FUNDRAISING UPDATE: I’m sorry to say I’ve miscalculated the price for Guatemala’s trip: I don’t need to raise $900. It’ll be closer to $1300, or maybe more. I’m not sure yet, and I’ll tell you when I can, but for now, if you are willing to donate to this trip, please email me at [email protected]. Thank you for your support and love!!
(I considered titling this one A Little Thing on the Back of my Ear and starting a category of blogs about health concerns on the backs of different parts of my body, but I decided that would only be marketable to my friend Nora.)
It happens sometimes like this. An idea comes to my mind, something I could do. I brush it off, because the idea is crazy, or embarrassing, or awkward, thinking, Of course I won’t do that. Then it comes back stronger, and my stomach starts to flutter and my heart beats faster and I know that if I don’t follow this crazy whim, I’ll be sick, not to mention missing out on something great.
This is a way God talks to me about important things: with impulses I don’t want to follow yet am compelled to within about an hour.
For several months I’ve had a lump behind my left ear. It isn’t visible, it doesn’t hurt, and doctors aren’t concerned about it. No one has noticed it until I point it out to them. But it has been worrying me, because I don’t know what it is. I don’t want a lump behind my ear for no reason.
We were smack in the middle of training camp for Ambassador participants in Gainsville, Georgia a week ago. It was evening and everyone was worshipping before hearing a talk about listening prayer, in which we would teach many students to listen to God speak to them directly for the very first time. I knew it would be a powerful time, and the topic of listening prayer would rock some teenage worlds.
But the impulse hit me before the teaching did. As we were worshipping, an idea presented itself: Have the girl to your left pray for the lump behind your ear.
Of course, I wouldn’t do that. I knew that right away. I also knew God was the one planting that idea. I knew that even as I fought the impulse, it was supposed to happen. Already I felt my ear getting warm and my stomach turning.
I listed all the reasons I couldn’t ask the girl to my left to pray for me.
She looks young. She probably hasn’t ever prayed for God to heal something before.
Listening prayer hasn’t been taught yet. A stranger asking for prayer for a health concern would be better after being exposed to that.
I’ll freak her out. She doesn’t know me.
Lumps are gross.
And it’s probably not even a big deal: doctors told me not to worry about it, so I’d hate to “waste” a prayer on something trivial like this!
What if she prays and my lump isn’t healed and then her faith in God’s power is destroyed and she stops believing in God and it’s all my fault?
I knew all those reasons were bogus, though, and as one song finished and another started, I stole a glance at the teenager.
Maybe she’s a crazy, super healer prayer warrior and she’ll pray and my lump will go away and everyone will praise God and I won’t have to worry about it anymore.
What’s the worst that could happen? She’ll feel awkward and I’ll have obeyed God.
As much as I don’t want to, I know it’s only a matter of time before I give in to this.
And so all of a sudden as the band was playing Oceans I found myself asking the girl in purple if I could talk to her. I led her to the back of the room where there weren’t as many people, and said, “So I have this bump behind my ear, and I don’t know what it is, and I think God wants you to pray that it’s healed.”
She looked uncomfortable but covered it quickly, saying, “Yes, I’ll pray for it. All the time.” She started back toward the front of the room and I grabbed her hand.
“Could you pray for it right now?”
“Oh. Uh, sure.”
In Adventures in Missions culture, it’s common to put your hand on the body part that needs healing, but this girl just stood there, which was fine. Perhaps being put on the spot to pray for a miraculous healing was hard enough without feeling for a lump in someone else’s neck. Still, I held her hands as she prayed.
“Um, God, please help…” she glanced at my name tag, “Chelsea, who I just met, and please help everything to just be okay. Uh, amen.”
“Thank you!” I exclaimed, slightly disappointed that it appeared I had not stumbled on a crazy super healer prayer warrior. Still, I felt peace. I knew I’d obeyed God. I knew I had done what I was supposed to do. And I returned to my place and we finished worship a little later. I checked: my lump was still there.
The listening prayer teaching commenced. Then we had our teams stand in circles. We tapped one person on the shoulder while the team’s eyes were closed, and this was the person they prayed for, though they didn’t know who it was. It was powerful. The prayers fit the people.
After doing this twice, our teams talked about prayer, asked questions, raised concerns, and I told them what had happened, how the lump was still there, but it was okay. My team asked if they could see Lumpy, or maybe draw a little face on him, and I said Lumpy wasn’t very visible but they could touch it. No one touched Lumpy.
Then the night was over and we were off to bed. But as I was gathering my things to go to the tent, the girl in purple ran up to me.
“Chelsea?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I heard God speak!” she exclaimed. “He said it’s going to be okay.”
Now, we’re in Albania, working in the city of Lezhe until July 15, and when Lumpy starts to worry me, I remember the sense of humor I gained from my Ambassador team about it, and the simple, unpretentious assurance from the girl in purple which I am sure is from God: it’ll be okay.
