Author: Laura Lee Bonde

Five Years Later

| Laura Lee Bonde

In 2009, I actually started to “read” my bible and fell in love with God, but I was in this uncomfortable state of wanting to live for him and sleeping around. The two just do not go hand in hand, so I would ask for prayer to stop having sex, and it finally worked.

On July 21, 2009, I made a decision in my heart to devote my body to God and informed the men I had been sleeping with. When I focused on God, He was pouring into me like crazy. A funny analogy to go with that was revealed to me right away. When I was a little girl, I was on the swim team. To gain the fastest head-start, it was best to have a clean dive from the get-go. My legs would always open, there would be a splash, which would slow down my momentum. They would constantly say to me, “When you dive in, close your legs.” That was SO true then and applied to my life in 2009. When I closed my legs, I was able to dive into His Word at full speed.

Last night, I felt led to look in my journal for a particular entry to share, and when I realized the date, I was reminded of the above analogy. Isn’t it crazy what time spent with God will do! Five years ago, these would not have been the desires of my heart, but because I’m fully yielded to Him, my desires line up with the calling He has on my life.
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***Journal Entry on July 21, 2014 at 11:16 am***

The desires of my heart:

To make worship flags
To dance with them
To play the violin
To write a book
To reach more people
To love my kids well
To have a husband
To write psalms

Purity to Fight for

| Laura Lee Bonde

IMG_1051 (2)If I sat down with you and told you about my past, you may be tempted to wonder how I could feel pure. Looking at my life through the worlds eyes would reveal a lot of questions. Looking at my life through the eyes of Jesus reveals a lot of answers.

To express the measure of purity I feel will be noticeable in this one statement: I don’t even want to be kissed until my wedding day. Does that sound crazy? To the world, yes. To God, no. I have sought God through Jesus to find my identity, and in doing that, I’ve discovered what a treasure I am. Is that arrogant? No. Is that confidence? Absolutely! I am confident in who I am in Christ, and I want to be treated that way.

I was talking to a man on the street about my desire not be kissed until my wedding day, and he didn’t think that withholding my sexual desires from coming out was healthy. I told him that it is very healthy. You see, to the world, heaven doesn’t make sense, Kingdom living doesn’t make sense, purity doesn’t make sense. To God, I bet it makes perfect sense. After going back and forth in discussion, I told this man that he wouldn’t be able to change my mind. No one will be able to change my mind or my heart, not even my future husband.

I’ve even shared my purity with other Christians and have not always received positive feedback. This purity is something I will fight for. I don’t want to marry a man because of the way he kisses or the way he makes me feel when we kiss. I want to marry a man because his heart shines with God’s love. I believe if I fall in love with a man, no matter what, kissing will be amazing, so why not save it for an amazing wedding night.

I’m not out to please anyone but God. I’m truly glad that I listen to the voice of His heart and not the voice of man’s mind. Everything I feel and believe about myself right now was never known to me through life: I have value; I am beautiful; I feel like a virgin; I am a gift, not to be opened; I’m a treasure; I am worth the wait; I am elegant…every morning, I have the pleasure of waking up to who I am, and I’m excited to live out every day through Him!

A Mother “Mess-Up”

| Laura Lee Bonde

Last night, I messed up. I’m not going to share what I did wrong because I just don’t want to put it out there on FB. I was supposed to do something, was counted on, was depended on and missed my alarm. Thank God for dads!! Anyway, I’m posting because of my response. I think when we respond differently in life, THAT’s when we notice growth the most.

Oh well…unless I explain what I did, I won’t be able to convey this correctly, and this may help someone else, so here it goes: in the middle of the night, I was supposed to pick up Carolyn, missed my alarm and missed her calls (my phone was on silent). Thank God that her dad answered his phone, picked her up, and brought her home.

There…there’s my “mess up.”

Anyway, I woke up frantic. You know that feeling when you realize something in your sleep and jump out of bed, wishing you could reverse time? That was me! I came into the living room, and Carolyn was sitting on the couch, talking about her day with Kyle. I was so apologetic. I felt so bad. In the past, I really thought that what I “did” described how good of a mom I was. If that was the case, then last night would have revealed that I was a bad mom. (Notice the past tense verb. That’s not how I feel.) But when you know your identity in the cross, everything’s different.

For a moment, I went in the other room and thought, “Why am I not crying? Normally, I would be in tears.” Then, it hit me. I wasn’t crying because what I did had nothing to do with who I am. The enemy waits for moments like this to condemn me, and I used to fall into all the time, but now, my feet are on solid ground of who I am, so I didn’t fall into it. (I’m so glad I have a new normal.) This isn’t something I need to say ‘sorry’ for a million times. (I’ve don’t that to Kyle and Katie before, but I didn’t need to. I just kept listening to the voices condemning me and felt the need to say sorry over and over again. It just isn’t so.) This experience taught me so much!

Of course, I apologized to Carolyn. I felt bad, but I asked for and received her forgiveness and the forgiveness of my Father in heaven. Now, I’ll never bring it up again (except on here, in case it helps someone). Remember how I said I used to cry at things like this? I wonder how much of that was feeling bad or was wanting others to feel bad for me. Hmm…another lesson.

God is so amazing!! He just keeps revealing new truths, creating new moments, enveloping new experiences, causing new growths, seeding new friendships! I’m so excited to see and know what I will be like right before I die. There will be so much life lived, so much truths learned, so much freedom gained, so much love given and received. Even if I die today, there’s “so much” that I would see in me. Yay, God!

Life After Birth

| Laura Lee Bonde

God doesn’t need birth to bring forth new life.

On July 2, 2014, I had a dream where I wasn’t able to get pregnant, and that wasn’t a good feeling.

A little bit about me: In my younger years, I drug my kids through a lot of stuff by living a life in the dark. I don’t need to go into detail of what was done or how I lived, but I can assure you, it wasn’t pleasant. All of that is drenched in the blood of Jesus. I’ve sought forgiveness and received it.  I’ve thought about what it would be like to carry a child and give birth, while being in love with Him. I used to ask God for a husband and for that chance.

Back to the dream: when I awoke from this dream of disappointment of not being able to get pregnant, I heard the words, “God doesn’t need birth to bring forth new life.”

This spoke so loudly to me. From when I started walking closely with the Lord until now, each child of mine has become a new person. As I was delivered from more and more darkness, they were exposed to more and more Light, and principalities lost their strong holds on my family.  Although I didn’t have actual childbirth and all that goes with it, as a family, we went through emotional pain, and each one of us has been brought forth into new life.

For my kids, further individual healing will come, and for my family, new life has been brought forth, and we are able to enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. We have regular “Game Days” where we come together, play board games, laugh, and have a lot of fun. We don’t dwell in the time that was lost. We relish in the time that we have now. Today, I’m a good, godly mother to them, and you can see their joy in their eyes when they smile. Glory to God for changing my heart and my mind and for giving me this new life to live!!

Wedding Day

| Laura Lee Bonde

When I was baptized again, there was new meaning, new identity, new loyalty to be ONLY His. Last night, God put lyrics in my heart to express my experience that day, so I wrote them down this morning. Enjoy!

What happens when the prostitute dies?
Life begins…Life begins

What happens when the stripper dies?
Life begins…Life begins

Identity came like a rushing wind
Blowing who I was away

A desire to be HIS was born
That desire leaked into my son
“Mommy, can I get baptized?”
“Follow me…trust me because I trust HIM.”

Shirt picked out
Intention there
Ring on my right hand
Ready to be wed!

Walking down the aisle through water
Bridegroom watching from within
Ceremony rushes over my face
Raised – the honeymoon of heaven begins

Ring on my left hand
My son walks in
His tears flowing with the water
Life begins!

Ready to be married
Ready to be married
"Do you want mommy to baptize you?" "YES!"
“Do you want mommy to baptize you?”
“YES!”
Ring on my left hand
Ring on my left hand
Ready for new life!
Ready for new life!

The Beauty of Psalm 139

| Laura Lee Bonde

I have a lot of “favorites” in the Bible. If you know me, you’ve heard me say, “That’s my favorite book” or “That’s my favorite Scripture.” The truth is, it’s ALL my favorite because God spoke it. But from the moment I first read Psalm 139, it has been my favorite…for real. It described how I wanted to feel about myself. In it, God would describe my beauty, how I was meant to look, how I was marvelous, but I would cry out to Him because I didn’t feel any of that. How could I be marvelous when _________? That would be the response in my mind (and sometimes aloud). I would pray that I would believe it someday.

Part of the power of worshiping with flags for me is that it reveals my beauty. Because of my past, I haven’t felt beautiful. What I’m discovering is that beauty isn’t a feeling. Beauty is known in your heart, but it almost seems like God gave me a ‘feeling’ to penetrate into my heart, so when I first danced with a flag, I ‘felt’ His heat (probably His consuming fire) flowing through me, melting every stronghold I had of ugliness. Since then, my heart has been open to His Truth. When His Truth became my reality, I was able to see beauty in my reflection. My eye is the lamp to my soul, so depending on what my soul believes is what I’ll see. I now know in my heart that I am beautiful.

Anyway, a friend gave me a special flag the other day, a beautiful iridescent one. It’s gorgeous…so gorgeous that the desire of my heart was to worship with it at Sunset Cliffs, so on Friday morning (8/8/14), before work, I went to Sunset Cliffs. On my way there, I felt like I was on my way to a date with God. I was worshiping, crying, believing. It was beautiful! My desire was to fly this flag to God’s breath on my life, and that’s what I did. I thanked Him so much for who I am in Him. In the past, I read this book, and it explained how when you see something beautiful, it’s God reminding you of how beautiful you are to Him. As I was worshiping Him, I was watching this flag, admiring its beauty, and I had the revelation that God was admiring me and my beauty. These flags reflect my beauty. That’s why they are so empowering to me. God is working through them in a mighty way.

When I was done, I sat in the car and was drawn to Psalm 139. I only read verses one through six. After each verse, I would stop and pray, thanking God that that was a truth in my life…so powerful! I was weeping because, finally, this Truth of His was my reality. Right now, I’m only able to read and pray each verse, but I can’t wait until I get to the part where He talks about how I was formed and how marvelous I am. Now that I believe it, I can’t even imagine the impact it will have.

We are all beautiful, handsome, gorgeous creatures. His word created us, saved us, and will keep us for eternity. How awesome is that!

(I didn’t have my phone to take a picture of where I was at, but I found the below picture online. If you look at the cliff on the left-hand side, that’s the idea of where I was standing, worshiping God with this beautiful, iridescent flag.)

God's Glory
God’s Glory

Welcome to Flames of Glory

| Laura Lee Bonde

Flames of Glory are swing worship flags the release the anointing of God’s Glory. While worshiping with them, I’ve experienced tremendous breakthrough. His Glory is my limit…endless!

Psalm 8:1

“O LORD, our Lord,

How excellent is Your name in all the earth,

Who have set Your glory above the heavens!”