I could feel it. The darkness weighed heavy on my heart. There was a small candle light but the flame was barely there.
What is this God? Is this what it feels like when they try keep you out of a place?
I could feel the hopelessness. The longing for more. The sadness of fighting to try to find something better.
I didn't want to be there. I hid in my hotel room. I didn't want to walk around Saigon feeling other's heartbreaks. I didn't want to go build relationships with people with the possibility of spreading hope.
So, I choose to be numb. Something I asked God to not let me do.
I asked Him for what He had just given me-feelings.
It was too much. I just wanted to feel emotions when something affected me, not feelings of people I haven't met. Or the feelings of the people I have been traveling with for the past 10 months.
God asked me when I asked Him to give me emotions if I was ready for all of what that entailed. He told me that allowing myself to feel would mean feeling others as well.
I've seen how hard it is to be a feeler and asking God for discernment. It is HARD.
God hasn't fully gifted me as a feeler yet but He has shown me what it is like to feel another person's emotions. I was able to pick up one of my teammate's anxiety a lot and few other emotions. It was only for about a month but there were times I struggled to figure out it was mine or if God gave it to me so that I could pray for this teammate.
At the end of month 1 when our whole squad met up to travel to Moldova, I felt things such as competitiveness, jealously, and anxiety as well a few others that I couldn't figure out in my head why I would be feeling these emotions.
On the race, I have been introduced to a lot of things relating to God. I've learned about spiritual gifts that weren't on the spiritual gift tests that I had taken while at youth group or at least weren't given the best description.
Then on the train ride from Romania to Moldova, I experienced intense pain in my temples at some point. I felt more but I don't have that journal with me. I'll update this part when I get back to my hotel.
I got to talk to my squad leaders, Phillip and Christy, about what I experienced. Christy told me that she felt the same thing at the same time. She knows she has the gift of feeling. She told me that most times, this means there is a presence of witchcraft somewhere.
I want more of God. I wanted as much God as He would give me after letting the Holy Spirit awake my soul at the end of Romania. I still want more. I will always want more.
We went to a coffee shop this first morning we were in Da Nang, I had a overwhelming urge to pray. I became a prayer warrior that morning. Heck, I was praying on the walk to coffee shop with headphones in. I thought we were going to this coffee shop to do ministry. To have conversations with whoever wanted to talk to us. That wasn't the plan. The plan was to hang out.
God wanted me to hang out with him and pray for this city. He wanted to tell me who to love this month. He revealed to me that this is going to be a month of prayer. He also gave a heart for special needs orphans and the elderly.
I haven't been able to minister to either yet but I get to tomorrow morning! God is so good. I started thinking that God just wanted me to intercede and I was quite sad at the fact.
God thank you loving me so well. Thank you for being a jealous God and never giving up on me. For chasing me for however long it takes me to stop and rest. To hear what you have been wanting to show me. For putting up with my moments of weakness. In moments where my heart desires to find someone I can go and talk to. In moments where I am not content with you being my only constant.
