Thursday, September 30, 2010

Trading my Rags for Royal Garments

I have come to a revelation…I discovered I have Royalty in my DNA, that’s right this ordinary girl is indeed a princess by divine order! I always knew I was more than just a simple girl. I knew I was more than just the average gal in school, but never believed it. I allowed society to title me and I began to live my life based on the title of what society labeled me: Ordinary Girl, despite my internal knowing! And so let me share with you the journey to discovering this remarkable milestone if you will allow me to, it may just open your eyes to the same fact that you too have royal DNA in your veins!
The year is 2,000 and something without the actual sermon notes in front of me I don’t recall the exact year but I’m leaning towards 2002-2003. I was asked in January to prepare a sermon/message to share in September for the women’s ministry at the church I was attending back then. I began to dive into the word to find a topic for the night I had to speak. I began to pray and seek God on what He’d want me to share with the women that night. It was about a week later that I was lead to a book by Priscilla Evans Shirer, and another book. Both books I read in a 2 month time frame and they changed my life forever! I knew after that two months the topic I was to speak to the ladies. I knew it was right from the heart of God for each woman that would be there. I entitled that message “Women, God’s Secret Weapon” and began to put together the message for Septembers women’s meeting. Now this isn’t the first time I had to speak or share a message, I have taught kids ministry, taught in my own peer group but speaking as a woman to other women was a first! I knew I had been given a humbling yet honorable position and I knew it had to be a message of accuracy and right from God to his children. I wasted no time preparing for this message. I dove into the Word of God to find out all I could on Women and How God sees women. I even dug deep into the Bible to find God’s heart on his creation he calls women! I used the two books I had read prior to my preparation as tools to pull out some Biblical meat and truths on the subject. As I was preparing this message, I began to allow myself to be teachable as well. It was in this time that I learned my true identity! An Identity that can only be found in God. One that is so contrary to what society sees me as, an identity that is far greater than I had ever seen myself to bear! It was at that moment that the “switch had been flipped” and I became aware of who I was. Needless to say when September came and it was time to deliver the message God had birthed inside me for His daughters, I was not only prepared but living the revelation! A set up for a great night of internal healing for other women who had not caught (‘til then) the revelation of their Royal DNA!
Moving to the Fall of 2007 to Spring of 2009, time will escape me to go into details (which really aren’t relevant anyway) but I can say this; I went through hell and back. I even got to a point where I had allowed the enemy to pollute my mind and thinking pattern of who I was. I had somehow come to a point where I lost the belief of who I was in God. I had allowed society to name me this or that. I even began living under these names and picking up certain behaviors and traits that these titles (names) would have. I knew deep inside that this was wrong but never the less, I had become what others had spoken me to be; all the while forgetting my true identity of being Royalty with royal DNA in my veins that was placed inside the day of my salvation. See John 1:12-13 and Galatians 3:26-29 for better understanding of what I mean. It was in 2009 that God had brought a very special couple into my life to help me begin to see myself the way God seen me. This couple and I bonded quickly, they have since taken me under their wing as a daughter and have been there for me both in the natural and spiritual areas. They have even helped me both naturally and spiritually raise my daughter with simple biblical truths, teachings, thoughts, and wisdom. I can’t thank them enough for pulling me out of the pit, taking off the “grave clothes/ garments of heaviness” and dressing me in my royal garments once again! Now I know it wasn’t really them…It was God through them. However, they had to be obedient, willing and patient…and for that it was them who God used to bring me out of the pit and into the Palace!


The year is 2010, and I am seated at the right hand of the King! I am dressed in garments of royalty and while I serve the King, I also know my place as a Princess (sitting at the banquet table next to Him). There comes a time when even the Princess puts down the role of servant and dines! I have in the midst of the hell I faced, restoration I went through have a deep, deep, deep rooted confidence of who I am. A confidence that no one can take away, nothing can steal, no one can rob me of. I know who I am in God! I have regained my identity and am not going to be ashamed of it. I realize I don’t deserve it but I have been given it and I will not ever let anyone strip me of my royal garments again! I see myself as a jewel in God’s crown worth far more than rubies, diamonds or gold! I see myself dressed in fine linens adorned with the best like mentioned in Ezekiel 16:9-13. I am fully persuaded that I am in-deed ROYALTY! I, PRINCESS CANDACE RAE HERNDON!

I traded my rags of ashes in for garments of beauty, it wasn’t through anything I did to obtain these royal garments, except believe John 3:16 years ago, confessed with my mouth I am a sinner, repented and excepted Christ into my heart many years ago, it was through Salvation I was adopted into the Royal family! I continued to grow and develop in God which are the methods to maintaining my position as royalty. If you recall from earlier, I never said this road of salvation or life of royalty would be easy…but I have thus far endured the journey and look forward to what more ROYAL inheritances I will receive! For me though, it really isn’t about what I can gain, it goes deeper than that. For me, this royal DNA I have is about identity. Something many folks go years trying to discover. The simple fact that I have discovered who I am, revealed my identity to myself of who I am, is a major milestone in my adventure I call life! Knowing that this identity is the very one I was born to have like mentioned in Jeremiah 29:11 opens endless opportunities for me. Doors will begin to open that with out this identity may never had been opened, which is a very honorable and humble journey all in another chapter I am sure! But for now, I am going to get acquainted with myself as a Princess! I am reminded of that movie where there girl find out she is to be princess and has to go live with her grandma in Genovia where she will be crowned Princess. She has to learn the life of a Princess because for so long she lived as an average ordinary girl. However, her DNA, had a different destiny for her, one of Royalty. She spent many days, weeks, months and maybe even a year having to rid herself of prior behaviors not suitable for a Princess. She had to have an extreme make-over that was both internal and external. I am in that process, God is doing a MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR extreme make-over on me and it’s a process that is taking place both internal and externally. This make-over started around November of 2009. The internal is just about done, in fact the other day I finally retired my “drop kicking shoes” and decided it was time to replace them with fitting my feet with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of Peace! So no more drop kicking folks “in love…” While I know that today, September 30th 2010 I am a princess with royal DNA, I do not think of myself in any way more highly as I ought! I understand there are those out there that haven’t experienced this revelation for themselves, so I will continue to walk in humility amongst them, never forgetting where I have come from. I will continue to love them and help them into the steps needed for them to have this same revelation. I traded my crown of thrones for a crown of Glory, I traded my rags of filth for garments of fine linens, my shame for a badge of honor! I am now in position to carry out my destiny and the Will of God for my life in the presence of the King!
I pray that everyone reading this will do the same. They will start a journey of finding out who they are…Find your missing Identity it may be the very piece to the puzzle you’ve been searching for that answers your longing question; Who Am I?