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God allowed me to teach Pre-K where I had<br />
several students with significant trauma. I began to<br />
understand what drives their behavior and learned<br />
ways to deal with it effectively without crushing<br />
their spirits still further.<br />
God allowed me to join an adoptive parenting<br />
forum, which focuses on connected parenting to<br />
heal trauma. This led to much healing for myself<br />
and eventually it brought healing for my family as<br />
well. We finally have a good relationship with our<br />
grown son. God has restored us.<br />
God allowed me to walk side-by-side with a<br />
family through many adoptions and the fallout of<br />
one child due to a significant amount of trauma. I<br />
was able to take this child into my home for a time<br />
to gain insight into what drives them and then sent<br />
that child back home with the promise that God<br />
was going to heal that family. He was simply using<br />
me to shake them up so that they would seek Him<br />
in the situation.<br />
God has been preparing my husband and I for<br />
what is next by placing desires in our hearts to do<br />
things differently; to spend time in nature, to take<br />
it slow and steady. He’s given us a desire to have<br />
a place where we could farm (even though neither<br />
of us have the skills to do so) and to provide a<br />
place of rest and comfort to hurting people. I<br />
kept looking for a place to build a cabin, never<br />
dreaming that God would be providing something<br />
so much bigger than I could possibly have<br />
imagined. He was preparing me for a ministry that<br />
would be able to reach out to many, many broken<br />
and hurting people, and bring healing.<br />
God has been preparing me for such a time as this...<br />
My Promise Unfolding<br />
Lisa Cortese<br />
It was June of 2014. I had given my heart to the<br />
Lord in February of 2013 and was now in a sizable<br />
pruning season (John Ch.15). God had let me<br />
know that I was going to go through a period of<br />
darkness but that on the other side there would be<br />
new beginning’s.<br />
One day, I was watching a pre-recorded television<br />
show. It was a Christian talk show with a female<br />
guest and she was talking about having cancer. I<br />
started to wash the dishes, grumbling about how<br />
busy I was and would have to hear her story later.<br />
When I was done with the dishes I was drawn<br />
back to the television where something she said<br />
drew my attention. So I rewound it. I had no idea I<br />
would never be the same.<br />
This woman said she and her husband run the only<br />
rescue ranch for children in Texas. I took a deep<br />
breath and quietly screamed (my children were<br />
sleeping) into the television. “That’s not enough!”<br />
The only other thing I remember this woman<br />
saying is, “All the rejection I faced as a child is<br />
how I am able to help these children”. My mind<br />
was reeling and at that point, I knew what God<br />
had created my husband and I to do. We were<br />
going to have a rescue ranch for children.<br />
I didn’t know what our exact role with the rescue<br />
ranch would be, so I asked God what part we<br />
would play at this ranch. He showed me many<br />
large groups of children. Each group He showed<br />
me He said, “healing the children”. Sometime<br />
after this, my husband and I fasted for our heart<br />
preparation for this ministry.<br />
In the last 12 months He started showing me more<br />
about the ranch. I want to share a word He gave<br />
me that just gives me chills every time I read it.<br />
“Satan can inconvenience you but he cannot stop<br />
the ranch from being formed and fruitful. I (God)<br />
am going to heal many children, armies of them,<br />
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