Introduction (00:00)
Hi, I’m Kayla Wilder and you’re listening to Love, Faith & the Miles in Between. This podcast is about the amazing ways that God shapes us and the exciting moments on the journey. If your heart is ready for renewal and discovery, this space is for you.
Hi everyone. Hello and welcome to episode eight of Love, Faith & the Miles in Between. This is the last episode of the season, and I’m so excited to be sharing this moment with you guys. This has been a lot of fun these past couple of months. This is my first time like doing a podcast ever. So I wanted to just kind of put it out month by month, you know, let people digest because we’re talking about a lot of, a lot of really, um, really, really profound, uh, really profound stuff, right? We’re talking about the hand of God, how he works over our lives. And so I wanted to just give everybody a chance to just enjoy, uh, just, enjoy talking about God and getting used to, to understanding this feeling of, of, of being out there in the world, seeing things, being in a foreign city and a foreign town, and seeing the way that God works through people. And it just so happens, it just so happens that as of right now, I am in the TO, the 6, Toronto, Canada. I’ve been here for a few weeks.
Um, and this is such a beautiful city. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a gorgeous, a gorgeous part of, of the North American continent. And it was only, it was only like a hop and a skip away, really. I just got up one day and I was like, let’s go to Toronto. No plans, no plans or anything like that. And God has taken care of me this entire time. Um, and I couldn’t be, I couldn’t be more, I, I couldn’t be more pleased with this experience, honestly. Last thing I need before I get out of here is to eat some poutine. Poutine is like a Canadian delicacy. Or is it a is it a delicacy? I don’t know. It’s like the recipe is like French fries or like potatoes. And then they put stuff on it. Like, um, I think it’s supposed to be like cheese here and there or like sour cream or like something like, I don’t know what necessarily, but it looks so good, it looks so good. And they sell it everywhere. I thought it would be like a, like a restaurant thing where you have to make it at home, but they sell it at a Canadian McDonald’s. They sell it everywhere. So poutine is the last thing on the list. And then, um, I’m, I’m, I’m out of here. Uh, but yeah, I just wanted to, to pop in, uh, pop that in there and say that Toronto is a wonderful place to visit.
Um, you know, it’s September, it’s a little cool outside. It’s been in the mid sixties. That’s where it’s been staying. Um, so you know, you need a jacket because the wind is crazy. The wind is harsh, but for everything else, it’s such a nice. It’s such a nice experience. The weather is warm, the weather is nice. Um, and and there’s a lot to do. So add that to your list at that, add that to your list. Um, so yeah, what I wanted to talk about in this final episode was my testimony of having, uh, a full encounter with the Holy Spirit. We’ve got one article up about it. Um, over, over, over underneath the articles.
If you want to read the testimony there, go ahead and check that out. But I wanted to take a second and really sit and, and discuss it because it’s such an important thing. Um, when the Lord chooses to make himself that apparent in your life, like so much so that he would take your temple, right? Take your body and, and reform it, reconfigure it to work for him. Um, it’s, it’s like, it’s like, it’s like being plucked up out of your old life and being dropped at the gates of the kingdom of Heaven. And so I wanted to I wanted to tell my testimony with my mouth and, and, uh, and, and, and, and, and hand that over to you. Um, so thank you. Thank you so much for joining me and yeah, let’s go in.
My Testimony
So the Pentecost, right? Let’s talk about Pentecost. The disciples, uh, were praying together around in a circle, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And that was the first time that us as human beings were able to access the power of God, uh, on our own, with our, with our, you know, of our own, of our, of our own volition, our own choice. Pentecost happens to a lot of people. Um, and the Holy Spirit, he makes himself available to you in different ways. But that, that action, that, um, that changing of your life. It happens to a lot of people. And so I wanted to talk about the process. Uh, what, what God took me to what God took me through leading up to that.
Um, so that you, so that, you know, if, if you’re headed that way and if, if, if, if you’re not, if you mess your life up to, to, to, to all of this and find that it doesn’t seem to be heading that way, then, uh, let’s, you know, let’s, let’s get you, let’s get you turned in the right direction. Um, and so how it started was I obeyed an instruction from God. I had obeyed an instruction about a career change. I was thinking about doing one thing and God was like, do another. And he didn’t necessarily say it to me in those words.
It was more like the Holy Spirit had dropped the idea on me one day, and it was such a good idea. And it made so much, so much sense considering who I’d been for all of that time. And I brought it to a family member and I was like, hey, I just had this idea, what do you think? And she was like, yeah, that’s that’s a great idea. And I was like, yeah, okay. And so I did it, I did it. And once I was in my, my new position. Um, that was when things started to, started to ramp up. My understanding of my body had changed. Um, before I’d say I was like pretty disconnected from it. But, uh, once I made my career change, I started feeling myself a lot more. If that makes sense. I started feeling how, how awkward or tight or uncomfortable I felt in some situations versus how comfortable I was in other situations. And I started seeing myself in a more respectful and more positive light because you know how you are with your body, right? You’ll be like, oh, I hate that. Oh, I wish that would go away. And then I don’t know, I, I, I used to go, I still go a little extreme with my diets and it’ll be like, it’s okay if you’re like torturing yourself a little bit as long as it means that you can lose some weight. Right? And I’m not saying that I don’t condone that. Please, please make healthy choices. Please take care of yourself.
But, um, that’s how I felt. That’s how I felt. That’s how I treated myself over this process. The first thing that I noticed was that I started seeing my, my body differently. So that was number one. So the next thing was spiritual gifts. So my gift is I, I am a prophet. I’ve been a prophet, a prophetess since I was twelve years old. That’s when they told me in church to write down my dreams. Um, that’s, that’s what I do. I can or the Lord shows me things that are going to happen, uh, in time. And I see them while I’m sleeping. And so I wake up and I write them down.
Um, sometimes they’re perfectly on point. Super crazy accurate. Like I’ve looked a man in his eyes and thought, like, I met you in my dream a year ago. I’ve had that experience and I’ve had other experiences where it was like, oh, like, this is this is just like my dream. And it’s very metaphorical. Like it’s not exact, but it’s like, you know what I mean? It’s like an abstract art. I definitely see the pieces. I understand what the Holy Spirit’s trying to say. So that’s, that’s how I had been living. Um, kind of secretly, I want to say like undercover, like that was my secret superpower in middle school and high school in college. But once I followed the Lord’s instruction about this career change, right? Right around the time that I was like, coming to peace with, uh, coming to peace with the changes I was seeing in my body was when, uh, my dreams had started showing up again and they were coming true. They were coming to pass around others before it was always like a dream would come true.
And if the person wasn’t in my family, then there would be nobody there to witness it. But, um. But during this time, I said out loud, oh my goodness, this is a dream. I had this dream with this. We’re literally walking out one of my dreams right now, and one of my friends turns said to me, oh yeah, you did say that. You did say that, that you, that you can see the future in your dreams. And my jaw nearly dropped. It’s like, imagine the biggest secret of your life. And somebody just like you guys are like, you know, on your way to the club because that’s what we were doing.
We were on our way to the club. We were on our way to the club, um in Barcelona. Um, I will, uh, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll let you know, um, read the, read the description for this episode and I’ll let you know which, uh, which place we went to. Um, so yeah, we were on our way to have like a good time and this person just casually said it and it was like the biggest secret of my life was suddenly just sitting there in the middle of the street. And I didn’t know, like, what to make of that. You know, like the Bible says that prophets are supposed to be encouraging. We’re supposed to use our gifts to edify the church. Right. And we’re supposed to be speaking in the church in the or not necessarily in the assembly, but we’re supposed to have a time, a period of time during service where we come together and we prophesy over people.
Um, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that growing up. I, I had no idea that that was my purpose. And in fact, I was terrified of telling people about my dreams because what if they didn’t come true the way that I thought they would? Or you know, what if I misunderstood, you know, I didn’t want I didn’t want anybody to, like, be pointing their fingers at Jesus because I wasn’t doing my job well. And so here we go.
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This obedience boom immediately leads to my, you know, my gift becoming common knowledge, just a common part of, of, of, of, of, um, of my social life. Oh my goodness. Right. Oh my goodness. Because looking back at it like the shock from you then was just being able to be who I was. Out loud. But looking at it now, it’s like, imagine, like if you were a casual Christian, like you went to church growing up as a kid. Um, and then you became an adult and you’re like, ah, you pray sometimes you pray before you eat, but that’s, that’s about it. And then suddenly you meet somebody who’s, you know, they’re doing miracles before you.
Like I, I have no idea what that did. I have no idea who that helped. I don’t know, I don’t know if somebody’s faith was turned on. I don’t know if a fire was lit inside somebody I don’t know. I just know that it was an amazing experience and it was crazy to watch it come true. And it was even crazier that it was so accepted. It was it was a normal acceptance. That’s number two. Um, so then the third thing, this was the third thing. This was this was what happened immediately before the Lord came to me was that I noticed that, um, I was having a lot of anxiety about I thoughts about my purpose. Like, what am I here for God? What do you, what do you need me to do? And every time, every time the the thoughts came to me, I’d start having, you know, not panic attacks, but, you know, my heart would my heart would get to thumping.
Um, so I called my therapist and I told her, and lo and behold, she totally just outed herself to me as the, the most like, go hard Christian who ever was. Here we are in the middle of our therapy session. And she was like, oh yeah, those are spiritual attacks. You’re thinking about your purpose and you’re having anxiety. That’s the devil. My therapist. So I was like, okay, um, good to know. I was young at that time as well. So I, I, it was my first time, like even understanding what a spiritual attack was. Shout out to her. Um, shout out to her.
So she explained this concept of spiritual attacks to me. And then she gave me the tools to combat, not the spiritual aspect, but the physiological aspect. So I’m having anxiety and she’s like, these are the things that you need to do. And she gave me one particular exercise, and this is the one that changed my life. Um, and I talked about it in our article, what it’s like to encounter God. And so if you want the step by step how to do it, head over to that article. So, um, so I sit down, I’m in my bedroom, I pull out a notebook and a pen and you’re supposed to empty out your mind.
Basically, this is how the exercise goes. You empty out your mind and then you for five minutes, just write down the first word that comes to you and that’s it. That’s it. So I did that. I opened up my journal, I started writing and I was it was all about purpose. It was all about who I was supposed to be in this life. And so the first thing that came to me was who? Right. Five W’s who, what, when, where and why? I started jotting those down. And at a certain point, I noticed that there was something in my bedroom, like there was a presence in my bedroom and it wasn’t hostile. It wasn’t like because I had, I had, um, dealt with, with, with demons, um, in the past. So it wasn’t that it wasn’t, it wasn’t that, um, it was there, the presence was quiet.
And as I was asking these questions silently in the back of my mind, that presence had an answer. And so I’m writing and I’m writing and I’m not hearing the answers audibly, but I feel it in my spirit. And so I go from asking five W’s to, okay, how am I supposed to do it? Are you sure it’s supposed to be done this way? What about this? What about that? And the more I asked questions, the less I felt in control of my body. Until finally it was like the sky parted, like the heavens opened up like like my. Like my brain was. I don’t even know.
The next thing I knew, I felt this light, this energy swirling down inside of me like a like a whirlpool down into my head. And these things filled up my body and they were so full of joy. I wanted to call them people, but they weren’t people because they weren’t alive. And what they were feeling, the feeling that they gave me was too pure, too happy, too perfect for it to be a human being. And so it went down from my head into the tip of my toes, and it filled me up like, like you fill up a water bottle. And the next thing I knew, it was like me.
My personal consciousness was I was no longer like, you know, in front of the classroom writing on the whiteboard. I was one of the kids way in the back of a class, over in the corner, just sitting and watching while everybody else is having a good time. Um, and it began to speak to me, this presence, it spoke or not spoke like verbally, but it began writing to me. Kayla, this is what you’re supposed to do. This is what we need you to do. This is the thing that Jesus died for. This is, this is how you’re going to do it. And on and on this conversation goes.
I’m writing for like five minutes and I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I don’t know how to explain it. I couldn’t get a grip on reality. I was so caught up in what everybody was rejoicing about. They were so happy. And they, like they saw they they had flooded me in such a way that I knew that they could see every single part of my identity. Everything, every, every, every piece of happiness, every piece of disappointment, every, every hidden little piece of shame or guilt here and there, everything that could exist inside of me. They didn’t just, like, have access to it. They loved it. They rejoiced over it. They praised the name of the Lord. And I was like, you know what? Me too, me too, me too.
And so finally, my hand is writing. I’m not in control. I’m just sitting there like a, like a, like a happy little vegetable. Well, these notes are coming out of me. And finally the energy slows down. Finally, the volume is lowered a little bit. And I realized that whoever this is and I know who it is or I think I know, I think I knew I was like, whoever this is, like, you’re not playing games like, this is who, who, who are you? Who are you? And my hand wrote out, I am, I am. It’s nice to meet you, Heavenly Father. It was nice to meet you. That’s not actually what I said. Excuse me. I didn’t actually say. It’s nice to meet you, Heavenly Father, because it’s. It’s heavenly father, I was terrified. I was so scared. Um, but that’s that’s what I walked away thinking.
So He, he he identified himself to me. And then he told me that what they were, what we were doing, we could do it often. Um, and, and it switched over from God the Father to somebody named Michael. And Michael was saying, yeah, do this, do this exercise. Often we joy to hear your voice. We, we rejoice and hearing from you and talking to you. We love you. And after that, they got sucked up out of m
y body again like a vacuum back into the sky. So there I sat on my bed like I just I just talked to God. He just talked to me. He took time out of his day to come to me. It doesn’t get any better than that. It doesn’t get any better than that. It doesn’t get any better than that.
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Scripture
Ephesians 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”
And I, I genuinely believe that this this ability to have a one on one conversation with God actually, truly like the father who created everything, being able to to approach the hem of his garment in the spirit and and and to to receive the majesty and the glory from that, that I believe that that is that is something that’s available to everyone.
And so, um, and so I really wanted to, I really wanted to encourage everybody listening to this episode because like, there’s no, there’s no reason for there to be separation between us and God. There’s no reason, there’s no need for us to walk around on this earth feeling like he’s just a guy in the sky somewhere. Um, who we, who we can only talk to, who we can only get an answer from when, um, you know, when he decides or rather, because it’s all, it’s always his decision, right? But like, it’s not that we’re just a bunch of little lilies in the field waiting for, waiting for the creator to pass us by. We can go to him. And that’s why he sent Jesus to us, right? So that we could go to him so that we could bring ourselves our worries, our burdens to him.
So. Yeah. Um, please, uh, please head over to that article, what it’s like to have an encounter with God and try out that try out that exercise. But more than that, how it all started was obedience, obedience, obedience. I made a rap out of it even. Ah, I’m not going to share it though. I’m sorry I mentioned it. Um, it starts with obedience. Like getting closer to God. It starts with obedience. Now, after he after he left my body, um, I was no longer the same.
My entire I the best way that I can explain it was like if you’d been kidnapped or gone through like a terrible, horrible trauma and you can never, ever, ever, ever, ever be the same person again because you’ve seen too much, right? Imagine. Excuse me. Imagine the holy version of that. That’s what happened to me. So I’d already, you know, because I’d already had, you know, the the the gift of prophecy. But after the Lord entered me, I could see, I could pinpoint, I could follow like a brick road into the next thing that was supposed to be happening. And the next thing and the next thing. And I got so good at seeing, seeing the way that the Holy Spirit moves through the world that I wasn’t able to like I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t make sense of the world anymore.
Does that make sense? It would be simple things like, you know, like, why sit here and struggle over this homework or, or, you know, argue with this with this person or whatever, when we could just drop it, you know, live in peace with everybody and let’s just go outside and get some ice cream or like, let’s not even deal with this. Like, let’s just go, let’s have fun. Let’s have fun. That was, that was, that was what that was what the spirit instilled in me was that the best way to deal with all of these things is just to have fun, go out and have some responsible fun.
So yeah, there was that, um, the colors that I was seeing, they got brighter for a little while. Things have gone back to normal. Um, things have gone back to normal for me, but at that time the colors were brighter. I remember I was on like a red thing. Like I just every bit of red, a cherry on top of a chocolate cake, the colors of the flowers like it just, it was, it was taking me somewhere and I had to like, get really artistic with my, my photography and get all the angles. And I was just really passionate about it. All of a sudden, um, I started seeing like, I started seeing the way that sin could snatch joy right up out of somebody’s hand.
Just like that. That was, that was the biggest blessing was being able to pinpoint when and where and how things start to fall apart, because now you’re engaging in spiritual warfare and you’ve got you’ve got to know how I did. Um. Yeah. Sorry. I don’t mean to rush through this episode, but I do have to get going. Um, Toronto is a busy place. Um, the final thing was that I kept reaching out to the angels. Um, I kept reaching out to. I kept reaching out to God in that same way. And it never happened again. The same way where I felt his spirit come down, swirl down into my body and fill me up. But I did feel glory and I was able to let go of a, of, of this bit of control that I had over my body and just let them continue to keep writing, writing through my, through my hand, um, which we, which we did for a little while. Um, and then we upgraded, but that is a story for the next season.
Um, Yeah. My entire relationship with with God changed with Christianity, changed my understanding of the word changed. Um, and, and I can never, I can never see it, though I can never see it the same again. And I want that for you. I want that for all of you. I want you all to, to stand there in the spirit and know that God doesn’t just know you personally. He has taken the time out to have a conversation, to speak with you, to talk to you, to let you hear his voice, to let you feel his glory and his power, and to know that this this is your father who loved you so much that he sent his son to die for you. That’s who this is. I want I want all of you to have that experience. I want everybody to know what that’s like. Um. So. Yeah. Um. One more time.
Make sure you read that article right. Make sure you read that article. Um, and yeah. Um. Oh, I’ve gotta get going. I wish this, I wish this season finale could be like a bigger, you know, a bigger splash. I wish, I wish it could be. I wish it could be something else. But this is only season one. Um, you know, there’s more to come. There’s more to come. And I’m so excited about it. I want to thank you so much for listening to all eight of these episodes. Thank you for participating, um, for sharing your testimonies for, for reaching out, for sharing these episodes with your friends, your family, uh, to my people on, on Substack who are downloading these episodes. Super shout out to you guys. I love you so much.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And, um, let’s, let’s keep on doing this. Let’s, let’s keep on spreading the gospel. Let’s keep talking about love. Let’s keep talking about faith. Let’s keep talking about this beautiful world that God sent His son for. And, and let’s keep loving it and let’s keep loving each other.
Prayer
Um, that is, that’s all, that’s all we’re going to go ahead and wrap season or Our episode eight. Uh, what? How do I say this? Let’s go ahead and wrap. Season one, episode eight with a prayer. Uh, no matter where you are, if you’re in your car, if you’re at home, if you’re getting off of work, pause for a second. Uh, bow your head and close your eyes.
God, thank you for your presence. Thank you that you’re never far from us, and that you’ve given us tools and helpers to bring us closer to you. Give us the grace to hear, the eyes to see, and the faith to receive your glory in whatever way you choose to share it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Outro
Thank you for joining me on this episode of Love, Faith & the Miles in Between. If you enjoyed today’s topic, please share it with a friend and remember to subscribe to the newsletter for more travel, faith, and love stories.
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