Experiencing Resurrection Life

What the Lord is teaching me:
In order to experience resurrection life, something has to die.

In the prayer room last week, the Lord gave me a chorus that really summed up the last few weeks here with One Eleven, as well as my experience in missions so far: “I know that it takes a death to see a resurrection, so when it falls apart I’ll keep running after you, searching after you, seeking after you, I know that I’ll find you.” There have been so many sweet moments ministering straight to the Lord in the prayer room, and so many more moments of the Lord ministering to my heart. This has been such a fun season, with some hard moments and difficult circumstances thrown in.

A new development is that I moved into a house on Saturday, March 11th with two amazing women who are also working with the ministry. I am so excited to be living with these amazing ladies from my community. The Lord is teaching me that to experience the resurrection life of Jesus, often things have to “die”, and we have to face tragedies head on. I think most people were aware that I was living with a family that so graciously invited me into their home for the duration of my staff experience. Unfortunately, some things fell through involving the situation and environment becoming unstable, and I felt that the most gracious thing I could do for everyone involved would be to remove myself from their already full plate. I was offered a room in the house I’m at now about a week before things started to shift, but had told them I wasn’t interested because I had free rent at the time.

God was on the move though, and when I needed a place to live, there was already a home prepared for me that I knew I would be welcomed into, surrounded by a great community. This is the resurrection that the Lord brought through the death of a previous situation that honestly felt like a tragedy. As I’m walking out this exciting new situation, I do have a previously unexpected monthly bill of $350 in rent, plus $50-$100 in utilities for 4 months. I believe and feel so strongly that this is where the Lord has brought and settled me to live for the rest of this time in Kansas City, so I am looking for financial partners to bring in the $450/month rent for 4 months, coming to $1,800 total so that I can wholeheartedly do all that the Lord has asked me to do in this season.

I am so excited about all that God is doing in the prayer room from 8am-12pm daily, as well as in small group gatherings, theology classes, and different staff trainings. This is also my first time really living as an adult on my own, so I am learning so many practical things as well. He has been teaching me a lot about perspective, and being emotionally healthy as I grow in spiritual maturity. He was showing me John 11, when Lazarus dies, and it says twice that Jesus was angry, that He was deeply troubled, and that He wept. Death and tragedies are consequences of living in a fallen world, and the toll that sin has taken. Jesus was angry as he looked around at His grieving friends because it wasn’t supposed to be this way but He also says in verse 40 “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?”

There’s a paradox between our awareness of the effects of sin, and the glory that we get to believe for and know is coming. This is when Jesus spoke to me that if I want to see the fullness of His character as the One Who Brings Resurrection Life, then something has to die so He can resurrect it. It takes the perspective of believing for God’s glory in order to see God’s glory. This is the perspective that I want to live out, and I had a great opportunity to learn that in the midst of housing troubles.

I felt the Lord saying to me that if I want to be in a “greenhouse season” (rapid growth, which has been my prayer in this season) spiritually and musically, then He is going to use these hard situations to grow me emotionally so that I have something to stand on when times get hard. I think we so often have leaders, and members in the church that seem so “spiritual” but then a strong wind comes and knocks them off their feet because they don’t know how to have “negative emotions” and navigate hard circumstances in vulnerability. Their faith blows up when their emotions do. I believe that this is why so many people in ministry lose their endurance. I’m currently reading “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” by Peter Scazzero, and it goes into great depth on the
topic. I think the Lord stirred me to pick it up for this season, and I would highly recommend it to others.

Another exciting update is that my team and I will be traveling to another nation for about 2 weeks in the end of May/early June to run an intensive, where we will train people to sing and pray the Bible, play instruments so they can be empowered to facilitate their own worship, and share many of the things we have been learning here in our staff experience. Our food and housing will be covered by the location, but I will be purchasing about a $2,000 plane ticket to get to the location and back! I wish I knew where we are going but I will announce it as soon as we find out.

Would you ask the Lord what part He would have you play in partnership with me? If you feel led to give financially the information to do so is below (venmo and Cashapp are preferred):

• Venmo: @Julietta-Longiotti
• Cashapp: $JuliettaL
• Give link through church

Thank you for your prayers and support, I am so grateful to have a team of people backing me up as I go forth in obedience, trusting the Lord’s provision to come with His call.

Love and blessings,
Julietta Longiotti