Lifting the Mask

By Dr. Nicckay Natson

A collection of testimonies and stories from women of all walks of life, backgrounds and experiences. Lifting the Mask is about women taking the masks off and becoming their true authentic self. The authors of this book have had a real encounter with the Lord a damascus road experience to help them LIFT the mask and stop hiding behind the m

• Language: English
• Publisher: Natson Publishing & Creatives LLC.
• Release date: Oct 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087917306

Book preview

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ESCAPING FROM THE PRISON AND PERSPECTIVE OF PEOPLE

DR. NICCKAY NATSON

You dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

~1 John 4:4~

As a child growing up, I knew that I was different from other children. I could see things and hear things and sense things that other people couldn’t see or sense. I can remember trying to close my eyes, thinking that it would make what I saw and sensed go away, but even with my eyes closed, I could still see it and sense it. While growing up, my Grandmother would talk about the Lord, and we would visit the church on Easter Sunday and didn’t go any other Sunday. However, our next-door neighbor would take my sister and I to church with her on some Sundays.

I didn’t grow up in the church, so I’m not a churchy type of person. In my family, we had a long line of ministers and pastors who would visit us from out of state, mostly men and one female pastor that I can remember. They didn’t believe in women preachers or women wearing pants. They were full of religion more than being full of God. In my family, my Great Grandmother and Grandmother could see things and tell you something about yourself. They were seers. As a little girl, I didn’t understand any of it. At that time, I wasn’t trying to understand I was interested in playing and being a tomboy climbing trees and running through the neighborhood. In my teen years in high school my sophomore year, I met my high school sweetheart, whom I married after graduating.

He grew up in church and discussed with me about salvation and giving my life to Christ. I received Christ into my heart at 16 years old and started attending church with my boyfriend. This was the first time that I knew anything about church and having a relationship with God. When I was little, I was too young to understand anything about having a personal relationship with God. While attending church with my boyfriend, I got baptized in water to symbolize the inward change in my life. After I got married, my husband and I moved out of state due to the military relocating him. Once we moved, we didn’t attend church at all. We would go on occasion for the holidays. Of course, I would still see things and dream dreams. I would talk to my husband about it. He didn’t know what to tell me about any of that. So I left it alone.

When God first told me that he had called me into ministry through a dream. He said that he had called me and appointed me over nations and kingdoms to uproot, tear down, destroy, overthrow, build and plant. I was called to people in a desolate place, and I will be one who wins souls and sent by him. I didn’t understand all of that so many years ago, when God first told me this. I went through a series of events in my life where I experienced ridicule and rejection. Even from the womb, I experienced rejection, and I often say that rejection was my middle name. I wasn’t raised by my mother or father. I was raised by my natural Grandmother.

I spent two years in foster care prior to being adopted by my biological Grandmother. I experienced the orphan spirit early on, and later on into my adolescents into adulthood, I didn’t know that the orphan spirit would follow me. It seemed as if I was caged for a long time. With being a military wife and traveling the world for over 20 years, God connected me with some great men and women of God who would confirm God’s word over my life that indeed he did call me. I went through some great tests and many trials in my life as God was equipping me spiritually un-benounced to me.

With being a military wife, we had the opportunity to be exposed too many cultures and churches. Our first introduction to the five-fold ministry was in Fairbanks, Alaska, where my husband was stationed for two and a half years. The church we attended had an Apostle and Prophetess as leaders and overseers of the church. We learned about the prophetic and the apostolic and the right hand of God representing the fivefold ministry. At this church we learned and found out about spiritual parenting as everyone in this church called the leader's mom and dad. My husband and I were spirit-filled in this church with the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. It was at this ministry we learned what a true church family is and what it looks like. In this ministry, we learned so much about prayer, fasting, tithing, marriage, family, and stewardship.

It was a foundation being laid for us in that ministry although my husband and I attended church together in high school everything was different. My husband received orders to relocate because he was accepted into officer candidate school. We left Alaska and attended another church similar to the one in Fairbanks. It was a fivefold ministry. This is where we met the pastors in Columbus, Georgia; they had been in ministry for three years at that time and was soon to celebrate three years in ministry with a conference. Those pastors became our spiritual parents. We went through some leadership training at this ministry. However, we didn’t stay there long because my husband had to relocate again due to officer school. The next duty station, in Maryland we attended church but was not actively involved as we could have been because we knew we were not going to be there long.

The next duty station we were stationed out in California, we found a ministry; we were at this ministry for four years, and my husband and I went through ministers’ training and were trained as leaders and how to operate and be effective in ministry for four years. We moved from California by way of the military and was stationed in Virginia. The church we attended in Virginia; the pastor’s were a husband and wife team. However, the female pastor was a hot mess; she was very controlling and had a jealous spirit. In which I now know today she had a strong jezebel spirit. My husband and I were the Family Life Ministers at this church in Virginia, and we did a lot of teaching and equipping the body for ministry. After we left Virginia and came to Georgia, we were in another church for four years serving as armor-bearers and new covenant directors, and anything dealing with the pastor we were over.

At this church my husband was driving back and forth from North Carolina to Georgia and the pastor of this church fired him form sitting next to him on Sunday’s when he said he couldn’t do it anymore. While we had many other opportunities at many other church’s serving in various capacities before, we decided to step out on faith. Our process took us 19 years before we ever became pastors of a church. It was official in 2014 when God spoke to my husband and I and told us now was the time to step out into ministry and plant a church. That was scary to think that God wanted us actually to step out into ministry. We obeyed God after much prayer and fasting, the Lord had given us the name of our ministry. We stepped out on faith planted, started and founded a church.

We held our first service in our home on March 6, 2014. There were five families in attendance at the end of that service; three of the five families joined the church. I was so excited about what God was doing and zealous. I felt empowered to do what God called me to do. We didn’t stay in our home long, holding church services. We moved from our home into the Comfort Suites Hotel. We were in the hotel for two years; the ministry grew at a tremendous rate. From the hotel we moved into a 6,000 square foot building that we purchased. We experienced warfare in the city that we purchased the building in because of the territorial demons in that area.

Before I really learned what, it was like to be a pastor and master pastoring first, I placed people into leadership and chose people to bear my arms that had not been road-tested in other words, the fruit on their life had not been inspected. I made decisions based on what I saw versus what the Holy Spirit was telling me. I had to learn the hard way through experience. My advice to anybody new to leadership or pastoring, or just starting ministry period. Listen, if you have been in ministry three years or less, you shouldn’t really have people in leadership positions.

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