The Day I Chose God’s Legacy Instead of Man’s

When Inheritance Becomes a Cage

When the “Inheritance” Started Feeling Wrong

I didn’t plan to write this today, but something shifted in my spirit and I knew I needed to put words to it. For the past few months, I’ve been helping my grandmother with her jewelry business (again). She has over half a million pieces stored in her garage, boxes stacked high, years of collecting, organizing, and watching every tiny detail. When we moved to Oregon to help her, I really thought I was stepping into a legacy, something she wanted me to inherit and carry forward. But as time went by, I began to feel a heaviness I couldn’t ignore. Instead of being trusted and released, I found myself being micromanaged and “trained” on the same basics I learned from her twenty years ago. Instead of being empowered, I felt myself shrinking. Instead of stepping into purpose, I felt pulled into someone else’s cycle of control and stagnation.

Legacy vs. Trap: When God Exposes the Difference

Somewhere deep inside, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper, “This is not your inheritance.” I knew it was true long before I was ready to face it. There’s a difference between receiving a legacy and being trapped by one. Not every door that looks like opportunity is tied to destiny. Sometimes parents and grandparents hold so tightly to what they’ve built that they unknowingly box their children in, keeping them small to maintain their own sense of control. Scripture already talks about this tension. Genesis reminds us that a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife (Genesis 2:24). There is a leaving built into maturity. Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60). I have uncomfortably related to the man who had to bury his father before following Jesus. It is widely believed that his father was not yet dead and who knew when he would die but the man wanted to wait for his inheritance before following Jesus. And that has given me clarity: at some point you have to choose your assignment. I have asked God to purify me and make me. Out of this process (which is still ongoing) comes this: I have rejected my grandmothers "inheritance"

Confirmation in the Natural

I reached a point where I needed clarity in the natural, not just in my spirit. So I asked my grandmother if she wanted me to take the jewelry off my website since she plans to move back to Las Vegas. There was a tiny hope that she might say, “No, keep it there. Build something for yourself.” But as God would have it, she said, “Yes. Give it back.” In that moment, all the hoping and guessing evaporated. I felt something release. And it didn’t crush me the way I expected. It felt like freedom. I realized I wasn’t losing anything. I was simply being shown the truth: this was never really mine to inherit, and God never meant for me to build my life around it.

When Family Expectations Become Chains

There are parents and grandparents who genuinely love their children and still bind them to expectations that suffocate their calling. They hold them in emotional debt, spiritual obligation, or guilt-wrapped responsibility. When you do that, you don’t create legacy anyway, you just block destiny. Children are meant to be nurtured, blessed, and released, not controlled, guilted, or manipulated into someone else’s unfinished dreams. Proverbs says, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute” (Proverbs 31:8–9). That includes speaking up for sons and daughters whose voices have been muted under “family expectations.” And for those who are trapped in that dynamic, you need to know: you are allowed to choose the life God wrote for you over the life someone else demanded.

Alignment, Release, and the Sunlight Returning

When I handed the jewelry back, I didn’t feel abandoned. I felt aligned. I felt God saying, “Now you can walk into what I actually gave you.” Without that dark mountain of jewelry blocking the sunlight from my garden, I can finally see the landscape of my real assignment. My inheritance was never supposed to be stored in boxes in a garage. My inheritance is spiritual. “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance” (Psalm 16:6). My portion is the Lord Himself, not things. Not collections. Not control. Him.

Stepping Into the Mission Field God Actually Called Us To

Free from that, I can look at where God has planted us and see the assignment clearly. My husband and I are not just “living on the Oregon Coast.” We are being aligned with churches all along Highway 101 to confront some very real giants in this region: child sex trafficking, drug addiction, religious stagnation, and the stronghold of witchcraft and divination that has been allowed to flourish here. I'm not being dramatic...the numbers confirm what the Spirit has already been saying.

Oregon’s Crisis Is Not Imagined, It’s Documented

Reports show that Oregon has been among the worst in the nation for overall addiction, with nearly one in five teens and adults reporting a problem with drugs or alcohol. The state has ranked at or near the top for methamphetamine misuse and prescription opioid misuse, and alcohol remains the most misused substance here. Oregon’s suicide rate has consistently outpaced the national average for decades, with recent age-adjusted rates around 19–20 deaths per 100,000 people compared to roughly 14 per 100,000 nationally. At the same time, nearly half of Oregonians reported having poor mental health in the past month in recent years, and alcohol-related deaths have risen sharply. Among youth in the Oregon system, the majority have trauma histories and substance use histories, showing how deep this goes generationally. These aren’t just “issues”. This is a full-on spiritual and social crisis that prophetic and apostolic intercessors are gathering from all over the country to attend to.

What God Is Doing Along the Coast

So no, it’s not random that God would pull my hands out of boxes of necklaces and put them back into the soil, the sanctuary, the Scriptures, and the streets. Apostle Chuck Pierce prophesied years ago about the warfare and worship that would be needed in this region, and I see it with my own eyes. There is a Jezebel spirit that tries to silence prophets, seduce leaders, and clog the flow of God in this land (Revelation 2:20). There is a religious spirit that looks like Pharisees and Sadducees—content with form, offended by power, suspicious of the apostolic and prophetic. There is a spirit of pharmakeia (sorcery through substances) that has wrapped itself around whole communities through drugs, addiction, and hopelessness. And then there is the pain under all of that: kids being exploited, families fractured, people self-medicating just to get through the day.

But the Word of God doesn’t tell us to hide from darkness. It says, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11). It says our weapons are not carnal but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4). It calls us to “loose the chains of injustice… set the oppressed free and break every yoke” (Isaiah 58:6). And Jesus said that whoever welcomes a little child in His name welcomes Him, and whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Him to stumble would be better off with a millstone around their neck (Matthew 18:5–6). God is very serious about children, justice, and oppression.

So that’s what we’re giving our lives to. My husband and I are aligning with churches along the Oregon Coast, praying together, worshiping, doing outreach, and confronting what the enemy has tried to normalize here. We are not coming in our own strength. We are coming as part of the Body of Christ, under apostolic covering, believing God for deliverance, healing, and transformation in a state known for high addiction, deep depression, suicidality, and spiritual confusion. We are here to declare that Oregon is not just a statistic. Oregon belongs to Jesus.

Choosing Obedience Over Expectation

And this is why I had to step away from the jewelry. Not because jewelry is evil, but because compromise is. Because delayed obedience is. Because giving my energy to the wrong assignment, just to keep someone else comfortable, is. I refuse to let fear of man talk me out of the path God predestined for me. Romans 8:14–17 says that those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God, and that we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. That’s my inheritance. That’s my portion. That’s my future.

A Call to Anyone Who Feels This Stirring

If you feel something stirring while you read this, maybe God is calling you to lay down a false inheritance too. Maybe He’s asking you to walk out of obligation and into obedience. Maybe it’s time to stop living under guilt and start living under grace and assignment. You don’t have to dishonor people to stop letting them control you. You can bless them, release them to God, and still say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

Stepping Fully Into God’s Inheritance

Today, I chose the inheritance of Heaven over the illusion of security. I chose open sky over a packed garage. I chose the highway of holiness over Highway 101 being known only for trafficking and brokenness. I chose to believe that whatever I sow in obedience, I will reap in destiny (Galatians 6:7). And I believe God is big enough to carry me, my family, and this whole assignment all the way through.

If you’re standing at a similar crossroads, I pray you find the courage to say yes to God, even if it means saying no to everything else.

Everything We Build Funds the Kingdom

And as we step into this assignment, I want to make something very clear about SowReapGal going forward. Every seed packet, every tincture, every oil, every herbal product (everything the store offers) will go directly toward building the Kingdom of God along this coast and beyond. This isn’t just a small business anymore; it’s part of our ministry. It’s how we sow into outreach, worship gatherings, prophetic intercession, and the work God is asking us to do in confronting trafficking, addiction, and spiritual darkness along Highway 101. When you purchase from the store, you are putting seed into the ground for revival. And if anyone feels led to give beyond that, donations are welcomed and received with gratitude. We are committed to using every resource God places in our hands to advance His purposes in Oregon. This is fertile soil, and we are believing for a mighty harvest.

References (for my fellow data nerds)

Oregon Capital Chronicle. (2022, February 7). Oregon has worst drug addiction problem in the nation, report shows. Oregon Capital Chronicle

Oregon Public Broadcasting. (2022, February 3). Oregon had second-highest addiction rates in the nation in 2020. opb

Oregon Health Authority. (2025). Suicide Prevention – Oregon data highlights. oregon.gov

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025, March 26). Suicide rates by state. CDC

Oregon Capital Chronicle. (2025, May 9). Oregon’s mental health needs outweigh its ability to provide services, report shows. Oregon Capital Chronicle

Oregon Health Authority – Child & Family Behavioral Health. (2025). Data report on the Oregon system of care for youth. oregon.gov

OPB. (2023, March 14). Oregon’s many mental health crises. opb