Sacramento - Part I "Roots of Righteousness"

Teruah and I had been talking about stopping in Sacramento to pray as our first "capitol city" destination. It was ideal, being CA's capitol city and right on our way as we headed out of Redding to the San Francisco Bay Area. However, we also did not plan to be so tired as we were that day!

The night before, we had finished packing up the last of our belongings, did some painting in our rooms, delivered the remaining furniture to friends, and cleaned the house in preparation for turning the keys over to the landlord. It was late when our neighbors helped us stuff the last bag into the car and we said our 'goodbyes' and went to a friend's house to crash for the night.

So neither of us were feeling very perky as we began driving through Sacramento...I toyed briefly with the idea of not stopping - of just making it to our destination at Teruah's parents so we could rest...but almost instantly I felt that would not be the right thing to do. Teruah also voiced that she was suddenly "exhausted" and wasn't interested in getting stuck in traffic. We decided to exit anyway, and began to pray for the weariness to lift, for alertness to come, and almost instantly, we began to feel awake and to have energy. We exited on whim, asking God to show us where to go (we had no idea where the capitol building was located exactly) and within 5 minutes, we had a parking spot right beside the capitol building lawn.

We began to ask the Lord if there was anything specific He would have us do or declare, or pray...For the last hour in the car, Teruah had been playing and re-playing the song "You Won't Relent" which says :

You won't relent until You have it all,

My heart is Yours,

I'll set You as a seal upon my heart; As a seal upon my arm;

For there is love that is as strong as death;

Jealousy, demanding as the grave.

Many waters cannot quench this love;

You won't relent until You have it all,

My heart is Yours...

Come be the fire inside of me,

Come be the flame upon my heart;

Come be the fire inside of me,

Until You and I are one...

And suddenly as we stood in front of the capitol looking at the different "seals" embedded in the pavement, we began to sing that song quietly - and the Lord spoke to us to sing it as we stood on the State Seal of California. God began to speak to Teruah about how people have prophesied many times about California falling off into the ocean in the aftermath of some great quake. She felt God expressly saying "many waters cannot quench My love, neither can floods drown it." She began to declare that instead of falling off into the ocean, CA would fall so in love with God that no matter how much water, storms or floods may come, that love will never be quenched.

We began to sing specifically the part of the song that says "set me as a SEAL upon your arm," as we stood over the State seal. This is an excerpt from Teruah's entry in our journal: " I felt like I needed to take out my Bible and read from Song of Solomon 8:6-7... As I walked on it [the state seal] in a circle, I read out the scripture. I prayed that God would set Sacramento and California as a seal upon His heart and as a seal upon His arm. No longer would we be a state that is looked at in disgust because of the evil and liberalism that comes from CA; instead we would be known as the state that has been "sealed" upon the heart of God. I saw a picture of people who get tattooed with "tribal arm bands" around the upper portion of their right arm, but the tattoo's (arm bands) were a direct representation of our being "branded" as God's [belonging to Him]. "

We began to declare intimacy with the Lord, asking God to set a seal on California - a faithful seal - and a seal of FAITHFULNESS upon her.

As we made our way around the building, we saw a statue and a plaque and as we approached I knew what we would see was going to be significant in some way. It was a memorial set up for "The Sisters of Mercy." This is what the plaque said: " During the gold rush days of 1857, The sisters of Mercy came to Sacramento to care for the miners and to serve the sick and homeless. In those early days, the sisters purchased the land in the heart of the city to build a school...This is now the site of the State Capitol Building. The Sisters of Mercy have made significant contributions to the history and progress of the State of CA. Their mission to care for the sick, the poor the elderly and the uneducated continues today..."
One of the sisters depicted was kneeling down with her hand on a sick child. We were excited to read this - that there was already a rich heritage there on that ground of laying hands on the sick, caring for the poor, desolate and uneducated and seeing them recover. We began to declare "California, come back to your ROOTS!" In conjunction with this, I saw a magnificent magnolia tree on the grounds of the capitol lawn that had an incredible root system - I knew this was significant of what we had just seen. Ancient roots of Righteousness...SEE * Sacramento part II "California- The Beloved" * for the finale!