When God Shows Up
Sitting in a crowded room with 300+ people that I didn’t know, God showed up. His presence was unmistakable. For some, He came upon them bringing outbursts of uncontrollable joy and laughter. For others, He opened wounds and touched people in their brokenness, bringing forth healing sobs and tears. The presence of the Lord was strong at training camp.
When I showed up at AIM headquarters on Oct. 11th, I had no idea what to expect. I knew that this week would be extremely challenging in multiple ways, but I would have never expected to have an encounter with the Lord like I experienced. I’ll be writing a blog later about training camp in general, but for now I’d like to take some time to be vulnerable and share with you how I saw God moving in me and around me during this time…
I’m generally a more reserved, soft spoken individual when I am placed into a group of people I don’t know. It takes me a while to feel comfortable enough to open up to someone, to trust them. From the beginning of my world race journey, God has been working with me on this. I am on 3rd generation N squad, a group of individuals that to me are very outgoing and outspoken. Walking into training camp I was very overwhelmed by this. I wasn’t sure if I was going to fit in. It seemed to me like a lot of people had already bonded and formed friendships, and I felt out of place. However, I knew with all my heart that God placed me in this group of people, on this particular route for a reason. Over the course of the week, the Holy Spirit worked in me (sometimes through squad mates) and it became very clear to me that I have a place, and a new amazing family that I get to share the next year with.
During training camp, you spend a lot of time in workshops to prepare you to run your race. Our guest speaker for the first few days was Ron Walborn, Dean of Alliance Theological Seminary in New York. Never heard of him? I hadn’t either. As soon as Ron began his first lecture, I felt like I was being spoken to directly by the Holy Spirit. Every topic that Ron spoke about was something I had been wondering about/questioning/or struggling with over the past couple of years. I felt excitement deep within me, and an eagerness to hear more because I just felt like he was speaking into my life. Over the course of a few days, Ron spoke about:
– Modernity, Worldview, and their impact on Spiritual Power
– Healing and Forgiveness
– Grieving the seasons of our lives
– Emotional healing as a doorway to God’s power
– Bounded set vs. Centered set Christianity
– Who are you? Really? Dealing with shame and performance
– Discovering Your Spiritual Instinct
– Prayer Ministry Training
I’ve been struggling a lot with wanting to go deeper with God, but feeling stuck. I’ve been needing solid food, but only getting milk. The Holy Spirit within me is calling me to go beyond what I’ve been taught, beyond the ‘God in a box’ theology, and to fully experience what He has to offer. While listening to the words that were being spoken, I could feel the stirring of the Holy Spirit in me. That tingly feeling from head to toe, a chill, a rush of energy, feeling lighter, the peace and calm, the overwhelming love. This became a regular occurrence.
During these workshops I had the opportunity to really open myself up to God and ask the Holy Spirit to begin His work in me. I asked God to begin the process of revealing to me who I really am, and accepting it. We had a time of prayer as a group, led by Ron, where we prayed for the Holy Spirit to identify and release past shame. As Ron spoke specific words, I could feel part of me breaking inside, and the tears and sobs just flowed. I had no idea I was that hurt. I’ve had a lot of hard things happen in my life, and I knew I felt some shame, but I really didn’t understand how much that shame was holding me back, and it wasn’t something I had been willing to address because of the pain. Another workshop dealt with grief. Again, I’ve had a lot of things to grieve and I thought I had done a good job grieving with God, but when I sat in my small group to talk about it, I just broke down. When it came time to address unforgiveness, the same thing happened. The Holy Spirit showed me how my unforgiveness that I’ve been suppressing has been hindering my relationships with others, and with Him. I learned that the only way to heal is to completely be broken, feel the pain, and surrender to God.
The Holy Spirit was definitely filling me and working in me during those times, but there were two specific times where I was just completely blown away by what the spirit was revealing. On Tuesday morning, we learned about prayer ministry and how to pray over someone. I’ve never been prayed over in this way, so it was completely new to me. During the instruction time I was very emotional. Something was going on inside of me, and I was on the verge of tears. It came time to work with a partner and practice, so I turned to Bethany (whom I didn’t really know). Bethany put her hand on my shoulder and I just began sobbing! I told her briefly what I was feeling, and she began to pray over me. Let me tell you, the Holy Spirit was speaking to her because she directly addressed things that needed to be spoken to me about my past. As I cried, I could feel a release of the shame, the unforgiveness, and a relief that these specific things that I never dealt with, were being addressed.
The second experience I had was also a prayer time where one partner was blinded and prayed over you with the Holy Spirit’s guidance. I was nervous, really nervous. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to hear anything, I’ve never tried to pray that way. To my relief I was the one who got to be prayed over first. I chose to stand in front of Kyla, whom had no idea it was me. She began to pray and speak to me, telling me that the Holy Spirit was telling her I was worthy. Made perfect sense to me, because I’ve struggled with feeling unworthy a lot the last couple of years. She then began to tell me that I had been given a gift from God and I was unsure how to use it and didn’t have complete confidence in my ability. She told me to not worry, that I’ve been given this gift for a purpose and that I am just a vessel for God to work through me. She then raised her blindfold and I told her that her words were spot on. I have the gift of spiritual discernment! It’s a gift that I am still learning about and growing my confidence in, so what she said was completely true. I was amazed, and comforted by these words spoken in love from a sister who was clearly given them for my benefit.
Encounters with the Holy Spirit were a common theme for me the week of training camp. I could have never anticipated the emotional, spiritual journey that took place! I wasn’t the only person who had encounters like this. Over and over I saw people’s lives being touched and transformed right in front of me! I feel like my relationship became more intimate, just in that week, and I’m excited to see what God has planned for the upcoming year of mission work! I have no doubt that it will be a year full of new experiences and tons of growth.
Throughout my trip I will be writing blogs like this about my experiences. If you’d like to subscribe to my blog to receive updates, you can do so by scrolling to the top of the page and finding ‘subscribe for blog updates’ in the left hand column. I will be fundraising until I have reached my goal of $16,243. If you’d like to partner with me on this mission, please click the ‘support me’ icon at the top of the page. My squad and I could also use your prayers as we prepare to leave to the mission field. Thank you for taking time to read this!
