Karen Wheaton was one of more than a dozen Spirit-empowered speakers who spoke life and recognized the call God has on this generation at Rise Up.
“Deborah and Esther were two women who fulfilled the purpose of God for their generations and answered their call for their time,” Wheaton tells Charisma News. “And so they were bold they were empowered by the Holy Spirit, but most of all, they just said yes to taking on a mandate that could have cost them everything, and in some ways did but gave them what?—an eternal reward. I think this is the call for women of our generation to say you know what this is our day. We got the same call for our time, and our answer has to be yes.”
Rise Up 2017 was part of a collaborative effort with Lou Engle’s The Call and Awaken the Dawn. The four-day non-stop charismatic revival shook the National Mall in Washington, D.C., complete with messages in tongues, shofars, worship flags and prophecies decreed from stage.
Adrianna Phelice Simon was one of the organizers of Rise Up.
“I feel like we’re in a moment, and I’m not sure if everybody can feel it, but this is very strategic,” Simon tells Charisma News. “We are shifting the heavens. … God always in the Bible, when He went to Gideon, He said, ‘Don’t give me those, that’s too many, that’s too many.’ He’s looking for the remnant, and today in the rain, the remnant is here. We are crying out for our nation, and we’re going to see this thing shift in our generation, and that’s very key. We cannot allow the next generation to receive what the devil has to offer on a silver platter what he had to offer us, so we’re saying no more.”
Cindy Jacobs, who spent much of the day on stage, prophesied that Rise Up was the birth of a new women’s movement, one that would not be driven out of a bitter heart, and Wheaton agrees.
All across America, women have embraced the label “nasty woman,” but that’s not who God has called them to be, the two speakers say.
“The light will always overcome darkness and the good thing is, if God is before us, He is with us,” Wheaton says. “We’re standing for His Word, His will, His purpose and agenda. It brings truth that not only sets us free, it sets them [nasty women] free, too. You know, this word is a word not of anger but a word of love that really satisfies even what those women are looking for, too. Like I said, love is the most powerful weapon in the universe. And when you come, and that’s who God is, and when you come in that spirit and it’s the answer for a generation … that includes those women who are searching, too.”
Though women stood in unity on Monday, there is still significant work to be done in the church and in the nation. Multiple speakers called for the body of Christ to unite against the rampant racism that still permeates the country and even Christian hearts.
Simon, a black woman, is holding the church accountable.
“We have to unite. The only thing that’ll heal a divided nation is the united church, and we are called as African-Americans to forgive in love and white men and women are called to actually bring forgiveness, actually ask for forgiveness,” Simon says. “We’re called to come together as one people under the cross of Christ. God is calling us in this hour. No more division, no more this, no more that. We are coming under one purpose, and the purpose of this gathering you know, we can come under different things, but we said we were going to gather under the one thing that unites us and that’s Jesus Christ. And whether I’m black, white, Hispanic, Asian, no matter what I am, Christ is my Savior, and if He’s your Savior, then we can come together in that.
“So it is time for our church to unite so we can see healing in this land. We want to see healing; we say we want to see it. The only way that the world is going to see it is if the church is first healed.”
And to get there, Simon says, it’s time for women to stand in the gap and contend for their families.
Janet Perez Eckles 
Shawn Akers 
Abby Trivett 
