Today’s Forecast: Early Morning Healing and Later, Thunderstorms of Joy (Training Camp- Part 2)

Healing
Let me set the scene for you. I went to camp sick on Saturday. I had a cold and/or sinus infection and had to carry around my own box of tissues because my nose was dripping like a leaky faucet. I didn’t think too much about what camp would be like because I was overly focused on taking medicine every four hours. Well, the following day, Sunday, I experienced an amazing night of worship and encountered the Holy Spirit for the very first time! (Please go read about this wonderful night if you haven't already. It's my previous blog entry- Part 1 of Training Camp). After this night, I woke up Monday morning completely healed! I didn’t have to carry any tissues around and I felt like a million bucks! It was so neat, because I didn’t pray specifically for physical healing, but I was healed! One thing that Ron Walborn (our wonderful speaker for the first few days at camp) said was that sometimes, where there is physical sickness or physical issues, there are usually some underlying stress, emotion or unforgiveness. In this case, I think that God wanted me to forgive myself from my past, cut off the negative attachments to my “old-self” and the reputation that followed and be completely set free. God needed all of that to take place before he miraculously healed me. His timing is so amazing to me. I love how mysteriously He works.
 
Joy
On Monday night, I felt the Holy Spirit again. During worship, I saw myself in the same field as the day before, dancing for Jesus. It felt like it was raining, but I didn’t see anything coming down. The rain that I was feeling was joy pouring down! Holli (our amazing squad coordinator) came and prayed over me and whispered, “you know how I know that the Holy Spirit is inside of you? Because I can’t help but giggle when I put my hand on you.” We both started laughing. I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I was literally laughing and crying at the same time (A strange thing that never has happened to me before this week). I was crying tears of happiness and laughing as joy filled me up. Holli then told me the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard- that I radiate joy. What? Me? Joy? I have always heard “Mel, you’re always so happy” or “You’re always smiling” but never “you are joyful and radiate joy!” This made me laugh and cry harder because it was literally JUST happening. The Holy Spirit was spilling joy all over me in invisible rain. The joy continued to fill me up all night. Tiffany (a wonderful squad leader of mine) was laughing so hard as the spirit was shining in her and I could feel the entire place overflow with joy, joy joy! Then, Meghan, a squad mate, turned to me and said, “Melanie, I am just supposed to tell you that you’re God’s daughter and He loves you. I can’t wait to see how your joy touches people next year on the race. You just radiate joy.” Ahh! I just heard it TWICE in one night that I radiate JOY! God is just too cool.
 
Then, without warning, Holli came up to me and said “I think it’s time you dance in your field tonight.” We ran outside and danced with all we had.