There has been A TON of new revelation in my life in, well now that I think about it, the last year or more. 2011 was fraking ridiculous, 2012 is already proving to shock my socks off and well, I’m doing a horrible job of keeping up with it. For some reason filling pages and pages in my journal leaves me feeling like that 9 year old girl who used to write about how much she loved Justin Reyes (my first boy friend in third grade which ended up being my cousin, doomed from the beginning). So maybe I’ll try to blog about it. Truth is I already have a blog on wordpress, but I haven’t kept that up. How will tumblr be any better? I don’t know, but here I am, making no promises but deeply wanting to share some new revelation(s). I’ll start with the most recent of revelations and maybe I’ll get to the others from further back, maybe I won’t like I said “no promises”. Here goes:
So last week, or two weeks ago now, February 9, I went to my Lifegroup for my church Epicentre, I can not tell you how blessed I’ve been by this group of random folks. On this day we were praying, out loud and for each other, one of the group members Thomas randomly (and I thought absurdly) asked if someone in the group had back pain (as if he could randomly point out back pain for someone, its a general annoyance). My friend Sue jumped (tenderly?) up, she had been having back pain for quite sometime, Thomas and a few others laid hands and prayed for her, she received healing right then. Thomas then asked the group if someone’s shoulders were hurting (even more absurd I thought), Quay, a very special soul, said that she had (she had told me about this and I had told her I would pray for her, I forget if I ever actually did pray for that). Again people laid hands and prayed for her, in the prayer time, it started getting really emotional, and Quay sounded like she was in actual pain. I was praying for her too, and I felt my anxiety build, in my mind/prayer I saw dark things, creepy things, I was wondering why I was thinking of those things, “Steph, get back on track girl, why you think those things?” I thought. Meanwhile, Ann Chen asked Quay what was happening, she began talking about her dad and not feeling loved or cherished by him, they prayed God’s love and cherishing over her and very soon, she seemed to calm down. My mind/prayers had also changed instead of dark things I began to envision light, clouds, sunshine, white brightness. I felt as if whatever darkness was there, it had left. I was kind of freaked out. Not sure what had just happened, if it wasn’t anything more than emotional fake spirituality, psychological trauma, or actual spiritual warfare. Though I think I went with the last one, seeing as I was at a church function, and everyone else seemed to be buying it ( I don’t mean that in a sense to go along with things just because everyone else is going along with things, but to make the point that it seemed very real to everyone) and the skeptic in me died for a second as I told Quay that it was gone, she was healed.
The next day I was doing the closing shift at Jamba Juice and I was working with my manager Van (he is my favorite) about a month before we had had a great conversation about the Warriors, football, Tim Tebow and faith, and in driving him home that night after work he asked me to pray for God’s will in his life to be done. I was jazzed and actually committed to pray for him (I say “actually” cus sometimes I say I’ll pray with good intentions of doing so but “actually” don’t get around to it). But this night Van was not in the mood to talk. In the beginning of his shift that day his shoulder had begun to hurt, and by the time we closed shop he was in throbbing pain, it showed in every movement he made. He was sitting counting the safe when he looked up at me and shook his head.-I had been praying since he told be his shoulder hurt, that God would heal him, I also told God that I didn’t want to get too messy in this (as in I didn’t want to ask him if he wanted to pray or lay hands and such, too messy) but rather God would just heal him with my silent prayers.- I asked him if I could pray for him, he answered yes immediately as if he had been awaiting my question. I then asked him hesitantly, “now?” he said yes. I laid hands and prayed an awkward, self-conscious prayer for healing, and then walked away in awkward silence, back to the sink to finish washing the last dishes. I looked over timidly to see his reaction, he had a huge smile on his face, “You’ll never believe me if I tell you it feels better.” “Yes I will!” I say. “It feels better!” I jump up and down like a kid in a candy store, amazed and shocked, and back to square one, confused and skeptical. “I wonder if it’s really healed?” I thought. Oh reluctant Stephanie, Oh skeptical disbelieving Stephanie. My questions were answered soon after when I saw his shoulder slump back in hurt position. I took him home again this night and we talked about healing. His mom had told him that praying for healing was praying for God’s will to happen. That makes sense to me. I can see in him a thirst and hunger for the Lord and his healing (not necessarily physical) I see it because I feel the same thirst I see in him. He tells me of a happenstance that happened the past week where in driving his girlfriends care a CD was stuck in the player that wasn’t usually there a Christian CD that he told me made him realize he needs to get back in Church. All I can say is wow, this humble beautiful man, shared this honest thing with me. I was touched and well excited. I told him that since I met him I saw the light of something in him, the Spirit, is what I believed it to be. He brings it with him. He shared that he missed the fellowship of church, I admitted that that was something I desired most at this point in life. I dropped him off and was just jazzed. This man of God wants to be joined in fellowship, how beautiful, how real. God is chasing him and his family. CHASING him. Beautiful.
If that had been all it would have been enough, but rewind to the next week on Tuesday night, Valentines Day, I was having a great day, spent some good hang time with Jesus, and was thinking about going to Livebones (a wonderful Spirit full prayer group on the Fuller campus) in the evening to cap off my day, praising. A group had been to Bethel the weekend before and had crazy stories to share of what God had done. Cheryl shared a testimony of healing, she had been completely healed of her gluten, dairy, and nut allergies. She had no symptoms and was shockingly and wonderful walking in healing. I thought, “Good for her, I hope someday God can heal me, someday…” She was asked to “release” that to the people at Livebones, Kevin asked if there was anyone who had food allergies, I timidly raised my hand and they said, “Okay, let’s pray.” “Do I have a choice, I thought?” (Oh unbelieving Stephanie) but got up and accepted their prayers with hope that they would come to fruition. Then there was a time of testimony, I shared what had happened with Van, that this had been a weak of healing, I also shared in my story my doubts, and timidity in all of it. Brooke, oh precious Brooke, said that she needed to pray for me, she needed to pray for boldness over me, others gathered round and put their hands on me. And they prayed. The prayed things and said things that touched me, they prayed for Van, they prayed for Jamba, they said that God wanted more (from me? for me? both), that he was going to use me, I was overwhelmed in the middle and felt my legs give out as if overcome, though overcome with something good. They stopped and I was ready to sit down, amazed and crying quite a bit. But Becky said that she didn’t think they were done praying for me yet. She place her hand on my stomach and continued to pray, she said that God wanted me to experience his love in new and deeper ways, he wanted to break down any walls any thing keeping from his love, from experiencing his love. Justin said that he saw my hands spread out and often times there would be imagery of tree branches coming out but for me there were roots (one of my most treasured visions) if I remember right he said that these roots would be for others to help others be rooted. They told me that I was a healer and God was going to use me to heal and not just a little bit but all the way. They told me that God wanted to use me specially and specifically, that God saw my hunger and honored it, as well as my obedience to him and using whatever faith I had, faith of a mustard seed. They also said that Satan saw that hunger and couldn’t find anyway to attack it so he attacked my body with the gluten intolerance, I kind of think that’s true. I’m still praying about that. Donny said that he had told me that and I hadn’t believed him, I don’t remember that, but perhaps. Brooke also told me that God wants to use me in powerful ways and then she in great wisdom and discernment told me that it wasn’t on my shoulders to do any of that, that it was going to be just by being me, where I’m at that God is going to use me. WOW. is all I have to say just wow. I hope I got it all down. If I remember more I’ll come back and put it in here. After Livebones there was a lady there, Cheryl’s step-mom who was asking for healing, those of us who were left gathered around to pray for her, she started shaking and soon fell back wards, arms out, she seem unresponsive, I felt that fear rise up once again, but continued to pray and she eventually woke up with great thanks and joy, it was also said that she was a healer. I began talking with a sweet girl Talia and she said something about her ears bothering her, she had tinnitus and 10% hearing loss, Eve the woman who we had just prayed for began to listen, Talia mentioned something about me and Eve being healers, so yes, we prayed for her. She said that here ears were very hot, she started twitching some and ticking to her left, she was laughing and seemed so happy and joyous, Becky came over and held her hands and together they seemed to be praising God and experiencing his joy, laughing and dancing/twitching together. I walked away from this night amazed. I was obviously on fire after that with an excitement and heart exploding with love and passion and peace, and honestly I felt such healing, healing even more than that of them praying for my gluten intolerance to be healed. I was floating.
And there is more…but that’ll have to wait for another day it’s 2AM.
