Exploring the Depths

The past two months have been without a doubt a monsoon season for my faith, the result I suspect of moving to Omaha and into our Webster street prayer house. But even in these months, no day has been quite like Wednesday the sixth. It was a downright hurricane in my heart. Really, whoa. I just have no other words. And I don’t really know what spurred it either, today being just like any other Wednesday. Perhaps the state of my heart yesterday encouraged the events of today. Yesterday I felt drained 90% of the day, but that gave me time to finish the book “The Shack”, which instigated ridiculously wonderful revelations for me, all of them carefully copied down on the last pages of my sketchjournal. I could write another entire spiel just discussing what I learned from that book and how it changed some of my perceptions. Now is not the time.

As for Wednesday, the most encouraging and amazing thing happened when I went to work. I came in with a splitting headache, something I don’t get often. I went to the bathroom to just pray over it for a minute and I found myself remembering that I could use my pain to offer up for others. Immediately I turned my prayer of healing into a prayer of offering, accepting my headache on behalf of the woman at work that the Lord has orchestrated for me to witness to. Julie is her name, and my witnessing to her is again another entire story that I would love to recount eventually. So here I am sitting in the bathroom, clutching my head and offering up my pain for Julie. I found myself focusing more on Julie than anything else, just really praying for her before I began working; praying for her problems, her heart to be softened and opened, for my witness and the work we’d do together, etc. I continued the prayer as I walked out of the restroom, and not five feet away from the door I my headache went away immediately! Right when I noticed it I laughed out loud and thanked the Lord! I can probably count the number of immediately healings that I’ve experienced on one hand, so this was super exciting and wonderful for me. I ran over to Julie, literally I ran with excitement, telling her that I had a bad headache, that I prayed over it and instantly it was gone. While I was saying this I felt heat in my chest, just like I was so excited I was hot.  I feel like I’ve had little exposure to God’s healing, and I completely believe and trust God as healer, but when it really happens to you it’s amazing and faith boosting. It also gave me confirmation that ministering to Julie is exactly God’s desire for me at work, and the positioning of me working with Julie is most definitely my purpose there. If I suffer physically for the salvation of her soul, gladly I will take it. My body is nothing compared to the souls of humanity. This is the same grace in Fasting.  Julie said to me later, “Do you ever wonder why you came back to work here? I think it was for me.” I told her that I knew it was exactly for her (hopefully other too), and that God places us right where He wants and needs us if only we let Him.

Those events, mingled with another really good prayer night Tuesday with friends at my house, are I believe, the precursors, the things that built up the Spirit in my heart to then experience the things of Wednesday. And honestly today would seem probably a little less exciting than the day before to the average onlooker, except for me it was so spiritually thick I was chewing on God all day. I know, that seems a little cryptic.

This was Wednesday: I stirred awake and after a fight with the recycling and garbage, I immediately grabbed for my cereal feeling ravenous, that kind of “Argh, I’ve just woken up and could eat everything” hunger. As I was pouring cereal, Tana slowly stopped me and said that Leslie and she would usually fast before they prayed for the block. I about jumped with enthusiasm because fasting has been on my mind for the past couple of days and for whatever reason it didn’t occur to me to fast before our prayer, but I was really glad Tana suggested it. I felt it was particularly a good little fast because I really wanted that cereal having just woken up and feeling as hungry as I did, so it was a perfect opportunity to humble myself and prepare my heart for our morning prayer. After that I drifted to the back porch to pray, dedicating the day to the Lord. Tana and I then prayed for our block, walking around it in our ghostly slowness as we stopped here and there speaking love and deliverance over every house and person, enduring weird looks along the way.  I felt as we returned that I was reluctant to stop praying, which usually isn’t the case. Prayer can be labor for sure, but not at all today. I just realized that perhaps this is a result of my simple breakfast fasting before our prayer walk. Wow God, you are truly wonderful, the way you work in and around us.

That could be classified I suppose as altogether ‘normal’, though that prayerful morning set up my entire day to be a flowing state of prayer. As for my hurricane experience I will fast-forward to when I went to work.  Julie wasn’t there which meant I was working by myself, a good thing considering what God was doing inside me. I listened to 1^st John and 1^st Peter on my Zune, irritated as it died just before Thessalonians. I was repeating every verse spoken, trying to commit much to memory (I read that one of the Greek meanings for remember is something like “to mutter” so when we’re encouraged to remember it also means to mutter :P). But after that died, instead I started listening to teachings on Youtube via my blackberry.  The things they were saying in their messages were really hitting home for me and that was the point where my heart, already in a heightened state of prayer all day, just began exploding with great and deep feelings of hunger for God, inexpressible feelings of love, urgency, longing, unsatisfaction, and abandonment to Him. One of the talks was even about abandonment and here I was really feeling it. I began weeping and praying aloud, even at one point having trouble containing myself physically such that I had to stop what I was doing and stretch my arms upward just desperately reaching for my beloved in worship and groaning. I went to the bathroom for a moment to pray more to Him and weep, unsure of where this was coming from, but loving every minute that my heart ached for God. I have not ached like this in a little while, probably since when I went to church with Tana, and even that paled in comparison to this. I continued to pray off and on all night at work, and I felt a clarity and ease there with God. I really wanted to stop working so that I could fall on face and pray. I briefly considered leaving early to do just that, but I dismissed it, knowing that my job is such that I can easily pray and work anyway. I realize now that I was having my own personal revival. In that prayer time, things were re-awakened in my spirit, desires that I believe the Lord is sowing into me, as well as answered prayer. I am continually amazed at how God is working in me, and so quickly in this season! This is spiritually one of the weirdest and most wonderful times of my life. I find myself sitting back in awe at it often these days.