Michael Flowers lead worship tonight. The Lord's anointing seemed to be on the worship. From time to time, both during the songs and inbetween the songs, some people would break out into bursts of laughter. It seemed as though the Lord was pouring out delight on us. We were delighting in Him as we worshipped Him. At one point Michael stopped the music and went into a fairly lenghtly prayer, asking God to come in power and touch His people with His joy and delight. Many people began showing evidences of the Holy Spirit's presense on them. Some were shaking and some had even fallen to the ground (even though there was not anyone to catch them). Many were laughing, radient smiles plastered across their faces. It just felt so good to draw near to God and to sense His pleasure with us.

Somewhere during this, I became more aware of the Lord and less aware of what was going on around me. I shook a little bit, then I felt the peace of the Lord come over me. It was gentle and good. I felt like I might collaspe to the ground. I knew that there were not any catchers but there was such a sense of the Lord's peace on me that I was not concerned about falling or catchers or anything. At one point I became aware that Fred was standing near me. I prayed breifly that the Lord would refresh Fred. Then I invited the Lord to do whatever He wanted to with me.

The sense of His goodness overwhelmed me and I found myself relaxing into Him. The next thing I knew, I was falling, but I was barely aware of it. Someone, I think it was probably Fred, caught me and laid me gently on the ground. The worship music started again as I lay there and I started singing along with the praise song. It was so wonderful to be under the Holy Spirit's power during worship. It was as though God had stepped closer to us as we worshipped Him. I found myself enjoying His presense so much that I could hardly contain myself.

I started to feel an increase of His power on me -- at first it had been very gentle and peaceful. Now He seemed to be pouring into me and empowering me. I think my body started shaking in response to His touch. My senses were overwhelmed with His closeness. It was a very good place to be. I became filled with such joy that I was laughing and laughing. I would try to sing along with the worship music but often I would end up breaking into laughter during the middle of a verse. The Lord spoke to me and to told me that it was perfectly OK with Him for me to worship Him with joy and laughter; that He loved to have His children bask in His delight.

At some point the worship ended and people were invited to "stay were you are, sit on the floor or return to your seats." I heard that but seemed unable to get up. I remember having a brief concern that I should not lay in the middle of the floor when everyone else had returned to their seats. I remember thinking that this might be embarassing. But the Holy Spirit seemed to whisper to me that He was not done with me yet. I got the sense that if I wanted to keep receiving from Him, I was not to get up until He released me to do so. I made a mental decision to be obedient and stay there until He released me. Again His presense became so overwhelming that I was hardly aware of what was going on around me. Knowing myself, I should have been terribly self-conscious being in the middle of the altar area all by myself. But I was not self-conscious at all. Instead I was aware only of the Lord's presense and goodness. I sort of expected Him to say something deep to me, but He did not. Mostly He just filled me with His joy and love.

From time to time I would be aware of what was being said in the meeting. I remember hearing that a group of people were visiting from Livermore, which is over an hour drive away. I also remember hearing Evan say that the Lord was increasing the prophetic gifts among us. Even though I could hear what was going on around me the whole time I was down, I barely paid any attention to it because my attention was focused on the Lord and what He was doing with me.

At some point people were invited back up to receive from the Lord. I became aware of people standing around me. I felt like I should get up and go pray for people. But the Lord whispered to me that He was not done with me and to stay where I was. So I did. The Lord continued to minister to me for a while then He told me I could get up and start praying for others.

I found a catcher and started praying for a woman near me. (I guess I expected that there would be an incredibly powerful anointing after my experience on the floor with the Lord. His anointing was certainly there and He was touching the people who I prayed for, but the anointing did not seem any stronger than usual.)

As I prayed for that first woman, Loni was praying for a girl next to me. The woman I prayed for was quietly receiving from the Lord, but the woman Loni was praying for was laughing and jumping around and just bubling over with the joy of the Lord. A rather petite woman was trying to catch for Loni and it was evident that she was uncomfortable with the prayee moving around so much. Then this woman switched with my catcher and became the catcher for the person I was praying for. The woman Loni was praying for went down and my catcher moved off with Loni to the next person.

Shortly afterwards, the woman I was praying with went down. I asked the petite woman if she'd stay with me and assist me in praying for others and catching them. She said OK. I also gave her very brief instructions about how to be a catcher; such as be close to the person but don't touch them much, keep your eyes open as you pray because you never know when they'll go down, etc. We prayed for several people, and the Lord seemed to touch each one of them. However, I had to pray just a little longer with most of them than I was used to. The Lord continued to show me specific things to pray for most of them and it was clear that His anointing was present. At one point Bob asked me to join him in praying for a woman. I asked my catcher her name, which was Cathy. I started to introduce Cathy to Bob. At that point, she indicated that she was Cathy Dumas, a friend of mine from March for Jesus. In fact, Cathy was the march coordinator for the Livermore march for the last three years and I knew her very well. I immediately appologized for not recognizing her and she proceeded to tease me and give me a hard time about it. But we continued praying together and God continued ministering to the people we prayed for.

I ran into Kelly by the altar area. She indicated that she'd received some prayer but wanted more from the Lord. So Cathy and I prayed for her. She went down almost immediately and started laughing under the joy of the Lord. Then the Lord started doing an empowering thing with her. He showed me to pray for a release into ministry of the anointings that He had already placed in Kelly. Kelly was laughing so hard that she could not hear my voice as I prayed for her. But (she told me afterwards) that at the same time I was praying for her the Lord was saying to her "time to bring out and use the wine and oil".

At one point Cathy noticed that her daughter had been receiving prayer and asked if we could go pray for her daughter. The Holy Spirit was all over her, but was not doing a falling down type of thing with her. She stood quietly and her eyelids were fluttering. She had a blissful smile on her face and sighed contently from time to time. The beauty of the Lord's presense was all over her face. We soaked her in prayer for about 5 minutes then I started to move on. But Cathy stopped to give her a kiss on the forehead. Her daughter opened her eyes and said "Oh, Wow!" I asked her if she could feel the Lord's presense over her and she said yes. She seemed to be a bit shakey, like when someone gets up from the floor too soon before the Lord is done ministering to them.

Then we prayed for Cathy. She did not appear to be receiving anything and I remember feeling a little disappointed that the Lord was not touching her. Then she started swaying a little. Cathy opened her eyes and said that she did not want to fall. So I told her to lay down on the ground and kept praying for her. Again it did not look like much was happening with her. I remember silently begging the Lord to touch and bless her. Then Cathy's eyes popped open and she said "I came back riding on a white horse!" She went on to explain that she'd had a vision and was enthusiastic about it. First she saw a heart and a burning cross. Then she was riding on a white horse.

Later Kelly came over and we started talking. She'd been praying for me about a job interview and wanted to know how it went. She also told me about how her first interview for a bank teller job -- actually that invertview was some sort of aptitude test that they had her take. Kelly thought it had gone well. Then we started talking about what the Lord was doing in each of us. As we talked, I got a strong sense that the Lord wanted to impart into Kelly. He told me to have her pray for me. So we recruited a catcher and Kelly prayed for me.

I gave her some brief how-to-pray-under-this-anointing instructions. She prayed for me and the catcher also prayed for me. For some reason, Kelly was a little heavy handed and was touching me too much and in unusual places. For instance, she kept running her hand up and down my arm from the shoulder to the elbow. It was very distracting and made it a little difficult for me to receive from the Lord. Then Kelly stopped touching me so much or I became unaware of the touch. I guess I started laughing a lot when I went down. The joy of the Lord was all over me. The catcher left but Kelly was sitting next to me still praying for me. Suddenly I started praying for her, still in the prone position. I asked the Lord to fill her again with His joy. Kelly went down and the two of us lay on the ground laughing our heads off. We interspersed praise and laughter and basically had a great time together.

As we laid there, the Lord spoke to Kelly and told her that He was opening doors for Kelly. She shared that with me. I shared how that matched up so strongly with what God showed me to pray over Kelly earlier that evening about her being released into the ministry that He has for her. One of the phrases I'd been led to pray over her was "Please open doors for her that no one can shut." It was sort of a neat confirmation for both of us. Also, I felt strongly impressed that the Lord wanted to give Kelly an experience of successfully praying for someone under the renewal anointing. I suspect she'll be doing a lot more of that at her own Church as they begin to open up to the Lord's move. I was glad that the Lord blessed me as He used me to give Kelly a successful experience.

After a little while, I noticed that Bonnie was leaving and I motioned her over. I started praying for her to be filled with the joy and Bonnie also started praying for me. She ended up down and laughing. Then I sat up and Bonnie and Kelly sort of ganged up on me and asked the Lord to bless me some more. Down I went. There was quite a bit of what I call spiritual splash-fighting going on -- we were all praying for each other trying to see who would be overcome with the Lord's presense first. As a result, we were all getting very blessed and the Holy Spirit seemed to be all over us. It was a lot of fun, and it also drew us closer to each other. Of course, in that state just about everything was funny and delightful. I don't know how long we did that because I lost all sense of time. (After a while we sat up and Bonnie indicated that was the first time she'd ever laughed under the Lord's power like that. She decided that being under the joy of the Lord was great.)

Eventually we started talking about Kelly's experience praying for me. She mentioned that she'd had physical manisfestations of God's power on her -- that she felt her hands getting hot as she prayed for me. We somehow ended up in a discussion about ministry and I shared some of what I'd been taught in Toronto. Then it became midnight and time to go home. We walked out together and gave each other hugs and blessed each other as we went to our cars.