Apologies for the long delay in blogging. (I know its not long by other people’s standards…but 8 days is fairly mammoth for me…!)

So much has happened in this past week or so that its tough to keep up with all the blessings!

As you probably gathered, I went down to London last week to do some recording. I travelled down first class as a treat from my husband…! I arrived late due to a train delay and was pleased to hear that rather than getting a tube or a taxi, I was being picked up by Jennifer, my friend and singer who had organised the recording. It was so lovely to see her. We just hugged for ages.

I was taken to a pub to meet up with Juan (her husband and the music producer) and a couple of others involved. I enjoyed the time with them and got to pray with a young guy who I sensed was a highly talented musician on the verge of renown. Ben was nothing to do with the album… but he just happened to be there. It was a real “God appointment”.

Then I had a remarkable thing happen. When Ian and Jen had prayed with me the night before, I had been given a picture of a little blue suitcase halfway up a mountain. The case was locked but God has given me the key. I didn’t think the picture was for me at the time, but wasn’t sure what it meant.

As we chatted, Jennifer shared that she felt she was half way up a mountain but wasn’t sure what she needed to get to the top. I told her about the suitcase picture and that I felt she was going to experience some real revelation in the coming days! We got very excited as we talked more about this.

The following day as the guys were setting up the studio, one of them brought in a little blue suitcase. I nearly screamed out loud. It was exactly the one I had seen in my picture. I asked Oyvind, my Norwegian engineer what he kept in the case. It was headphones. I called Jennifer over and told her that we needed to pray that she would tune out to everything else except God’s word to her in these next few days… that she needed to wear “spiritual headphones” to see the next part of her story unfolding. It was a promising beginning!

I then called the band together, none of whom I knew. God had told me to take an antique key (from my collection) with me for each of them as a symbol of what He was going to unlock in their lives. As I prayed over them God gave me beautiful words, pictures and prophecies for them. I was blown away, let alone them. The words were deep and specific. It took a long time to share with all of the 8 people gathered. But it was very key (no pun intended) to the atmosphere of the later recording.

Amongst the band were some real issues and hurts that God wanted to speak into and minister His grace and mercy. It was wonderful to begin our time by putting Him and His word at the centre. I was in my element!

The set up that day took until 4pm which God has warned me about. So I spent the day trying to serve people with food, and words of fun and encouragement. We started to build up a really special rapport – my cheeky sense of humour being met, in many cases, by theirs.

A real God-send was a guy called Tom who was one of the keyboard players. He seemed to understand what I played to him incredibly quickly and interpret it for the other musicians. I felt totally confident in his ability and he was a wonderfully perfect middle-man. I played to him a few things on the piano and he wrote them out into short charts for the rest of the guys.

Without any rehearsals we just recorded from the off. I had no idea of the structure of the songs until we started to play them. The band were very good at trusting me to ‘hear” and watched me intently as I pointed at them, or gestured for things to start or stop. It was natural and easy to work with them.

By the time we came to record, we managed to do three songs before people needed to leave. In those songs, God gave me fresh words from Him and a wonderful peace.

I thought I would feel insecure or insignificant that I was surrounded by professional session musicians who could play complex music. But instead, God gave me a real sense of significance and calm. I felt in control of the fact that God was in control. People looked to me as I looked to Him.

The following day, God woke me up as usual at 4.45am (something he had done for the previous week) with a picture for the band. He told me to give each of them a white rose. It was a beautiful symbol of how precious we are to Him. I asked people to dwell on the rose in their hand and realise how unique and wonderful God’s design had been for that. Then I asked them to consider how much deeper and more intricate His plans were for them. We had some new members of the band arrive, who were not familiar with what has happened the day before. I found it easy to explain and God gave a spirit of favour.

Then as a prophetic act we took the thorns off each of the roses and asked that we would be ‘easy for God to hold’ in these days. Something was broken in that minute and the sense of enemy attack became palpable to me.

This whole morning was harder. There were some technical issues to overcome and I sensed some real spiritual warfare too. But we broke through and in spite of a knife falling to the floor in the middle of a song for no apparent reason, and a lit candle falling into the Rhodes and spilling wax all over it, we managed to record another 8 songs.

A very precious addition to the album came in the afternoon. One of the drummers, Bernie needed to leave to go and teach in a school. We were without a drummer, but ready to record a couple of heavy gospel tracks. Then Phil (who last week was playing the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury with Jessie J) mentioned a guy he knew who lived nearby. Enter Isaac Iwanga. He brought a beautiful vibe to the music and such an incredible spiritual anointing. After he had gone, we commented on his maturity and playing. Phil said ‘Yeah, not bad for 17 eh?!
I was stunned. 17!! Sheesh!

God provided EVERYTHING. At just the right time.

I have only heard three songs back, but I am utterly thrilled with them. The sense of the presence of God is tangible in them. They sound live and there are certainly raw areas and mistakes etc… but nothing that is a barrier.

The final piece of the puzzle was that I didn’t have any money for mixing and mastering. I spoke to Juan at length and told him that I wanted him to do it. He was reluctant to give me a ‘fee’ because he was yet to hear it back… so I asked him for a ballpark figure which he gave me of roughly £1k to mix it and a bit more to master. Immediately I had the figure in my head of £1600 which I knew was from God.

I came home to a peaceful, clean house that Jon had cleaned and friends had tidied. The children were happily playing with their pals and it was an oasis of joy. I shared with Dave and Hannah and Jen (who were babysitting) about the money and sensed their faith for it to be provided too.

On Friday night Ian and Jen and us lit our outdoor fire and talked about how God was going to provide for the next step. I shared that from my human perspective I could see how valuable it would be for it to be quick….

On Saturday I took another friend of mine (another called Jen) to a soaking event to my friend David Hadden’s church in Leicester. I met his wife Ruth and God gave me a word for her before the day even began. She is LOVELY! I was a bit unsure why God wanted to take me to Leicester for the day when I was tired and had ministered so much that week already. But it was clear He wanted me there. Jen (who leads worship at Audacious) and I met some very significant people to God. A couple of girls from a church in Hull grabbed our spiritual radar at lunchtime. They shared what they did and who they were a little and I got such a sense in my heart that God was going to download some stuff to them… and BOY! did He?! It was amazing to watch what happened as God broke in and healed them of some insecurities and set them firmly on His path for them.

Of most significance to me personally was the prayer I had for God to provide finances for me. I waited until the very end and then just grabbed a girl and her hubby to pray. Gloria and Neil sang over me and asked heaven to open and the resources to come. I had taken with me a cushion that my Jen had given me the day before with two keys on it.

I lay it on the floor and asked for a number of people to come and lie their head on it and seek God for His next step for them.

There I was with my head on the same cushion.

Afterwards, Gloria gave me a cheque. It was not a large amount of money. But it was so precious to me. She had not sung for 18 months and had not been able to get any gigs. The week before she had earnt a small amount at a charity event. It was this amount that she gave me, as she put it, to ‘sow’ into my ministry. Gulp!

I dragged myself away from the lovely people I connected with and then stopped at service station to ring Jon. He said “Have you read your emails?” I hadn’t.

He told me that my parents had put £1600 in our bank account!! I was incredulous. How could they afford that? I know they don’t have any money right now… But when I saw the email (uncharacteristically brief) it simply said that it was what they would have spent taking my Grandma on holiday – something she is too fragile and unstable to do.

I couldn’t believe how wonderfully and quickly God had answered Neil and Gloria’s, the bands, mine and so many others people’s prayers for me! I texted them and said ‘You’ll never guess what?!!” Then I rang Juan and Jennifer. Juan was blown away, especially when I told him that God had asked me to send the money as soon as I received it.

I gave testimony to God yesterday in church. How does a normal housewife that no-one has ever heard of end up recording an album in London in an amazing studio with world-class musicians for FREE?

The answer is only when heaven opens. Which is has.

As I have been writing this I have just received a text from friends of mine who run the Vineyard Church in Winchester. I had sent them one of the recorded songs as God had asked. She was texting me to say that they were just about to listen to it in their private time of worship. I sensed God at work.

Watch this rather large opened space!!!