Saturday in Toronto (September 3, 1994)

At breakfast I ran into Claire and Nick, the British couple that almost did not get prayed for the night before. They were both beaming. Nick said that it was the strongest touch he had experienced here. Apparently the "eagle" anointing came on him and he was soaring like an eagle in the heavenlies. I've seen that anointing in Toronto and John says that it is affiliated with the prophetic. A person under that anointing will often flap their arms as though flying and "soar" around the room. (I think that and the roaring are sort of weird, but if that is what the Lord wants to do, who am I to argue with Him?) Their British reserve was gone and they were both excited about how the Lord touched them last night. I was SO glad that they received a special blessing from the Lord.

I had previously made arrangements for Julie, a friend of mine who lives in Toronto to attend the renewal meeting with me this evening and spend the night at my hotel room. I decided that I would not try to minister this evening, only receive. I picked Julie up at the subway and we came back to the hotel.

A group of the Brits were on the lawn praying for each other. So we went and joined them. I recieved prayer and went down, laughing. I could feel the Lord's presense all over me. I could also feel little grass nats landing on my face. That was distracting and made it a little difficult to receive. Many of the people in this group were ones that I had prayed for at the renewal meetings. They gathered around me and prayed for me for a long time and really blessed me. I felt very loved and also full of joy. It was a wonderful experience.

Julie also recieved prayer and was filled with the peace of the Lord. The last few weeks had been particularly tramautic for her, so she really needed the peace. Julie is recovering from a divorce and an ex-husband who vasilates between wanting to get back together with her and totally rejecting her. It is a very difficult situation and stressful. Julie loves the Lord and is very committed to Him. But she still struggles with some hurt and rejection issues, as do many Christians. It was so good to see her enveloped in the peace of the Lord.

We purchased some fried chicken for a picnic dinner and when to line up about 4:00. Actually, it took a little longer at the chicken place than we expected and we did not get there until 4:15. There were already about 25 people in line in front of us (I thought we'd be the first in line). We had a delightful time with a picnic dinner. We visited with each other and also with several others who were in line. They opened the doors around 7:00 and we went in for seats. I tried to get specific seats near the front. Just as I was laying my bible on the seat, someone ran up from behind me and threw his stuff under mine, literally taking my seat away. He acutally grabbed about 5 seats, which was irritating because we're not supposed to save seats. I was startled by his agressive behavior, and moved back a row to find a seat. Julie and I ended up in the center of about the 4th or 5th row back. They turned out to be excellent seats.

The sermon dealt with God healing past wounds. He used a lot of illustrations about marriage and divorce. It seemed to be custom made for Julie and I was delighted. At the end of the sermon, the speaker had his wife come up a share a vision she'd had several monthes ago. In this vision three men approached her carrying a very large white heart. She said that this was the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit -- all three showing their love for her. They touched the large white heart to her heart and suddenly she was healed of all sorts of painful memories and found herself free to forgive. She said that the Lord wanted to heal our hurts and set us free in Him.

The Lord's presense was on Julie deeply. When it came time to stand for ministry and move the chairs away, Julie was so much under His power that she could hardly stand. She had tears coming from her eyes and was shaking mildly. A very tall man came up from behind and pressed directly infront of her. He started bumping into her and distracting her. I started trying to be a buffer inbetween them -- I didn't want anything to distract Julie while the Lord was dealing with her. When he got too close, I'd put my hand between him and Julie and let him run into my hand. He'd usually look at me and then take a step forward. (This guy moved around a lot.)

After a while they asked if we could move back and make more room for ministry. Julie stepped back farther than I did and ended up behind me. I stopped trying to watch out for her and just started worshipping the Lord. I could feel His presense coming on me and started shaking mildly under His power. It could not have been more than a few moments later when I felt a light pressure on my forehead. I opened my eyes and found that the speaker's wife was beginning to pray for me. She blessed what the Lord was doing in me and asked the Lord to send more power. She asked Him to heal all the past hurts and go deep into my spirit and remove all pain. At first I was a little surprised because I did not think that I was dealing with any deep hurts. Then the Lord brought to memory my discussion with the gal from Boston. He had indeed crushed me and put me back together. Yes, I had fully forgiven the people who had hurt me and was removed from the harmful situation. But now the Lord wanted to take the pain out of those memories. I was overcome with a sense of the Lord's goodness and went down. She continued to pray for me for a little while, but I could not hear what she was praying. The Lord was all over me and His touch was so good. I was so aware of His great love for me. I found that tears were coming to my eyes. He continued to surround me with His love. Memories flashed before my eyes, but there was not any pain in them. He was indeed healing the memories. He is so good!

It was very crowded around me and I became concerned that someone might fall on me or step on me. Someone was prayed for on my right and laid very close to me. I opened my eyes and saw that they were starting to pray for someone on my left. I thought that was good because when there were people on both sides of me, I'd be less likely to get stepped on. I closed my eyes and was lost in the Lord's presense. Then I felt someone being laid on top of me. She overlapped the left half of my face and about a third of my body. I opened my eyes in surprise and saw that a very heavy lady was laying on top of me. The catcher had already gotten up and intended to leave her on top of me.

"Oh Lord!" I cried silently. "Couldn't You have saved a little space for me. I dont take much room. Why did You have to put someone on top of me. This is my only night to receive instead of praying. Couldn't You have protected me this one night?"

The Lord answered that she was not there by accident that that He intended to do a joint work in both of us. He pointed out that she felt very light, even though she obviously weighted a lot. That was His doing. He told me that He was going to use me to heal her and use her to heal me. He wanted to bless the two of us together.

Suddenly, instead of being disappointed, I was delighted. The sense of His presense and His goodness increased again and overwhelmed me. I felt so safe in His touch and so loved. Something good was happening deep inside of me and I was crying quietly. It was a good releasing type of crying. I could feel His healing power flowing through me. Then I started to shake a little, especially my arms. I noticed that the woman on top of me was not shaking. 'Lord,' I prayed silently, 'her too! Please touch her too.' She immediately began to shake in the same manner that I was. The Lord was indeed doing the same type of work in both of us.

We were down for a long time lost in the Lords presense and mildly aware of each other. It seemed that we often ended up moving in unison. I don't know what the Lord was doing, but I was filled with a deep love for Him and a deep love for the woman who lay on top of me. Eventually things got a little less crowded and we ended up laying side by side. Part of her was still on top of me and part of me was now on top of her. I have no idea how this happened, but my friend Julie described our intertwined position to me after we got up.

Suddenly the Lord spoke to me. "Teresa," He said. "I have healed you of your closterphobia. It will never bother you again." He reminded me of how I tend to freak out when I'm surrounded and pressed in by people. He pointed that I'd been pressed in by people while under His healing touch this evening and it had not bothered me at all. "It will never bother you again," He said.

What wonderful news. I burst into joyful laughter. It turns out that the woman burst out into laughter about about the same time. It seemed like the time for tears was past and now it was the time for joy. We worshipped a little with the music and also laughed quite a lot. At one point I reached over and took her hand. We held hands tightly for a long time. We continued to be filled with joy and continued laughing. Whenever we made eye contact, we'd just burst into hysterics. Even in our laughing, we ended up making a lot of the same gestures at the same time. I don't know why the Lord sometimes puts people together like that, but His touch certainly was good that night.

Somewhere during all of that laughter, the Lord spoke to me and told me that He had anointed me to heal people with broken hearts. That made sense to me, since I'd been involved in inner healing ministry via Chuck Kraft and was about to be on a Small Ministry Prayer Team at Church. But the Lord told me that there would be less technique and more of His power in this new anointing. He told me that I would be praying for the brokenhearted and He would be healing them.

After a while I heard Him say to me that I could get up now if I wanted to. However, if I chose to stay down longer, He would continue to bless me. I choose to stay down longer. About three minutes after this, the lady got up. She gave me a big hug and wandered off. I guess the Lord released her at the same time that He released me and she choose to get up. I stayed down for another 15 minutes or so and then I sat up. Julie came over to me right away. I found out that I'd been down for about one and a half hours.

I asked Julie if she'd had any prayer yet. She said no. So I took her into the overflow room, which is substantially less crowded. We stood near where a ministry team person was praying and waited. I suggested to Julie that she lose herself in worship while she waited. However, I kept my eyes open to keep track of what was going on. The lady finished praying and started to wander off. I caught her attention and she came over to me and asked me if I wanted prayer. I told her that my friend was waiting for prayer. She started to pray for Julie. As she prayed, I could feel the Lord's anointing increasing on me. I stood slightly out of the way, my hand stretched towards Julie and prayed silently for her. I started to shake so much that the catcher put one of his hands behind my back.

I became concerned that the enemy might use me to distract them from ministering to Julie. So I told him I was OK and moved several steps away. They continued to minister to Julie.

I continued to shake where I was now standing. A couple of men who I'd prayed for quite often came up to me. One of them stood behind me. I guess they were concerned that I might fall and wanted to make sure that I had a catcher. We had a short converstation and I invited them to pray for me. As they prayed, I went down and started laughing again. I was so full of the joy of the Lord! The fellow followed me down and continued to pray blessings on me.

I felt so full that I just needed to give it away. Still laying down, I placed my hand lightly on his stomach and began blessing him. He went down almost instantly (he had been squatting by me) and starting laughing and shaking. I sat up and continued to pray for him. I found myself praying that the Lord would not only fill him with joy, but would impart to him the ability to impart to others. Then I crawled over, still laughing myself, and prayed for the man who had caught me and was now sitting on the floor. He was instantly overcome with laughter as well. Pretty soon there was a group of us laughing together on the floor. A little Chinese girl (maybe 2) came over and played with us a little. She wasn't quite sure what to make of all these adults acting like kids. Her mom lay on the floor face down (probably dealing with shame issues). At her husband's request, I prayed for the Mom a little, but nothing happened.

The minstry team stayed with Julie for a very long time, maybe half an hour. During this time, I laughed and played on the floor with the small group that had formed around me. When I got up, a lady came and asked me to pray for her friend. I explained that I was not on the ministry team that night and was not released to pray for people tonight. She did not care, so I went ahead a prayed for her. The Lord appeared to touch her powerfully.

Eventually Julie and I wandered into the cafe and shared a mini-pizza. We ended up sitting hear one of the youth and started talking to him. Some of the other youth came up and joined us. They shared how it was hard for them because the adults were coming from all over the world and pushing them out of the picture. Tonight, for instance, they were supposed to have their own meeting in the cafe, but it got used as an extra overflow room and they were simply pushed aside with no were to meet. Alot of the youth had become resentful and the youth group had shurnk from 100 to 30. I promised that I'd get my Church to pray for them. The youth seemed to think that they were not very important and kept refering to themselves as "only the youth." We told them that we thought they were important and that we were sorry that this had happened to them. They said that they expected things to get better because the Church should be getting a new facility soon and this current facility would go to the youth.

We wandered back into the sanctuary. Julie went off to talk to someone. Someone came up to me and asked me if I didn't have a green badge on the other night. I said yes, but that I was not released to pray for people this evening. She wondered if I would mind praying for her anyhow. I was about to decline, but the Holy Spirit checked me. So I started to pray for her. The Lord showed me that she was dealing with deep rejection issues and much inner pain. As I prayed for her, the Lord reminded me that He had appointed me to "heal the brokenhearted." I prayed with her for a long time and she cried alot. Then the Holy Spirit came on her with His peace and she was lost in Him. She went down and His presense rested on her.

A couple of other people asked me to pray for them. After I finished, I went back into the overflow room.

The fellow who was the catcher for the lady who prayed for Julie came up to me. He said that he felt impressed of the Lord to pray for me. For some reason I was a little uncomfortable with that, after all he had not been released into ministry here. But I figured I was probably being silly and agreed to let him pray for me. He stood T-bone to me with one hand behind my back incase I should fall and the other on my forehead. Normally I feel the presense of the Lord almost immediately when I am prayed for. But I did not feel it at all. He had been praying for quite a while now. Some of what he was praying for seemed "off" to me and was starting to bother me. I could not feel the Lord touching me at all and began asking Him what was going on. The guy was praying that the Lord would allow me to begin to experience His joy. I began to wonder where this guy had been -- he'd been watching me earlier when I had the group around me all laughing and was imparting the Lord's joy to them. He started praying for ministry specific things for me and it just seemed wrong to me; what he was praying for did not seem to fit what the Lord was doing in my life. I began to be concerned that he might be imparting wrong things to me. Even though his intentions appeared good, the ministry itself was not working out quite right. It became clear that he was not going to stop praying for me until I went down. But the Lord was not touching me at all. I toyed with the idea of falling simply to get rid of him, but that seemed wrong to me. So I finally opened my eyes, smiled at him, thanked him "very much" for his prayer and walked off.

But I was troubled in my spirit over this. So I looked around the room. Grant, who is usually a catcher, had a green Trainee tag on that evening. So I went up to him. I told him that I'd had some well intentioned but possibly off prayer and was feeling uncomfortable about it. Would he please pray for me about this?

Grant was happy to pray for me. His prayer was absolutely perfect. He asked that the Lord would bind to me anything that was from Him and remove from my memory anything that was not from him. He prayed that nothing spoken over me other than the Lord's expressed will would effect my life in any way and committed me to the Lord's care. He asked that the Lord would wash His peace over me and come refill me again. As he prayed, I could feel the Lord's peace and His presense coming over me again. I knew I could simply trust the Lord to take good care of me and protect me. I started to shake again and eventually went down. Grant asked the Lord to continue to fill me and then moved on to pray for someone else.

I lay there for a while, just receiving from the Lord. I knew that I was shaking but I was hardly aware of what my body was doing. The Lord's goodness surrounded me and it was so wonderful to just be in His presense.

Suddenly I felt like the Lord's presense was lifting off of me. At the same time, I became aware of someone blowing rapidly and repeatedly on my forehead. The man had a purple shirt on and a very scraggly brown beard. He seemed delighted with himself and thought that he was ministering to me. I glared at him, but he continued puffing on my forehead and also blowing in my eyes. Not only was it disrupting me, it was actually physically uncomfortable. I prayed that the Lord would get rid of him, but he kept on doing it. I finally put my hand up to shield my face from his continuious blowing. He said "Bless her, Lord!" and moved on to bother someone else.

I lay there for a few minutes in frustration. I asked the Lord why He allowed not one, but two, inappropriate ministries in a very short time. Again I became concerned as to whether anything negative had been imparted to me. God told me that I needed to trust Him to take care of me. If I could not trust Him to take care of me in His own Church where His presense and anointing were very strong, how was I going to trust Him to take care of me in the enemy's camp during power evangelism. He reminded me of the vision He had given me of doing power evangelism at a New Age conference. I immediately appologized to Him for my attitude. I asked Him to protect and told Him that I'd simply trust in Him and not worry about it anymore. Then His peace flooded over me and His joy hit me. I started to laugh softly.

I opened my eyes and saw the blowing-man heading purposely in my direction. I was not afraid, but I also did not want to have him blowing on me again. So I got up and walked out of the room. He followed me into the main sanctuary and was about to blow on me again. Then he changed his mind and went after someone laying on the floor. The Lord had been touching that person powerfully, but after he blew on them, they seemed distracted as well. So I decided to find someone in leadership and tell them about this guy. I saw the speaker's wife and header towards her. As I walked up to her, the fellow quickly left the room. I told her about it anyway. But he was not there for me to point out to her. Grant came up and joined in the discussion. He had seen this guy blowing on people as well. He told her that she'd certainly know him she saw him. She said she'd keep an eye out for him.

A few of my friends came up to me and wanted to bless me and pray for me. I think we sort of all ended up praying for each other and had a very good time. The Lord blessed us richly. Then I glanced up at the clock and it was 2:15 AM. I was expecting a call from my husband at 2:30, so I hunted up Julie and we left for the hotel.

I could still feel the Lord's anointing resting lightly on the top of my head as we were driving back. So I mentioned it to Julie. She said where and I placed her hand where I felt the anointing. "Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed. "I could feel it too when I touched you there. His anointing really is on you!"