Proof of Concept

How Holy Ghost Stories changed my family first

If you’ve listened to The Happiest Saddest People episode 14, you understand why it was so beautiful that on the occasion of our daughter’s last night as a civilian, her last night as a minor in our custody, her last night as a child in our arms, we happened to be on tour with Holy Ghost Stories telling the story of creation. We also just happened to be performing at the church she grew up in and just happened to end the show with Eve singing (like some kind of hurricane priestess) “The Lord bless you and keep you…” You plan these things, of course, but you don’t connect all the dots until the moment, and that’s how we found ourselves, hands outstretched, faces and necks and shirt collars drenched in tears, saying goodbye to our daughter in the multiplied presence of Yahweh Himself. As soon as the song was over London ran out the emergency exit door. Eve met her in the alley behind the church, and they held each other and cried.

It was terrible. Heavy. Like carrying a mountain on your back.

But also unspeakably beautiful.

That’s how it is to meet God. Even the prophet Daniel can’t handle it. Practically melting, he has to ask Yahweh to give him strength enough to withstand the proximity.

Yep.

Praise Him for meeting us. Praise Him for not standing too unbearably close.

I wonder, did I experience Yahweh like this before Holy Ghost Stories?

Yes? Maybe? No…

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We didn’t decide to quit our jobs and move away from friends and pull the girls out of school to make Holy Ghost Stories. We quit our jobs and moved away from friends and pulled the girls out of school on a hunch. Back then we wouldn’t have said the Lord was calling us. We would have said, “It feels like God has something for us” or “Perhaps God is leading us into something new.” And even just that—a hunch, a feeling, a perhaps—it felt enough like the voice of God to siren-wreck the ship of our lives. Like Spurgeon wrote, “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”

Anyway, we didn’t know what we were doing, but it felt inevitable, like God had picked us up and I guess we’ll know where we are when He decides to put us down. So we told our church we were leaving. Justin said to each of the eight elders, one at a time in eight successive coffee meetings, “I want to lead people into fresh encounters with God.” To be abundantly clear, that was the whole plan. There were no steps or action items. It was such a non-plan that it wasn’t even sketched on the back of a napkin.

Was it reckless to leave what we had (a good church, meaningful work, friends, a beautiful home) to set out on a plan-less adventure with God? It didn’t feel that way. It felt like the safest possible future.

After Justin told the church we were leaving, he had an idea, the idea that became Holy Ghost Stories. He thought it might be a good first project. Now it’s his full time job. And in a way, mine.

But it’s not just our work. It’s our proof of things not seen.

Because we didn’t know what Yahweh would do. And we took a step anyway. And look…

People all over the world are meeting God in His stories—70+ countries, closing in on a million downloads, people coming to faith, people coming home after decades away.

I’d always read that first line of Hebrews 11 like a definition. Faith is: “the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.” But lately I think it’s more a description. I think the Hebrews writer is saying, When people have faith, when they listen to the call and act on the hunch, that courageous leap is proof to everyone watching that the hoped for things, the unseen things are real.

I hope you hear me: Following Yahweh at the end of 2020 to leave just about everything behind and begin the work of telling His stories was an act of faith (faith given not earned) and that act of faith, more than almost anything else in my life, has proven to me that my invisible God is present, active, material, and good.

And it’s proven it to our girls, too.

Ask them.

They learned to trust God on the job.

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In some ways Holy Ghost Stories upset our lives. God asked us to give up so much. The girls especially. Their friends, their school, their church, a brand new beautiful house. London even had to give away her cat. They cried a lot those first few months. It was terrible and heavy, like carrying a mountain on your back.

But it was also unspeakably beautiful. Yahweh gave more than He took. The girls found friends. They loved homeschool. They traveled the world. Our family grew closer than we ever might have imagined.

And then there was Holy Ghost Stories itself…

Eve has listened to every episode at least three times. She weeps while she listens. She knows Who Yahweh is because of these stories. She knows who she is because of these stories. And now she tours with world-class musicians, singing and playing piano, lending her voice and her heart to the stories she loves, inviting audiences to meet Yahweh where she’s met Him, to let Him change them like He’s changed her. Thanks to Holy Ghost Stories, our daughter Eve glows like Moses on the mountain.

London will say her life changed in Londonderry, Northern Ireland after a Holy Ghost Stories telling of the Ezekiel story of God breathing life into the bones. Yahweh stepped through the story like a man walks through a door and suddenly, London saw everything that God had been trying to show her for years. She put down fear and picked up an identity, one that culminated in her decision this year to take her own giant step of faith following God’s call into the Coast Guard.

Would she have done that if her dad and I hadn’t gone first?

Would she have done it without the stories?

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A few days before that last night with London, our little family gathered in a cabin in the Texas Hill Country to grab a few precious moments of connection. We checked in on a Sunday and met in the living room that night for a time of communion and worship. Eve led us in song, and London shared a message. She read from Hebrews 11, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going.”

I listened from my chair, wrapped in a blanket. A candle glowed on the coffee table. I looked over at Justin, smiling, tears on his cheeks.

I wonder, did I experience Yahweh like this before Holy Ghost Stories?

In a way, yes. He’s always been close. He’s always been good. He’s always been at work.

But also, no. This is new. This fuller measure of exposure. These eyes that see.

I have seen the glory of God, because when we were called we obeyed, even though we did not know where we were going. Upon arrival, I have discovered an inheritance—stories like the ladder in Jacob’s dream, stories ferrying me across the waters and into the terrific, beautiful presence of God.

THAT is why I don’t mind asking you to give today to support the work of Holy Ghost Stories. Because I know what Yahweh will do with His stories. Because my family is proof of concept.

Follow along with us over on Instagram today (@holy_ghost_stories) to hear more testimonies to the life change happening as people listen to Yahweh’s most cherished stories.

Godspeed,

JL