job 23:10 says, “but he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”

So the Lord began to give me revelation about my test, gold & heat. Since the Lord makes us flames of fire (Hebrews 1:7 & Psalm 104:4), we are not created to be burned in fire. We were created to withstand heat, but God knew in this life we would forget our makeup at a point and time, which is why He removed me from the crowd to sit me down so that I could see.

For the next dimension, He had to refine me, purge me back to a state where I was at the right temperature and can just be a flame instead of complaining about the heat. Back to a space that I didn’t only look at the idea of the glistening of gold, but a place that when I endure the process to be purified in fire, I would truly know that I am gold; beyond the descriptive component.

So for years, people would say, if only you could see how other people see you with confidence, but I intentionally blinded myself in previous seasons because I allowed the enemy to tell me that I should just hide who I was to make others comfortable and that standing was too lonely. So, I delayed my own process of gold…

Pure gold found in the ground has uneven areas yet that doesn’t change the identity of what it is and it’s value. For the deeper it is under ground, the more it cost to get. But when it’s found, whether dirty or uneven, it brings joy to the one who finds it because its value is so high. God found me as gold… but the beautiful thing is, that He created me this way and I didn’t even know. Years prior, without fully understanding, I would literally place myself in the most unlikely places for gold to be… so God took the time to nourish me so that I can nourish others. He took the time to clean me, so that I can go show His Spirit inside of me.

So now I can see… what the enemy never wanted me to see. 

This has been a process and there will be another process. All in the Gospels, Jesus crossed from region to region, so as there is another process, there is another crossing to new land. 

The point is.. Job began to speak from a place that was “known,” a place of agreement and a commanded state. A state that maybe or maybe he did not know he would have to remain in after his suffering.

So what I’ve learned is that when we remain, there is a time that comes when we will know our place in heat and we won’t worry, but will see our strength, live as gold and have learned the art of the fire. From this process, there would have been enough time spent with God that there is an understanding of warfare, how to stand & be unmovable even when the flame is burning. 

This refining didn’t just start with covid, but it was the culmination of suffering back to back which caused me to hear an announcement from God and my Grandma as well as see the process of purification for an original color that I already had.

It wasn’t that before the fire, I wasn’t gold, I was. Once gold, you are that, but the “pure” component of the gold is what makes the difference and can only come from testing in fire. The purpose of the fire is totally opposite of what its function seems. The fire is meant to wash & cleanse. In the purification process the fire takes on a task like water… like water, the Lord uses fire to fully submerge us until new. 

And some may say, how can this be if you’re still going through health challenges? Wouldn’t God have burned it all away for you? No, this time, He’s given me the grace to burn for Him in suffering as a flame to be grounded and speak to my body; aligning it to it’s prosper place with authority. Teaching me that no matter the suffering, I have to know in my form, that as I suffer with him, I will also reign with Him.

God has always wanted me to see myself as gold. So, He told me that, “You Are Gold Now,” meaning that “now” in this present time, there is no more further delay in the display and the authenticity of who I am; this command made by God has been immediate. And the Lord said, “I call you Gold so that is who you are now. Be whole for I have made you whole, Be cleansed for I have cleansed you, be gold for I have made you gold.”

Today, I despise not gold… my ultimate color. I am in a whole new dimension that is befitting for my color & it’s all because God loved me enough to place me in fire to purify me. 

I know now that gold doesn’t change its shape in the fire… it illuminates. It brightens. God was preparing me for gold as He Knew it was my color & frame.

I finally can stand long enough in the heat. My mind finally understands its infrastructure and the designer, my Father. For we are not designed to be burned, but to hold heat, be refined by it and be solid after it. Ultimately purified from it. 

The journey to gold is so humbling… though painful and it seems so uncertain. Somehow with the leading of the Spirit of God, He continued to give me the strength to keep getting up and walking right into the place He always planned. 

With a joyous decree, “I am gold now!” Even in the fire… my form remains!

What I love the most is that I can’t help but be gold… I cannot take glory for it either… For the cleansing & purifying reveals the authentic state, the foundational me from the form that even in fire… there is a structure that God was after that I am so grateful to see.

As I am cleansed from enduring the test, I still have my form! He inevitably burned up everything just to get to ME. God had to get rid of the dirt; the old and to get me to the new; pure gold. 

My Grandma was right, I have come forth as pure gold and there is a great work that I’m walking in.

After All, I Am Gold Now…

Photographer: Sayler 

Prayer:

Father, I thank you for being our consuming fire and I honor you for the heat that you allowed to place me back to my rightful order. Thank you that you teach your children how to navigate through life with any circumstance and with power, they will now have the ability to walk as gold after that have endured their process. It is my prayer that Spirit of the Lord will show us on the inside, which ignites the brilliance of light on the outside. Let every Son & Daughter yield to what you’ve already called us in Jesus Name, Amen.