Let Him Smother Me with Kisses

By Lisa Perez-Benitez

I am so very privileged to walk alongside the most beautiful warriors as they rewrite their story. What an honor to witness them inviting Jesus into every difficult and dark place from their past. Lisa is exceptional in her pursuit of freedom. She looks fear straight in the eye as a courageously brave, beloved child of God. It has taught me so much about persistence to journey beside Lisa in her ongoing, overcoming journey. So, I invite you to join me to celebrate this powerful victory as Lisa shares such a gripping piece of her rewritten story with us all. – Pam VandenBulck

Let Him Smother Me with Kisses

On the 10th of October 2020, I awoke at precisely 10:10 am. At 10:10 am on 10/10/2020. I know Yeshua often speaks to us through numbers, and this was one of those occasions. Momentarily, there was a flash of revelation deep inside my spirit, and I immediately thought of John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.” Yet, these words were quickly buried beneath a cold, eerie weight of oppression. It was the same dark heaviness that had waited for me every morning for as long as I could remember.

       My Plan

Several days before, I had decided to end my own life, which had seemed a rational and well-thought-out conclusion to things. I had set a date, looked into ordering enough sedatives to complete the task, and drawn up a practical plan of what my final seven days would look like. I wrote letters to each of my estranged adult children explaining my decision as best I could. I had suffered from PTSD (and its associated complications) for at least twenty-five years, which had resulted in hospitalization on several occasions. It had taken its toll on all of us. Now, in the middle of the UK’s strictest Covid-19 lockdown rules, I hadn’t been able to make proper contact with any of my children in months. I felt completely isolated. Although I spoke to people on Zoom almost daily, over the course of seven months, I had been in face-to-face contact with friends and family on just five occasions.  

For decades, suicidal ideation had been my constant companion, never leaving me for more than a few months at most. I was haunted by childhood abandonment, trauma, and abuse, domestic violence in adulthood, and repeated experiences of sexual trauma… Sadly, the list doesn’t end there; I could go on. On 7th October 2020, I sat at my computer, completed my seven-day plan, and broke down sobbing. But these weren’t tears of despair or depression – instead, tears of relief. Over the years, I had been prescribed every drug and psychiatric therapy imaginable, read countless books on the treatment of trauma, stood in every prayer line, attended every healing ministry, and finally, an end was in sight.

  From Darkness- Hope Emerges

Yes, several days ago, I had felt so resolute. But today, in an inky black corner of my soul, there was the smallest flicker of hope. Surely, He will still come through for me, even now, it whispered. Over the course of October 10th, His Spirit Wind began to blow, eventually reaching even those desolate places within me. Gentle and barely recognizable at first, His presence growing more tangible as the day progressed. Love was fanning that flicker of hope into flame until I screamed aloud: “Help me then! Help me!”Then I heard Him. Andrea will call you; He said, take communion with her.

At around 7:30pm, Andrea rang. She was a new friend from the prayer house I belonged to and knew nothing about my struggles.

“You alright?” she said, bright-as-a-button in her chirpy cockney accent.  

“Err… Yes, I am,” I lied.

To this day, Andrea doesn’t know what I’d been planning before she called. I remember that we spoke about how significant the date was. I asked if we could pray and declare John 10:10 – and we did. Following Yeshua’s earlier instructions, we took communion together. The Refiner’s fire fell, and unshed tears stung my eyes as I silently renounced all agreements I had made with death.

Conception

As I look back now, way back, I see that I’m standing on the balcony of heaven – I am a passionate flame robed in my regal identity – holding the hand of Yahweh, Lord of Heaven’s Hosts. I see the scroll He offers me. I accept it, and we enter the golden whirlwind with Yeshua and Ruach– a divine dance of delight. The angels assigned to my scroll break out in praise and celebration, while the Living Letters reveal themselves in rejoicing. And so it is, as each of the Sons leaves for their missions in the first heaven—brave unstoppable ones carrying the DNA that will become a unique expression of Yahweh in the earth. Azrael, my own guardian angel, steps forward (his name means “God helps”) and places a seal of John 10:10 over my heart. It can only be opened on 10/10/2020. I close my eyes, and I’m conceived.

Transition From Death To Life

10/10/2020 was an ending and a beginning, but not how I had planned it. It began a major transition from death to life, rather than from life to death. But it hasn’t been easy. I have repeatedly experienced incredible levels of freedom and intimacy with Father, followed by some very dark and troublesome moments. This process is written about (symbolically) in Isaiah 54:11:  “Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise, and your foundathions with sapphires.” In ancient times, precious jewels (God’s people) were rigorously tossed back and forth in saltwater (the storms of life and/or the saltwater of our tears) as a means of purifying them (the healing of wounds, trauma, sin, etc.) so that they could truly shine. I now understand that before I was placed in my mother’s womb, I agreed to undergo this turbulent journey that I may be a bearer of His light in my bloodline, a restorer of ancient ruins (Isaiah 61:4), and a repairer of the breach (Isaiah 58:12). Most importantly of all, Isaiah 54:11 can be compared to Revelation 21:9 -13, where the New Jerusalem is a bride prepared and made ready. She radiates the light of Christ from the power and purity of her mystical union with Him.

My Deepest Desire

While we are never truly separated from Yahweh, my deepest desire is to live out my daily experience as one who is married to the Lamb. I know there is nothing Yeshua loves more than to satisfy this longing. The Bridegroom whirls and spins wildly as His ecstatic joy overflows. He says: “I am undone by your love, my beloved, my equal, my bride. I am overcome by merely a glance from your worshiping eyes, for you have stolen my heart. I am held hostage by your love.” What overwhelming, awe-inspiring words from the mighty God of all creation.

This brings me to the events that occurred prior to my last Freedom Session with Pam on 13th May 2021. I love the Hebrew Feasts of Yahweh. I find them to be times of heightened spiritual encounters. By Passover (late March) 2021, new foundations had been laid, but I wasn’t out of the woods just yet. I was still experiencing occasional night terrors, and I would awake before dawn feeling sick and dizzy for no apparent reason. During the day, PTSD symptoms of fight, flight, freeze, and disassociation would sometimes resurface. Nevertheless, throughout the weeks of the Omer count, there was a sense of holy romance. This was heightened by encounters with the Hebrew Living Letter Shin. Shin, as Yahweh’s all-consuming fiery love, revealed the Bridegroom’s passion and devotion toward me and I was totally caught up by the beauty of my King’s affections.  

Countdown 

At the beginning of the final week of the Omer count  (May 9th to 16th), Yeshua said to me, “This is our week,” and instantly, I knew that he was referring to the seven-day wedding celebration of Jewish tradition. For Yeshua and I, the countdown to something highly significant had begun. Next, during a time of ascension, I met with the Lamed who is the first letter of the Hebrew word for heart (Lev) or the inner being/parts. He appeared to me, gold and glistening on a mountain that Father had given me previously. Lamed, whose role (among other things) is to instruct the heart, led me to Psalm 51:6 (ESV), which says, “You delight in truth in the inward being (another version says “parts”) and teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Lamed, gold, and glistening, it was reflecting the glory I would soon receive in my innermost being.

After Lamed, I met with Tet, who led me to his first scriptural appearance as “tov” (the Hebrew word for good) in Genesis 1:11 – “And the earth brought forth grass and herbs yielding seed after its own kind, and God saw that it was good (tov).”Another understanding of Tet is as a basket that has the potential to hold good things and bad things. My basket (soul) had been the container for many parts, both good and bad. But just like the seed that had become parts, reproducing after its own kind in Genesis 1:11, so Yahweh had made every part of me, even those that had fractured. He had pronounced all of them tov.

As a survivor of severe and ritualistic abuse, I had lived disenfranchised from myself, my emotions, and society for decades. To make matters worse, no one seemed to know how to help, and it had taken almost ten years to make any substantial progress toward wholeness. In the meantime, dissociated parts of me were unable to choose the love of Christ. As they were separate entities, they needed to come into alignment with Him individually. But while things still looked bleak on the outside, Yeshua had been working on the inside. To honor all my precious parts and the complexity of my design, he had patiently and painstakingly led me down a long and winding road back to myself. In the last seven months, this journey had been accelerated by the guidance, love, and care I had received at Oaks Rising.

On the morning of 13th May, Ruach led me to two scriptures: Deuteronomy 30:19, which reads, “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings, and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live.” And… Song of Solomon 3:4 – “ Now I’ll bring him back to the temple within where I was given new birth—  into my innermost parts, the place of my conceiving.” As I meditated on these words, I was swept up into an encounter with Yahweh. Without going into all the details, I left that encounter with the understanding that my Freedom Session later that day would be a divorce and marriage ceremony of sorts.

From Fractured to Wholeness

At the beginning of the session, there was such an air of excitement and anticipation among the angels and cloud of witnesses who came to join us. Like guests at a wedding, I had the sense that they’d been eagerly awaiting this moment (Deuteronomy 30:19). Ruach guided Pam and I to a particularly wicked demonic program that had taken root in my bloodline. In the spirit, it looked like a dark grey, rubbery substance that covered me from head to toe like a second skin. Buried beneath layers of trauma and dissociation, this program had been  activated by dark spiritual forces in 2011— the time of my new birth in Christ (Song of Songs 3:4), and had been the source of so much suffering ever since.

After I walked with Pam through various renunciations (the divorce ceremony), I could see that every strand of my DNA revealed a divine copyright that read “Property of YHVH” – the real truth of my inward parts (Psalm 51:6). Going beyond the physical cell structure of my body, I welcomed the King of glory into the very essence of my being at the quantum energy level. As I did, I saw an interconnected network of pathways inside my body radiate the brilliant white light of His glory. The remaining dissociated parts of me recognized the reality of their oneness with Yahweh (the marriage ceremony) and I was restored to the light being Father had originally intended me to be.

I am incredibly grateful for the ministry of Oaks Rising. Just eight short months after I first met Pam and Steve VandenBulck in September 2020, my life has been completely transformed. During the Mentorship Journey, Freedom Sessions, and in partnership with Ruach, Pam and I have torn down the webs, matrixes, devices, demonic covenants, assignments, trades, vows, and bonds (among other things!) that made up the first half of John 10:10. I have left behind the bitter captivity of fragmented parts to fully receive the One I love who is abundant life. Meanwhile, the fire of Shin remains as my passionate love affair with the Trinity continues. Tsade, the letter of righteousness, has also joined me and leads me along a path of greater awakening and remembering. I am learning how, as Yeshua’s spouse, I satisfy the deepest longings of His heart and He considers me His co-reigning equal! Wow! Like Yahweh’s Sleeping Beauty I say: “Let Him smother me with kisses—his awakening Spirit-kiss divine. So kind are your caresses. I drink them in like the sweetest wine! Rightly, yes rightly, do they love You.”