Strong City

My Experience in Strong City

My name is Liberty. I am 24 years old, and I am one of the seven virgins who was anointed by Father to carry out His purposes in pouring out the seven last plagues upon the earth. 

I would like to share with you the story of my own personal experience here in the land, and then how my heavenly Father chose me to be one of the seven messengers, how He led me to lie naked with Michael, and the healing I received from it. This was a gift that I could never have received in the world. What a privilege I have been given to walk with the Son of God, to talk with Him, to love Him and be loved by Him, and then for Him to appear within me. I will share with you my story—the story of my heart.

Ever since I can remember, I always felt a drawing toward God. I never felt that I was worthy, I just had that drawing. I was six when I first met Wayne, and I can remember being drawn to the Spirit of God in him. I knew something was different about this man. During my growing up years we lived in Wyoming and I wasn’t around Wayne except a couple of times a year when we would go to Idaho for church camp meetings. But whenever I was around him, my heart lept inside of me; I felt revived. I knew Wayne had God. When I was sixteen I remember telling my Mom that I knew there was something different about Wayne. He seemed like he was more than a prophet. I just had that knowing inside of me.

I was seventeen when we came here to the new land in May 2000. It was here that for the first time I began to get in touch with Father for myself. Before this, I didn’t really believe that Father would talk to me. I had always looked for feelings within myself to see if Father was in me, and was always doubting whether I heard His Voice or not. But two months after moving here, Father gave me the name “Believing Child,” and told me that I do hear Him, and that I would now believe that He speaks to me, and that I would believe His words to me. Father was speaking His faith into me: “You are My Believing Child.” “And in the fulness of time, the Word was made flesh”—Father’s Word began appearing in real life in my human flesh.

I had no idea that Father was going to send His Son to appear in person in this land so that He could connect us with Father in a very personal and intimate way. But I remember asking Father to take me into His own hands, and pleading that my soul would be made ready for when the Lord came to me, and that I would hear and obey His voice. This was given to me to ask Father for, just before Michael came into Wayne Bent.

When Messiah came, I was drawn to Him. I felt something down in me responding to Him, but I didn’t know how to relate to Him because of my past. I was afraid of men, because of being molested by my dad when I was young. I was closed off inside and couldn’t let people get close to my heart, even though I felt a desperate need to be accepted and loved.

After Messiah came into Wayne, He asked us to ask Father if He was Who He said He was. Shortly after that, one Sabbath following a meeting, I was standing with a small group of people, and Michael was with another group of people quite a distance away. I asked Father, “If Wayne is Who He says He is, could you have Him come over here and say something to me?” In just a short time, He came straight over to me, put His hand on my shoulder and said, “Hello, Misty,” and we visited briefly. This was very out of the ordinary, as we didn’t communicate very often, and He didn’t say anything to anyone else in the group—He just came and spoke directly to me.

Even though I had always been drawn to God, I had also been drawn to many other things besides Father, as well. In the beginning of our time here, I felt both things. I didn’t know it, but Father was going to take me through a process of helping me decide what I wanted the most. At first, I was consumed with the need for a best friend—someone I could share anything with, and they wouldn’t have a problem with me; somebody that accepted me for who I was. Even though I felt drawn to those who were spiritual, I felt uncomfortable around them, because I didn’t feel that I was spiritual. So my first friendship was on a very surface level, very human, and we talked about horses and working and guys and our dreams of the future.

Over time, though, I found Father drawing me to something deeper than a surface relationship that was only human. My heart began crying out for something more than just a worldly friendship. I was beginning to feel the need to open up my closed-off heart, and I was desiring to connect with someone I could do that with. It wasn’t long afterwards that that first “best friend” relationship simply ended.

The next friend I had, I began to open up and share everything with, and she didn’t have a problem with me. We had both been very closed off and were both desiring to open up. We shared a lot with each other about the feelings we felt inside that we were seeing and trying to deal with—the normal human feelings, thoughts and reactions that young people have. My whole life, I had had the context of feeling like I was “bad,” and like I could never measure up to my own standards, so talking about these things together helped me to see that I wasn’t “bad” because I felt these things. We could just talk about them, how Father saw them, and how to relate to them. We talked a lot about events that had happened in our lives that had been hard for us, and it was a time of resolving and healing for both of us. It’s like we were both there to listen.

For awhile we did everything together. We were always sharing things from our journals with each other—things that Father would show us, and things that He would tell us. We would share with each other about our family situations and try to help each other with what to do in certain situations.

About this time I started working at a job off the land with someone from here, and I began saving up my money. I was beginning to feel like I needed my own space where I could be alone. I was feeling the need to get in touch with who I am, and be myself. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back on it now, what I was feeling was a strong need to break off my human neediness upon my mom, and find God for myself.

My mom was the person I had been the very closest to, ever since I was about fifteen. She had been like God to me, and in the past I had needed my mom for my spiritual security. I had been able to share personal things with her, and when I would be dealing with a hard thing, I would go to her and she would help me. She would give me understanding about what I was dealing with, or help take my focus off whatever was trying to pull me away from God. She would remind me that I wasn’t rejected by God because of these things I felt, and to look at the truth, instead of the lie. She would tell me things like, “Father accepts you, He loves you; He would never throw you away; and, you can trust Him.”

Father gave me two special blessings around this time that were tokens of His heart for me. He drew me to the name “Tema,” which means “admiration, perfection, and consummation.” To me, this name meant that Father was telling me He was going to consummate with me, and that I was going to “admire” the “perfection” of His “consummation” with me. This new name was a token for me that Father was going to work in my behalf.

An experience that I had about two weeks later was like a sweet confirmation to this. One night I was outside and just feeling the need for Father to come to me. I was looking up into the sky and it was really clear; I could see the stars really well. I saw the Big Dipper tilted like it was pouring, and Father told me, “I will pour Myself into you, and I will fill you up.” In my hard times that came after that, Father would remind me of this token He gave me that night.

During this time, I became emotionally attached to the friend that I was working with, and in the process, Father began opening my eyes to see how full of human neediness I was. Emotional dependency was a very big stronghold in me, like an addiction that had taken me over. I could look back and see how I was dependent in a needy, human way because I would get depressed or lonely if I wasn’t around the person I was emotionally dependent on at the time. I had gone from one friend to the next, feeling such a desperate need for human love and acceptance, and yet finding myself becoming emotionally dependent on each one in the process. Father showed me that when my focus and attachment was on a human, it wasn’t on Him. Yet, deep down inside I also had this little desire that wouldn’t go away—the desire to be closer yet to Father.

I didn’t recognize it at the time, but that little desire that wouldn’t go away, was “the true Light [within me] that lights (makes to see) every person coming into the world” (John 1:9).

There was so much I felt inside—all my natural thoughts, feelings and even my contexts in life, were so contrary to the little desire for Father that I felt deep down inside of me. And I could see and feel all my human “stuff” trying to smother out that little desire for Father, and the things His Voice would try to communicate to me. But “that Light shone on in the darkness, and the darkness never overpowered it, put it out or absorbed it” (verse 5), because God is what I really wanted deep in my heart of hearts.

In October 2003, about a year after Father had drawn me to the Big Dipper, I was again looking at it one night, and Father spoke to me again and said: “I have poured Myself into you. There is no spot in you at all. It is okay, I am with you in what you have to go through. Don’t listen to your imagination, nor your feelings. All is well!” Father was encouraging my little heart to keep pressing through, even though the battle between the desires of the little Light within me and my natural human desires was intense, and was soon to get stronger. I was going to learn how to apply what Father had told me, no matter how strong my human feelings were to the contrary.

As Father began actively drawing out the little desire in my heart to be closer to Him, it came into intense conflict with my strong emotional dependency and human neediness. I felt like a war zone inside, and I remember crying out to Father over and over again, “Father, don’t let me go! I have to have You!”

In answer to the little Desire in my heart that was crying out to Father, He gave Michael to paint for us a very clear picture that spoke to the real issue of what I was feeling so intensely.

The Time of the “Midst of the Week”

It was now the beginning of the middle year of our seven years here—or “the midst of the week,” as the Bible puts it—and things were about to change. It was like Father was coming closer yet to the land during this time, and was individually beginning to send home to every heart, in a very personal way, the Consummation parable that He had given us at the beginning of our time here in the land—the parable of what it looks like to be really married to God. For 3½ years we had all been like observers, watching the Two Witnesses and hearing their testimony of what it was like to be married only to God, and now it was time for each of us to actually be married only to God, for ourselves.

In a Sabbath meeting, Michael shared a verse about God setting a plumb line in the midst of His people so that everything out of place could be put right by it, and that He wouldn’t be passing by the things anymore that needed to be set right. I will share a few of the thoughts that Michael shared that especially went home to my heart. Michael said,

A plumb line is an absolute vertical plane strait down from heaven making everything clear and plain. The plumb line is when mercy ends—the mercy that hasn’t told you all the facts for fear of discouraging or overwhelming you—and He tells you everything.

These three and a half years have been to prepare your heart for your real Husband, not pretend Husband or “spiritually speaking” Husband—I mean really, actual, factual, literal Husband. It’s where your heart is absolutely and fully drawn out to the Father only; not your other lovers or interests. If you’re on the lap of some other desire, there is no use to pretend that you’re not a harlot, for every other desire is whoredom.

Heaven is Father’s bed, where the bride is always drawn, trusting, naked, unashamed, continually yearning for intimacy with Him. No other relationship is fit for heaven. This is the only heaven there is—I swear by Him Who lives forever and ever. I can assure you, this is the truth. I have only told you what Father’s given me to say. I didn’t add anything to it.

The world is a spirit. What you’re being brought to, is to despair of your worldly enticements, yourself, and your natural human desires; where you’ve given up trying to fix yourself and make yourself good and also keep your desires at the same time, which is impossible.

A soul that is drawn to the Father only is not trying to get something or flatter someone or satisfy the lusts of the flesh or any of those things, but there is only one desire on their heart—the Father only.

When Father removes the mercy and tells you the truth, He is erasing your board so that it’s blank. There’s been lots of scribbling on the board, and some with indelible markers. But He’s got an eraser for that. He erases it so that it’s not confused. When it is clean, He then puts His picture on it, and the picture He places on your board is who you are.

I really got the picture at this meeting! Being “married” to someone wasn’t just on paper; it had to do with being emotionally attached and dependent on a human, needing a human to supply my needs. I saw how “married” I had been to my mom, and to every friend that I had attached myself to.

This meeting broke the stronghold that human dependence had had in me, by opening my eyes to see exactly what it was that had been consuming me. But now my strong feelings of emotional dependency—that felt like “me” because they were such an automatic part of me—were standing in direct opposition to the light that I had just received. I could see that they weren’t of God, and that made me feel really bad, because just feeling these strong, human feelings made me feel separate from Him.

For the first time in my life, this really put me in the place of intensely needing God! And in my crisis, my great need forced me to go to the One Father had sent among us to save us from our slavery to our human selves.

I will try to share with you the essence of my visit with Michael. I poured my heart out to Him and shared with Him the huge war that I had been feeling in my heart. It was a war between the desires of my flesh, to be emotionally attached to a human friend (Father had just called that “married"), and the Desire in the depths of my heart to be married to Father only (which was really the Son of God desiring that in me, deep within). Then Michael asked me, “What do you want?” I told Him that I wanted Father.

Michael was very gentle with me, and honest, about what He had seen in me. He said, “I am Faithful. I love you with all My heart. I have never considered leaving you, but you have considered leaving Me.”

Michael also told me, “Father doesn’t judge you because you have had natural human feelings, but He truly does cost you everything you have—even yourself. I understand exactly how you feel. This is part of the process. I had to go through it, too. There’s nothing wrong. Your focus just needs to be on Father, and not on anything else. You don’t need anybody, and you don’t belong to anyone.”

The truth was excruciating to my fleshly desires because they craved an earthly human relationship. They strongly wanted what they wanted—to be emotionally “married.” But the truth was liberating to the little Desire deep down in me to be married to Father only. That night I went against all my natural feelings—I made a conscious decision to disown them, to not go with them. I chose to utterly deny them and go with my Desire to be married to Father.

That night I gave myself to Father in a deeper way than I ever had before. And I said to Michael, “I’m giving You everything that is in me, everything that I am.” The meaning of the words of Jesus began to take on a very personal significance for me at that time:

And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny (deny utterly, i.e. disown) himself, and take up his cross (exposure to death, i.e. self-denial), and follow me. Mark 8:34.

This conscious decision to disown myself, opened me up to begin feeling connected to Father, and to begin relying on Him, instead of being emotionally dependent and needy on those around me.  It made a place in me to feel Him in me.  Father was giving me a security and comfort of His presence with me that I had not had before. 

But, my decision to utterly deny my natural self also began the most intense period of time for me that I had yet experienced. I felt like I was literally being torn apart inside. And I was, for I was actually separating from who I was naturally, in order to go all the way with the little Desire in my heart—until it was my only desire, and I was lost in the depths of God.

My separation from myself would occur each time one of my natural desires would come to me. As I would see that these desires were trying to pull me away from Father, I would chose to turn my focus to Him, instead of following after my natural human thoughts or feelings. This was very excruciating to my natural self; the pain I would feel inside my heart from this death to my human self was very intense.

My desire to love Father only, was strongly tested as the natural desires of my flesh strongly warred against it. But there was something in me that just could not give myself over to the desires of my flesh. I had to have God, and I saw that the desires of my flesh pulled me away from God. Many, many times I would go against what I was naturally desiring and feeling and say to Father, “Here I am, choosing to follow You, choosing to give my life up, no matter how I feel or how bad the pain gets. Make me do only what You want me to do. I give everything in me to You.” Under all my human “stuff” that felt so contrary, was still this desire for only Father.

During this process I felt very alone, even when I would be around people. And at times it seemed no one understood what I was feeling inside. This is just what Michael said in “The Final Atonement movie, Part II”:

Men do not go to heaven in families. The Mormons would be greatly disappointed. There is one Husband in all the heavens, and He does His will. He has one Bride, altogether, and we fly with Him in the heavens. But we only have one Husband. We stand alone, all by ourselves, in Father’s purposes, with no friend and no helper. And yet, we fly in the heavens with our Husband.

The time of the “midst of the week” was a very decisive, purifying time for us here. It was a real turning point. The light had gotten very clear, and it caused some people to begin counting the cost and deciding whether they really wanted to be married to God alone, after all. In May 2004, Father gave me a personalized picture of what it was costing me to be married to Him alone.

In March 2004, Father had told me, “You are delivered,” but I had never realized what deliverance looked like. Nothing to my physical senses looked as if they had changed; in fact, it looked and felt the very opposite of what I was expecting it to look like. I didn’t understand how it could be so. I knew Father would not lie to me, but how could I really be delivered when nothing in me had seemingly changed. I chose to believe Father’s word to me, even though it was completely against my five senses. Instead of throwing out His Word to me, I laid my own senses down and asked Father to reveal this to me. I told Him how His Word looked impossible to me, but over the next few weeks I kept asking Father to show me what my deliverance looked like, what I was actually delivered from. 

I had always thought being delivered would mean that I would never have any more painful experiences, or feel anything human any more, for I would be delivered from my natural self. I hadn’t realized what my “self” really was, until Father showed me what deliverance looked like.

During my whole time of being here at the new land, up until this very point, I had kept having these dreams about my horse. I had been very close to him but I had sold him because of Father’s instructions to my heart just before moving here. In the dreams that I would have of him, I would be desperately trying to get to where he was, but in all of them I could never get to him. Usually I would have a dream like this if it felt like Father was trying to take something away from me. I wasn’t resolved with these things in my past and the roots were very deep in me.

Then, early one morning in May, 2004, Father gave me a very significant dream about my horse. In this dream, I had actually ridden my horse and then was just going to go away. It was like I wanted to go away now—I had felt a deep drawing, like Father was calling me away, but I remembered to unsaddle him before I went. Then I woke up.  My sense while having the dream was that by unsaddling him I was taking his burden off of him—my connection. I was resolved. This was the first dream that I had had of me actually being with him. This dream blessed me very much because I knew Father was doing something, even though at the time I didn’t really understand the significance of it, until later in the day.

Father then started showing me how He had taken everything away from me. It started when I was very young, at our farm in Wyoming. First I lost my connection with my dad; I no longer trusted him because of what he had done. My brothers were a lot older then me, and they got married. Then the ranch was sold. My sister left our home to live with someone else; she had been my security when I was really young. Just before moving to the new land, Father put it on my heart to sell my horse that I had had for years. I was very attached to him, which made it very painful to sell him. He was my last connection to the ranch. Once we came to the new land, Father started taking my friends away from me, and also my mom. Father was sensitive to what I needed at the time, for if He had taken my mom away sooner I wouldn’t have been here still, because she was a big help to me. But now, I saw how I had nothing left.

Later that afternoon I read a post from Michael, and it was the answer to my prayer for Father to reveal to me what I was delivered from, and why I was having the dreams I had been having and experiencing the things I was. What Michael wrote tied it all together. The day He wrote this was 1335 days after the Announcement of the Consummation in 2000. The 1335th day is the day of blessing and resolution:

So what have I been delivered from on this 1335? I have been delivered from the notion that I possess anything, or that I am anything. I have “Escaped” from the delusion that Father owes me anything, or that I have anything coming to me from Him, or that I deserve anything, at all. I have been delivered from the bondage, and I am completely free, to have nothing, own nothing, expect nothing, and deserve nothing. I have been released from my judgments. I am delivered into the only reality that my life is found in God and that He has put His Seed into me. My life is about the very life of God. Michael’s Reflections, May 26, 2004.

Father showed me that everything He gave, He took away—building the pedestal up and then letting it fall. This was to get me off of my human self— actually, to cause my human self to let go of me—and give up its expectations of what it wanted from God. Father delivered me from having or owning anything—even Him—so I would trust Him, no questions asked, and for no reason. He’s a Gift of grace, and my ego doesn’t get anything out of it.

I shared in an email with Michael what Father had just shown me, and Michael replied:

In this place you describe, little Tema, you will begin to find yourself in the arms of Father over and over. In this place you will be able to perceive His love and care. In this place He can put all of the wealth of heaven in your heart and you will not turn it to corruption and pride. In this place you can be put on His throne with Him, and rule with Him. In this place you will never lack anything, or lose anything of value. In this place you are delivered from the forces that have always come against you and brought discouragement and disappointment. Now you know where I live and where the angels dwell. They dwell with me in the vast space of nothing, always receiving from the Father His great river of light and love. In the place you describe, you will never be hurt.

Michael

Shortly after this I was on a walk and Father started singing to me,

My delight
Tema’s My delight
I think about you day and night
Tema’s My delight

I spontaneously started singing back to Him,

My Delight
Daddy’s my Delight
I think about You day and night
Daddy’s my delight

I had been feeling feelings that were just the opposite when Father’s personalized version of this song just started coming to me. He was saying that I was the apple of His eye and that He delights in me. 

Around the same time, Father gave this verse to me, and when He gave it to me I cried because it was so precious to me: “He brought me forth into a large place; He delivered me, because He delights in me.” Ps. 18:19.

Father’s Symbol of Acceptance

By the end of the midst of the week, as I was watching one of the last people leave the land here, in order to be true to what was in their heart, it was almost more than I could bear. I had really identified with this person, because I had felt like I had some of the same difficulties they had shared with me that they had. Yet, my heart had NO drawing whatever to leave the land; there was NOTHING in me that wanted to.

About this time, I found the words of this prayer to Father coming up out of the depths of my heart: “Though You bring me lower than the grave, yes, lower then the grave, or higher then the heavens, I will still love You.” I knew that I still had difficulty always recognizing the difference between my human feelings and self interests, and God’s feelings and divine interests in me, but I knew that I still wanted Father, anyway. I hadn’t changed my mind. I STILL wanted Him NO MATTER the cost to myself!

I began to feel the desire to talk to Michael about what I was experiencing. I felt like I was at a spiritual impasse, and I was feeling the need for resolution because it looked to me like I was in the same place as the person I had just watched leave the land. I began asking Father, “Should I talk to Michael about this? Father, please connect me with Michael, if You want me to talk to Him.” At the time, I didn’t know that Father Himself was putting it on me to go visit Michael again and just pour out my heart to Him.

Shortly after this, as I was at my mom’s house, I went outside and looked out over the hillside and saw that Michael was down at the ranch house. I felt drawn to go down there because I really wanted to connect with Him, yet I didn’t feel sure that it was Father. When I got down there, Michael was getting ready to go, and He said something like, “Everything’s okay.” I started crying and said, “Even with me?” Michael said understandingly, “I think we need to talk?” And I said, “Uh huh.” So I walked back up to his house with him.

When we got to Michael’s I just opened up my heart to Him and poured out everything I had been feeling and trying to deal with. I felt very broken, and totally at God’s mercy. I was just weeping and weeping, and inside I was feeling this intense ache. I just wanted Michael’s heart. I wanted to have with Father what Michael had with Father.

Then Michael said, “Can I hold you?” And I said, “Yes, forever!” I felt like I wanted Him to hold me and never let me go. He said, “Let me hold you on my bed.” Oh, how my heart REALLY desired that! I wanted very much to connect with Him in a way that I hadn’t before. Immediately I got up and we went into His bedroom. As we laid down on His bed, fully clothed, my heart was very “naked” and very broken open. And as we lay on the bed, Michael just quietly held me as I cried and cried because of my broken open heart. There wasn’t anything sexual in this experience; it was all about my heart and spirit connecting with His heart and Spirit.

After awhile Michael started talking to me. He said “Always remember Father’s holding you. And when you are by yourself upon your bed, that is what Father is always doing—He’s always holding you.” As we lay on the bed, I held Him so tight. I felt like pulling Him right into me. Michael was telling me things like, “I accept you! You really are accepted; I love you with all my heart,” and I felt like I was hanging onto Him for dear life. Michael said later that it was like I drug Him into the bedroom, and when He was holding me on His bed, I was holding onto Him with a death grip! This is how I was feeling inside when Michael was holding me—I was feeling, “MICHAEL, NEVER, NEVER, let me go!” Oh HOW my “naked” broken heart ached inside!

Michael told me that my heart was married to His heart. He said, “You are My wife. You are My witness (I didn’t know until later what that meant); I will never let you go. I would never kick you out. I am Faithful, period. Father doesn’t even remember your past. Just receive His acceptance, and be faithful to what He puts on your heart now.”

Something in me changed with this experience. I cannot really describe to you everything I felt as Michael held me and shared God’s heart for me. It was really hard for me to actually take in that Father and Michael accepted me. At the same time, I could feel that I was receiving Life through a connection with God that I had never had before. This experience gave me a security with Michael that I hadn’t had. And the way He was with me—His tender, earnest regard for me, began giving me a taste of what heaven’s selfless, sensitive heart connection feels like.

My heart became married to God in this experience, and from that day on, more and more I no longer wanted to be touched by men or be common anymore, because I felt like I was a married woman. Ever after that, whenever I would feel someone being common with me, it felt so earthly, so human, and the sensitive place in my spirit that had been opened within me to God, when I was with Michael, felt violated. Something deep in me had changed.

The next morning, Security (who was Moriah then) came and visited me. She shared how Father had sent her to Michael’s the day before also, and she had poured out her heart to Him and been nakedly honest about what she was feeling and dealing with. She had been very broken, just as I had been. Father had sent us to Michael four hours apart. Then that evening she and her mother had been visiting with Michael and He had shared with them that Father had told Him two weeks before, that He was going to send two virgins to be “naked” on His bed as a symbol that the land was accepted. She told me that I was the second virgin to fulfill the vision Father had given Michael.

(To be continued ...)