Inspired by: I Speak Jesus
📍 Nashville, Tennessee | January 18, 2024
The house was quiet, but not peaceful.
It was the kind of quiet that buzzed with tension—like the air before a storm, where everything feels wound too tight.
Cassie Hernandez, 33 years old, sat on the edge of the guest room bed in her sister’s house just outside of Nashville. She stared at the little black duffel bag at her feet. Zipper half-open. A bottle of pills tucked beside a burner phone.
It wasn’t supposed to come to this.
Not for someone who used to lead worship.
Not for someone who once wrote “Jesus loves me” in sidewalk chalk as a kid.
But life had a way of grinding the strongest into powder.
Cassie had been sober for 17 days.
But the voices were louder now.
The guilt.
The shame.
The memories of what she’d done.
Who she’d hurt.
What she’d become.
And in that room, she heard them again.
Not audibly, but internally. Whispering accusations.
“You’re a failure.”
“Your family’s better off without you.”
“Even God stopped listening.”
She gripped the edge of the mattress, shaking.
Tears welled up. Her hands trembled.
And then… her niece walked in.
Little Amelia, five years old, barefoot in Minnie Mouse pajamas, carrying a half-melted popsicle in one hand and her mom’s old iPad in the other.
“Hey Auntie Cassie,” she said innocently, “you wanna hear the song I like?”
Cassie wiped her eyes quickly and forced a smile. “Sure, baby.”
Amelia tapped the screen.
Music began to play softly through the little speaker.
🎶 “I just want to speak the name of Jesus…”
Cassie froze.
🎶 “…over every heart and every mind, 'cause I know there is peace within Your presence…”
The song wasn’t loud. But it might as well have been thunder.
Amelia swayed gently, completely unaware of the war raging in the room. “Mommy sings this one when she’s sad.”
Cassie bit her lip, tears now racing freely down her cheeks.
And then Amelia said five words that would echo in eternity:
“You should try saying it too.”
Cassie didn’t speak at first. Couldn’t.
But when Amelia left, skipping back down the hall, and the song reached the chorus again—
🎶 “Shout Jesus from the mountains, Jesus in the streets…”
—Cassie fell to her knees.
She didn’t have a prayer written out.
She didn’t know where to start.
So she said the only name she could think of:
“Jesus…”
She whispered it once.
Then again.
Then louder.
“Jesus over my mind.”
“Jesus over my fear.”
“Jesus over this addiction.”
“Jesus over my name. Over my shame. Over everything I’ve ruined.”
And in that quiet room, the atmosphere changed.
It didn’t thunder.
No angels appeared.
But the darkness lifted.
Just a little.
Just enough for the light to start breaking through.
The Lesson
There is power in the name of Jesus.
Not just poetic, spiritual power. But real power. Power that silences torment. Power that rewires hopelessness. Power that breaks chains forged in years of pain.
When we speak Jesus—we’re not just speaking a name.
We’re speaking truth into lies.
Peace into panic.
Light into the darkest corners of the human heart.
There’s no name stronger. No force greater. No addiction, anxiety, diagnosis, or shame that can stand under it.
Bible Verse
Philippians 2:10–11 (ESV)
“So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
So the next time the darkness comes…
Before you break… before you run… before you give up…
Speak Jesus.
Speak Him over your family.
Over your thoughts.
Over your past.
Over your future.
Over yourself.
Because you don’t have to have the perfect prayer.
You just need one name.
And His name is enough.
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