(Monday Night Training Camp)
I stand, hands stretched out before me, calling for the Holy Spirit to come and manifest himself in me. Everyone around me is doing the same. The worship leader gently strums his guitar in the background as our key speaker prays over us as the Spirit calls him to.
Holy Spirit, come. Fill me up. Have your way. Show me your will, God. Show me what you have for me.
Hm…how much longer are we supposed to do this? I know I’ve been trying to focus on prayer as a spiritual discipline these past few months, God. So is this some kind of test? See how long I can actually pray for? I wonder what everyone else is doing….
I open my eyes. Look about the room. Most people are still standing, hands outstretched. Some have begun to cry. I close my eyes again.
These emotional moments never work on me. I haven’t cried in a year and half. Is that weird? Should I be crying more often? What reason do I have to cry?
Right, Holy Spirit, come. Fill me up. Holy Spirit….Lord….I don’t know what to say. What do you want me to say? I don’t have words. I just don’t know.
Romans…Romans 8. For we do now know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Spirit, intercede for me.
Silence and a still soul. “Please,” I hear, almost as if someone had said it out loud. But I know no one did.
The tears start to flow. I did not plan for this. I’ve never cried in public. But I can’t seem to stop. All I can do is mentally cry out to God, “please, Lord.”
People come and pray for me. Touch me. Speak God’s truth into my ear. Pray in tongues. Hug me. Hug me tight. Hug me so tight I wonder if they’ll ever let go. The tears let up a little. Then a squad coach, not my squad coach, comes up and pulls me into a hug. And she kisses my face. My forehead, my cheek. And the tears come afresh.
And I feel it then. A weight has been lifted. Something…something has been released. My shame, my guilt, my sin. I feel a freedom in my spirit and soul that I’ve never known before. All I can do is stand and worship my God. MY God. Because He is mine. And I am His.
***
Those who are closest to me know that I have struggled with OCD for as long as I can remember. This mostly took the form of compulsive skin picking, but I also struggle with checking things and intrusive thoughts.
I can’t remember a time that I didn’t struggle with it. When I was younger I never even realized that there was anything weird about it. It wasn’t until I was older that I began to see that this wasn’t acceptable behavior and began to try and hide it.
During college it got worse and I started to think that maybe it was time to do something about it. I went to see a therapist after I graduated, but it became clear to me that without the Lord, I wasn’t going to get anywhere. And as great as my therapist was, he was a secular therapist.
So I tried to go it alone. If you asked me then, I would say that I was just depending on the Lord. But that wasn’t really true. In actuality, I was counting on my own strength to get better.
For the past few years, I felt this growing tension in me. I would cycle through phases of despair when I felt nothing would ever get better and I shouldn’t even bother trying, to phases of self-atonement when I would berate myself for doing it time and again when I kept telling myself that I needed to stop, to phases of complete apathy when I convinced myself that I didn’t really care that much about it anyway.
I knew in my head that the Lord could heal me of this, could break me of the sin. Because it was a sin. Sure, there was a genetic aspect to it. But the truth of the matter was, God was not my comfort anymore. My compulsive habits were my comfort. And they were failing miserably at it.
So I knew that the Lord had the power to release me, but I honestly didn’t think that he would do it. I couldn’t imagine a future in which I didn’t pick my skin or check things or have intrusive thoughts.
I was wrong. That night at Training Camp was a game-changer. God became really real really fast. I felt his love for the first time in a long time. The love I had been pushing aside because I was ashamed. I was so ashamed. I saw myself in the mirror and all I could see were the marks and scabs where I had scratched my skin off. I thought I was ugly. I felt powerless and guilty.
God broke me of that. When that squad coach kissed my face, I felt God’s amazing kindness and mercy wash over me. My face didn’t disgust her. And it didn’t disgust God. He loved me and wanted freedom for me. And when I faithfully came to Him in desperation, crying “Please” to my Father God, truly, truly depending on Him in a way I never had before, He delivered me. No more shame. No more guilt. I am free.
I’ve made great strides in beating my OCD in the weeks since Training Camp. I’ve gone days without scratching, something I would have thought was impossible for me before. I’ve stopped berating and self-atoning, and learned to take joy in the small victories. I give it up to the Lord in my moments of weakness.
This is now a part of my wonderful testimony, and I will shout to the mountains of the great work that my God is doing in me. Praise the Lord. My Comfort, my Deliverer, my Savior, my King.
