Frankly Speaking

We are stunned.  We cannot believe sweet Jill is in heaven.  I smile when I say that, because how many times did she go there in her spirit?  I think she constantly lived between heaven and earth, never fully here, showing us the way to live.  Mike and I were reminiscing this morning, thinking about what a good person she was.  I don’t think I ever saw her angry or unhappy.  Always smiling and talking about the one she loved.  We ache for the hurt she’s been through these last few years and talking to God about that.

I’m so glad Linda Valen was able to love and serve her all these years.  She could never have reached the world like she did if she hadn’t had her.  Just surviving those years after Gateway were because of Linda.  Thank you for all the times you helped her.

What a gift to have Jill in our home a few weeks ago.  I’d never been able to spend much time with Jill, although I admired and respected her and felt loved by her.  Those days that she was here we got to invite her in to our family and just have her as family.  She helped us decorate the tree, listen to Christmas music and share her heart over and over.  Just rest.  The funnest part for me was to see her connect with Christian and to get excited about his trips to heaven.  She got him, and he loved her for that.  Not many kids get Christian and he felt loved by her.  He is so sad that she is no longer here on earth, but thankfully he knows about heaven and looks forward to the day he will get to see her then.

JILL’S STORY
Jill and I spent the day together and went for a walk down by the beach and she began to share her story with me.  I’d heard bits and pieces many times, but just the whole story of being a master potter and how God touched her through her art.  Then she told me about the drama she and Naomi and Paul would do and I was undone by the powerful message she was telling me.  We stopped for lunch at the East Beach Cafe and sat outside and she then told me about all the little clips of stories she had in mind to do some day regarding prolife.  I kept getting goosebumps as she told me, and I kept telling her Jill!  We need that here in California right now!  I think she felt encouraged and hopeful that maybe she wouldn’t have to travel so much.  Maybe she began to dream again.  Those days with Jill were so fun and we were able to tell her the many ways she had touched our lives.

She also shared with me all the legal troubles of all the different areas of her life from books, to recordings, to churches not sending her a check.  It just didn’t make sense to us and we ached with her that it should be so difficult.

As I think back over everyone I know in my small circle, they have all been touched by Jill.

OUR FAMLIY
When Mike and I had lost our little Lexie and didn’t know what to do Mike began going down to IHOP to sit under Mike’s teaching and be with the Lord to heal his heart.  He began meeting with Mike and encouraging him in different areas and we thought we were supposed to move down there, but needed the Lord to give us clear direction.  At one gathering at IHOP Jill called Mike out and told him exactly what he had told MikeB the day before!  Mike had told MikeB he felt like he was on this ship and he was to be the navigator, not down below on the deck.  Jill told him those exact words that next day, and that he and Mike Bickle were to learn how to dance together.  When Mike called me on the phone that day I began weeping, knowing that was the confirmation from the Lord to move to KC.  We moved down within months and because of that new direction, the Lord poured Israel and End Times into our hearts.

The first time I met Jill, was in California at a church in Malibu.  My friend Pamela Stead had been ministering with her and we got to go into the back room and watch how she brought Holy Spirit into each member of the team.  I’d never seen such power before. It was right after my mom had passed away, and I was so sad and weary.  The joy of the Lord came to me that day and at the end of the day I met a woman who had also lost her children AND her husband in a plane crash.  I had never heard of her before.  Her name was Melody Green and it lead to a wonderful friendship.  Jill was a networker.

OUR CHILDREN
Several months later, we talked our son Dustin to come to The House of Prayer for a conference.  Mike put him in the front row and Jill “happened” to be there.  During ministry time, she walked by Mike and Dustin and began prophesying over them that they would be working together, father and son, and that Dustin’s music would be used by the Lord to break the demonic all over the world.  (I wish I had been there to record all, but that’s the best the “boys” could remember).  It was so powerful to my two men, though, that they immediately tried to figure out how to do just that…which eventually turned into Dustin and Britt moving to KC and then Dustin meeting Jill and producing Visitations.  It’s still the most amazing cd I’ve ever heard.  She was able to take Dustin to a place of creativity he had never been before.

A couple years later I was at a breakfast with a new friend Rick McDonald.  We were sitting in his yard in Santa Barbara and as he was sharing about his life I knew he needed to meet my son Dustin. He smiled and said “What is his name?”  When I told him he told me a story about a lunch he attended with many pastors.  As they were all discussing business, the blonde woman beside him kept holding his hand and smiling at him.  Finally he looked at her and said “Yes, what could I do for you?”  She laughed and handed him the Visitation cd and said “You need to meet Dustin Frank”.  And here he was, sitting beside me and hearing his name again.  Dustin ended up creating some amazing music for some of Rick’s videos.  God is so amazing, and Jill was so giving of all her resources.

OUR HEARTS
After reading Jill’s first book “Master Potter”, I knew there were many areas in my life that needing healing and I quickly ran to “my closet” and opened my heart in a new way I hadn’t known how to do before.  That led me on a several year journey to pursue inner healing and in turn helped me to be able to help others.

There are very few profits my husband listens to, but there was something about Jill that really reached his heart and he always had a soft spot for her.  When Jill spoke, Mike knew it was from the Lord.  She helped him to open his heart to the fact that there really are profits and words of knowledge and that God does operate in the supernatural.  He knew that he could trust Jill and she didn’t want anything from him and he didn’t want anything from her…just friendship.  How beautiful.

Even now, 6 years later, Jill found us in San Francisco, and shared the words from the Lord that we hadn’t told anyone, that we had carried around in our hearts, thinking they would never come to pass and God used Jill to encourage us.

OUR FRIENDS
While we were in San Francisco with Katharine and Myles Weiss, we saw their lives get touched powerfully and once again they could continue on their journey, knowing that the Lord saw them and knew them.

When we met Jan and Gregory Comeaux in Israel, they told us that Jill had greatly impacted their lives, I think she even prophesied them together.

We have such a small circle of friends, and Jill’s impact was huge.  I can’t imagine her impact on the world.  What a precious light she has been in our lives and in those of many of our friends.  Her hunger to always be filled and surrounded with the Holy Spirit was always amazing to me.  And the way she poured out her life for so many will never be forgotten.  I’m going to miss her a lot.  I love that she is now being tended to by angels.  I hope she gets to be with Lexie and they run through heaven together.

We will miss her so much.

love,

Robbie, Mike and Christian