I've been "quite" lately because I have been so busy with ministry stuff that I haven't had much time to write about what God is doing in my life lately. But I just have to share yesterday with you..

I awoke early in the morning, and as is my habit, had a quiet time with the Lord and committed my day to Him.. inviting Him to orcherstrate it however He wanted, and letting Him know I was available should He want to use me. The Lord spoke to me and said, "Teresa, I am going to use you powerfully in ministry today."

It was a Sunday, so I naturally assumed that He would use me during the ministry time at church. At the end of our service, we have a ministry time, where worship music is plyaing and folks can come up to "prayer counselors" for prayer. I love to minister at this time, and was planning to go forward to pray for people .. but the Lord checked me and told me to watch and wait. The message had been on God testing our hearts... and for some reason, not a soul was going up for prayer. There were 2 or 3 prayer counselors up front. So I just sat in my seat, knowing God was going to use me to minister powerfully, but not sure exactly how. I watched and waited.. and the Lord began to speak to me about condemnation.. how the enemy was using that against people.. trying to make them feel too dirty to come up and let God touch and examine their hearts... The word just would not go away... I wondered what I should do.. our church does not typically permit prophetic words in the Sunday Morning service. Yet the word in me was strong, how God wanted to shower out His love and forgiveness, how He would receive them with open arms as they came to Him and He would not reject them or turn them away. I finally got up and walked across the front to where the pastor was standing and shared the word with him. I was not sure whether or not he would let me give it to the church or not. He said "thank you" and I returned to my seat. I had a strong sense in my spirit that God was satisfied, my part had been to get the word to the pastor and now it was up to him what to do with it. I felt the Lord's peace and presence wash over me.

When the song ended, our pastor got up and prayed a prayer and shared a bit of the word I'd given him, adding to it some things the Lord had shown him. It was perfect and had a powerful effect and, a few people came forward to the altar to pray.

Yet, no one actually went to any of the prayer counselors for prayer.. Since there were already three people standing up there with no one to pray for, it did not make sense to me to go up to the altar to pray for people.

So I sat there, mulling over in my mind.. Lord You said You were going to use me powerfully.. but there is nothing to do. Was that it.. the little word? Is that Your idea of being used powerfully, cuz it does not seem all that powerful to me...? I finally decided that perhaps the Lord had used the word more powerfully than I realized.. but I felt that was 'stretching it'. The other possiblity, of course, was that I'd simply heard wrong that morning, and God had not spoken to me about being used powerfully in ministry...

It never occurred to me that there was another possiblity.. that I'd heard right but that my assumption about what I'd heard (e.g, during the ministry time at church) was wrong. I guess God wants to teach me not to make assumptions about what He says to me.

Near the end of the song service, the prayer counselors had all sat down. I heard the Lord tell me that I was going to dance during the next song. But I was wearing a new dress that turned out to be a bit lower cut than I'd realized and I had decided it would be better not to dance in it. The Lord told me that it was OK to dance, the dress would not expose anything unseemly. But when the next song started, it was such a slow tempo that it was impossible to dance to it. I figured I'd heard wrong again. So I closed my eyes and got lost in the worship instead. In the middle of the song, the tempo picked up a bit... and in my mind's eye, I saw myself doing certain dance steps. Then, the next thing I knew, I was up front center, dancing those very steps before the Lord. It was one of those times that was so anointed.. where I did not care about anyone but the Lord and I was lost in His presense and dancing just for Him. When the song was over, I sat back down in my seat, and the Lord met me in a wonderful way.

At the end of service, the worship leader and a few others came up to me to tell me how much the dance had ministered to them.. and I was asked to teach a dance workshop at the church in Jan or Feb by the elder in charge of worship. That was a blessing to me, but it did not seem like the "bigtime minsitry" the Lord had been speaking to me about earlier that day. I decided I'd just heard wrong and gave up on the "ministry thing."

I went to lunch with a friend. I am supposed to be on a diet, but this past week it has been very difficult for me to diet, so I decided to just go to this certain restaurant I'd been yearing to go to.. and have a chicken pot pie. Boy was it good.. yummie.. and Ruth and I had fun fellowshipping together.

Suddenly the Lord drew my attention to a woman who was putting her tray on the table next to ours. We caught eyes, so we smiled at each other. The Lord was really focusing my attention on her.. she seemed familiar for some reason. I finally asked her were I knew her from. She threw out several suggestions, including a church I used to go to many years ago. But it was a very large church and we'd not been in any of the same small groups together. I don't know why, but I found myself inviting her to join us. She was by herself, so she moved over and joined us. We did introductions and some small talk. It turns out that she had alot in common with Ruth. I watched them as they talked.. and found myself praying. I knew the Lord wanted to do something, but I was not sure what it was. This had to be a divine setup, so I started asking Him what He wanted to do here.

Suddenly the Lord dropped a ton of details on me about her.. I knew all sorts of things about her past and her present and her issues and how God wanted to meet her. I mean literally, one minute I knew absolutely nothing and the next minute I had a whole encyclopedia on her.. plus knew God's heart for her. I asked her if she believed in the prophetic (she goes to a church that is dispensationalist in theology). She said yes, and then shared how she visited a pentacostal church that morning instead of her regular church because she was seeking a word from the Lord. Apparently the Lord had not given her a word there. But He put us together at this restruant so that He could have me give her the word she needed.

I began to prophesy and I just knew that Ruth was inteceeding as I ministered to this lady. She had been through some very deep hurts and the Lord wanted to bring healing to her heart and to encourage her. She began to cry, but the Lord continued to minister. He had a fair amount to say to her. She was actually a very easy person to prophesy to, because she gave very quick feedback and she was so receptive. I knew I was hearing right even before she confirmed it, but she confimred things so readily. God was doing a healing thing and also planting hope back in her heart. He was also sharing her calling and destiny with her, as well as telling her how He would work His glory in her present very difficult situation. It was such a sweet ministry time.. and so divinely orcherstarted. You could see her start to glow as the Lord breathed His life into her. At the end Ruth and I prayed for her and then she went on her way.

Then God whipsered in my ear "... and you thought you'd heard wrong when I told you I was going to use you to minsiter powerfully today." Then He laughed at me, and I laughed with Him. There was another smaller ministry opportunity that evening at a church class I went to.

It is fun and exciting to do with God what He is doing. And He has such creativite ways of teaching us not to make assumptions about what He means when He tells us something. I love doing things with Him and ministering with Him! It is so awesome that He lets us minister with Him! I love it, don't you!!