My mom found this on her computer this morning and sent it to me. This is before Brent and I started dating. Funny how God works sometimes. (Mike is Brent’s dad, Anita is Brent’s mom, and Brent is the hubby…also, MC stands for Masters Commission).
Blessings
Loriahn and I went to the Bible Study and usually what they do is play praise and worship music for a little while. You can sit or stand – or lay on the floor if you feel the need – just get alone with God. There was a time I prayed for Loriahn and Lil’ Mama (Laura) and for Tori and the other MC kids but mainly it was just me and Him. It would have been “church” for me if we had left after the praise and worship time. 🙂 It was obvious the Lord was there.
After we finished praise and worship, Brent’s dad had one of the men come give a testimony about being blessed by the Lord and also about being obedient. That’s the guy I told you about whose wife’s 78 year old sister was in the hospital in Nashville and the Lord woke Mike Harden up to drive up and pray for her and with her and she accepted the Lord. The Lord had told this man she would become a Christian during the year of 2004 and it was December 22nd or 23rd when Mike went to see her. Obedience was the key.
So when Mike started the Bible Study that’s when we learned that we were going to be learning how to bless people and how God did it and how He had others do it. He told us everyone would be blessed before they left – especially the MC kids.
So we started looking up scripture (Luke 24, Ps. 91, Gen. 1, Deu. 28 & 29). There was God blessing Adam and Eve with abundance, authority and power. God made a covenant with Noah, He blessed Abraham and in Gen. 12:1-3 He blesses Abraham and ALL people. Then we moved on to Lev. 9, II Chron 30, Num. 6. We are all declared Priests so we can bless people with “priestly blessings” from God – to be protected and empowered with His presence. We read Jms 3, Gen. 24 & 49, Mk 10, Matt 14 and Gal 3. We learned that blessings can prosper us with the spirit of the Lord and that God promised us prosperity, power and protection.
When we finished the Bible Study, Mike said couples, engaged couples and family members stand and face each other. He gave us a hint of how we were to bless each other and then told us to go on and start blessing. So Loriahn and I faced each other and I grabbed her hands. I told her I was going to cry and we had a little laugh before we ever even started. You know, I don’t remember everything I said to her but I told her that I prayed the Lord would bless her by protecting her and that I prayed that he would bless her in her career, in letting her do what her heart desired. And then I told her I was praying that the Lord would bless her with a Godly man. By this point, we’re both crying. So we wiped our eyes and then L started. She first asked me to forgive her for all she had put me through and then she said that she prayed for the Lord to bless me in my life and that she knew that we had “taken on” all the MC kids and loved being with them but that even with us doing all that, we had never made her and Joshua feel slighted in any way. She also thanked me for praying for her and for all the MC kids and she knew that was a gift from God and she prayed that He would continue to bless me as I prayed for them. So we cried and we hugged and then we sat and waited on our “turn” to be blessed by some of the adults the Hardens had asked to come up front to make sure everyone had blessings prayed over them.
At that point, L went across the hall to get something to drink. The Hardens were praying for Damaris and as they were, I just had to go put my hand on her back and pray with them. When they finished I turned to go sit back down and Mike stopped me and said he could tell I had such compassion for her and he wanted to pray for me when he finished with the kids. I told him I would be waiting. So when he finished he called me up to him and Anita and they put their hands on my shoulders and he started with he didn’t know my background but he felt like no one had ever prayed blessings over me. He said he could tell I had a compassion for the MC kids to which I said, I LOVE them. So he started and prayed for all kinds of blessings in my life – protection, prosperity, compassion and then Anita prayed for blessings in our family and that I would be the Godly wife and mother He wanted me to be. So I’m standing there listening and thanking the Lord for that experience. It was truly just a blessing to stand and have someone to pray over you like that. I started to turn away after thanking them and Mike stopped me and said I pray a father’s blessing over you. Of course that stopped me in my tracks and he said it again. I thanked him and went to sit down. What could I do at that point but just sit and thank the Lord for that experience.
Loriahn and I went out in the hallway where the MC kids were at that point and I was talking with a couple of them and then Brent came up to me and hugged me and just started blessing me again. He he prayed the Lord would bless my family for the kindness we had showed to them and that He would bless us so that we would prosper and that what we had given to them would be returned ten-fold and he just went on and on. I kept patting him on his back and when he finished I told him that the Lord had already blessed us so much by allowing us to get to know them and that we LOVED them and that we were very thankful that they had come into our lives. He has to be the sweetest guy.
So needless to say my emotions were on edge, in a good way, by the time I was leaving. I was so humbled that the Lord cared about me, insignificant me. He just continues to bless us over and over by the people we know and by the ones that we may not know so well. The Lord spoke through the Hardens that night. I feel like I know them even though I don’t. They shared what the Lord had laid on their hearts and it was just for me – well, and everyone who was there. Wow, it was a blessing.
So, therein lies my tale of Saturday, my “Blessing Saturday”.
