hey hey! so question, if you saw an image of the word “taco” in your head, would you run up to someone outside McDonald’s to tell them??? Well I have a story for you about what my answer is!
so the other day during ATL (ask the Lord), my team and I were sitting in our bed room praying for the Lord to give us a person to minister to or a place to go where we can minister. We sat there for a few minutes until Renee, our wonderful coach, asked us if we know a place where there are “stairs.” I remembered the stairs we stopped at a few weeks ago during ATL, so we decided to go there and see what happens. Avery said she saw an image of an old lady who she wanted to find and pray for. As we were walking out of the gate of our house, Hannah and Brooke turned to me and told me what they saw images of, but were too afraid to speak up about. Hannah told me she saw a walking cane, and Brooke said she saw a woman wearing a purple shirt. The three of us decided to keep those things quiet because we are pretty shy and weren’t exactly sure if those images were from the Lord or not. The whole time we were walking to the steps we kept seeing purple – purple shoes, purple backpacks, etc. We all kind of wrote it off as something that wasn’t from God, but just a coincidence. We got to the point where we were pretty discouraged about what was going on. After stopping to pray for a few people, our team decided to pray together again before moving on. As we were praying, I saw an image of the word “taco.” I hesitated a lot to say it out loud because that’s such a random thing to see and like what If I just saw that because I was hungry and wanted tacos? However, we remembered that there is a Tacobar in Momentum, a shopping center right around the corner. We walked to Momentum and sat down at the Tacobar and prayed again for the Lord to give us someone to minister to. No one really said anything for a while so Renee asked me what I was thinking. I told her that I felt like something definitely was going to happen, but it needed to be all of us working together instead of just one of us doing something. Renee had the idea to start walking again so me, Avery, Elyse, and Abby started walking around Momentum looking for someone to talk to. I saw an old lady and her daughter get out of a car right in front of us. The lady had a purple umbrella and was using it as a cane. Quickly, I turned to Renee and told her about Brooke and Hannah’s visions and then chased after the lady and her daughter. I asked if we could pray for them and they said yes. The lady said she needed healing in her knee and her daughter said she was actually having surgery in a few days and prayers were very much needed right now. We prayed for them and then decided to go back to our people at the Tacobar and get ready to go home. At that point I was feeling pretty discouraged because I felt like we hadn’t really done anything “big” for anyone. Right when we got back to the Tacobar Renee said to me “look” and immediately I turned to Hannah and Brooke and said “TURN AROUND” and literally there is a lady wearing ALL purple (including eye shadow) with her husband who has a cane walking up a bunch of stairs into McDonald’s across the parking lot. Immediately Brooke jumped up and we ran over to the people and Brooke just goes (in very ~broken~ Spanish) “hola! Puedo orar para tu.” The lady laughs a little and says (in english) “oh! you want to pray for us?” We asked if they had any thing specific they needed prayers for and they said for health, specifically in the man’s lower back. They told us their names were Victor and Sonya. Brooke prayed over them for healing and rejuvenation in their minds, bodies, and hearts. After we finished praying we asked Victor if we could lay hands on his back and pray for more specific healing. As Hannah and Renee prayed silently, Victor told me and Brooke that he was already, sincerely, starting to feel better as the pain was being taken out of his back. He was so gracious for our prayers and told us that literally 5 minutes before we walked up, he was complaining to Sonya about his back pain. We told them that the Lord had given us a vision of a lady in purple and a man with a cane walking up stairs, and how crazy it was that He brought us right to them. They were so amazed and thankful for us reaching out to them and being obedient to the Lord’s call.
This whole situation was so impactful for three of us (we’re still shook). The little things that all aligned were so perfectly placed by the Lord. Everything that happened had to for us to end up where we were. We were all insecure in what we heard and only shared with each other. If Hannah and Brooke had told someone other than myself what they saw, I wouldn’t have said anything to Renee, and Renee wouldn’t have pointed out the two people across the parking lot that the Lord was so evidently bringing us to. This was a huge wake up call for the three of us, as we realized we need to be fully obedient to the Lord’s voice when we hear Him. Admittedly we were all silently becoming discouraged and doubting that we heard God’s voice in our visions. We were about to walk back home and the Lord was making us wait for his perfect timing so that he could reveal his faithfulness to us. We have been so pumped about this and we know for a fact that God is going to use this experience to remind us to trust his voice and not to keep quiet when we Hear him.
And…
that morning Doug was praying over Brooke, he spoke over her the importance of not hesitating when God is sending her somewhere. He talked about the fact that when we hesitate we are literally withholding the good news of the Lord from others. We’re all still learning what this looks like, but RUNNING after a man and woman at McDonalds sure seems like a start!
And…
(this is my favorite part)
if Hannah’s foot hadn’t gotten run over by a car last week (it’s not broken, she’s ok!), then her and Brooke wouldn’t have stayed at the Tacobar and we wouldn’t have gone back to the Tacobar and then we wouldn’t have seen the couple. The reason this is my favorite part is because the Lord allows everything to happen for a reason and even though something awful happened to Hannah, the Lord still used it as a way to pull us closer to Him and let something awesome come out of it!
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so anyways, thanks for reading my crazy story & all the kind comments & love! please reach out if you want to talk or have any questions about what’s happenin down here in Costa Rica!!
