STOP SHRINKING: THE FAST THAT BROKE ME OPEN

When we first started our No Sin November fast almost 40 days ago, I was writing articles back to back. But then the Lord slowed me down. My hands stopped, but my heart opened — and instead of pouring out content, He started pouring into me. The only article I posted was titled “Dead People Don’t Have Feelings.” And I didn’t know it then, but that was the subject God planned to deal with me about the entire time.

Because feelings are not God.

But they are not the enemy either.

Sometimes they’re the inner me  begging not to be overlooked.

You can’t run from your feelings. They will chase you until you can’t run anymore and they will catch you. Off guard. And if you don’t process them, you’ll carry tiny residue from every situation in your spirit— and they’ll just keep piling up on top of each other until they erupt.

This has been the most powerful fast I’ve ever completed — not because I was perfect, but because I was weak. I failed more times than I want to admit. But then God sent a prophet — Tiphani Montgomery — with her Destroy It December assignment. She spoke on every battle I was secretly losing, and I knew I had to join her on the 3-day fast to begin December…

Usually No Sin November ends on December 1st… but this year, God assigned us 10 extra days. So the two fasts merged into one divine reset.

THE RESET

By December 2nd, I was all caught up.

Day 1 was repentance.

Day 2 became forgiveness — because the Spirit led me there.

And on that second day, God showed me someone I needed to forgive:

A minister who gave me a word that offended me over a year and a half ago now.

A word that could’ve freed me if I had received it.

She asked me what I needed prayer for— I responded “I want to respond like Christ when I’m being mistreated.” She said something so simple, yet so necessary:

“You are not a doormat.”

At the time, I misunderstood her.

I thought she was accusing me.

But she was affirming me.

I wasn’t laying my life down for God — I was letting people walk on me because I didn’t think I had the right to be human. Before God could teach me how to be holy… He had to teach me how to be human again. How to rest for my assignments, how to be vulnerable, how to have limits without shame. I had demonized my behavior without destroying the root of it— like people have done to me since I was a child.

I asked God, “Why was I acting like a doormat?”

And the answer broke me.

Because I wasn’t weak — I was wounded.

THE REAL ROOT

I had survived more trauma than any child should:

Molestation.

Sexual assault.

Humiliation when my naked photos were exposed in middle school.

Boy after boy using my body.

Then losing my mother to suicide — a wound I never thought I’d recover from.

But I stood back up.

A little less of myself each time… but I stood.

And then my little brother Jhamir took his life.

And that’s when something inside me shut down completely.

I hit the limit of human pain.

After that, any emotion that resembled grief terrified me.

So instead of protecting myself spiritually… I went numb.

A preacher said recently, “If you numb yourself, you’ll bleed out and not even know it.”

And when God exposed this to me during the fast, I realized:

I really had been bleeding out.

Silently.

Privately.

Dying on the inside.

But then God stepped in.

And now I’m good.

Better than good — I’m in a different place.

This isn’t something to cry about.

It’s something to steward.

Because I’m a leader — and people get to follow me into this place of healing.

No one could help me carry what they were blind to.

No one could lead me somewhere they’d never been.

God trusted me with unbearable pain because it would stretch me.

And now… it’s time to birth this ministry. And it’s going to be precipitous.

LABOR PAINS

During the labor phase, I stopped numbing myself.

I took off the spiritual epidural so I could push better. I want to be present. It’s time to get active.

God taught me:

Your feelings are not to be feared.

They are to be felt.

They are revealing something.

Discern them.

And once I stepped into this new space, everything tried to pull me back to the old one.

The transition was messy.

I yelled.

I snapped.

I even cussed once or twice — because my emotions hadn’t caught up to my healed spirit yet. I heard “forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” Then I thought, “well they should. These are the people who cover ME.”

And then God told me something that changed everything:

“When you yelled, when you got out of character — it’s because you stopped focusing on Me. You weren’t just distracted. You were disappointed because you trusted man more than me. You weren’t just winning an argument — you were worshiping other gods.”

That was the breakthrough.

I refuse to engage in idol worship.

I love Jesus too much.

And that’s when I learned this truth:

Sin happens in two places —

when we ignore our feelings, and when we exalt them above God.

THE SHIFT

It feels strange saying “no,”

not over-apologizing,

setting boundaries,

refusing to let other people’s comfort dictate my decisions.

That uncomfortable feeling is the evidence that I shifted.

I didn’t know it, but the fasting killed something inside me:

people-pleasing.

And along with it — emotional immaturity and every form of subtle idolatry.

I thought I was fasting to grow spiritually.

But today the Lord told me:

“You already did the work long ago.

Now it’s time to stop shrinking.”

When you stop shrinking, you automatically outgrow your last season.

And that, my friends, is why…

IT’S TIME TO GIVE BIRTH. #push #finishstrong