Friday, April 22 1994

This morning my devotions were really rich again. The Lord kept showing me faces of some of the people from the night before and I found myself praying for them. I could really feel the Lord's peace this morning. After a while, I drifted off to sleep and dreamed about heaven. I think it may have been a dream from the Lord:

I remember needing to get from one place to another. I started to walk and the next thing I knew I was flying. It was really something. At another point in the dream I was laying down in bed in pajamas. Someone knoced on my door and said that we were going witnessing in about 5 minutes, so get ready. I got out of bed and suddenly I was wearing clothes without even having to get dressed. There was such a great sense of love coming from everyone that I met. Everything was so clean and so bright.

I guess this dream could just be an outpouring from all the joy I've been experiencing lately, but it seemed so concrete and so real -- I think the dream may have been from the Lord.

That afternoon, Murray wrote to me:

Hi Teresa - sorry didn't get a chance to chat longer to you. It looked like you were having a good time - I last saw you flat out on the floor.

Last night I had my first ever 'experience' of that sort. I had been prayed for lots before but nothing ever happened other than I would start to grin - I think I had been under a fear of man - of being manipulated (pushed over etc) or a fear of letting go in front of so many people. Last night some people prayed for me for a long time and I found my mind eventually quieten down and I began to receive. At first I got the tiniest shaking in my right leg - which got more and more pronounced until my whole lower body was wobbling around - then boom! down I went face first in a hysterical pile of laughter - I couldn't believe it - It felt like my whole body had its on/off switch flipped for just a second - then wave after wave of joy hit me - I was so embarassed at first as I knew I was not in control, but I don't mean that negatively because I knew who was. What a peaceful & uplifting experience it was - so freeing - the laughter was not coming from my own emotion - it was bizzarre but definately of God and I can relate to what that man said last night about being lifted out of a pit - mine was a pit of anxiety and stress - boy do I feel the joy of the Lord today - Hallelujah!!

Friday night at the meeting, God again came in power. I felt led to pray for people for a while. I felt like the Lord wanted me to join up with someone who knew how to pray in this manner and learn from them and then later to get prayed for. So, when the ministry started, I joined a husband/wife team who were on the Church Staff (Michael and Liz Flowers). The husband had been to Toronto and recieved an anointing there. I asked permission to join them and prayed with them for some people.

It is interesting, but most of the people who they prayed for seemed a little inhibited to open up and receive from the Lord. Each person took a lot of soaking prayer. They must have spent 5 to 10 minutes with each person. They just invited the Lord to come and bless the person. They asked the Lord to increase in power and to give the person everything He had for them. Mostly they did not touch the person much, if at all. Sometimes they waved their hand as if they were fanning the person. They prayed blessing on the person and they invited the Holy Spirit to do whatever He wanted to. Occasionally they would touch the person's chest, head or hands, but mostly they prayed without touching the person. I prayed right along with them, both learning from them and also earnestly praying for the person.

God's presense was very strong as we prayed. I could feel manisfestations in my hands (heat and tingling) and could also sense God's presense. Praying for people was as much of a blessing as getting prayed for. Not everyone who was prayed for "went down", but they all seemed to show a manisfestation of God's presense in some way. Some became happy and some started swaying, some were twitching their eyes, etc.

We prayed for one black lady who was clearly very egar for the Lord to touch her. God's presense was all over her. She was swaying and was clearly fighting to keep her balance. Yet she did not go down. She continued standing and seeking the Lord. God's presence came so strong that I found that I could hardly stand up as I prayed for her. After we finished praying for her, there was a short break where no one seemed to need prayer. Liz had stepped away, so I asked the Michael (who was also the worship leader) a question. "Do your hands tingle when you pray for people?" He said that often they did. I mentioned that as we were praying for that last lady that I almost went down myself. He sort of laughed and said that sometimes as he prayed he could feel God's power more than the people he was praying for could feel it.

Then I asked Michael if he would mind praying for me. He said sure and rounded up another person to "catch". I felt the Lord's presense increase almost from the instant he started praying for me. I remember him praying something about the blessing me because I am so eagar to minister as well as eagar to receive. Then I was so surrounded with the Lord's presence that I stopped noticing much of anything else. I felt myself falling and being placed on the floor.

The Lord meet me again. It was more of a quiet peaceful time with the Lord. It felt so good to be in His presense. He spoke to me that He had pleanty of room on His lap for me. It was wonderful just to basque in His presense. After about an hour, I got up. I felt content and felt like the Lord had met me, but it was not as powerful as the other nights had been.

I was about to leave, but then I felt impressed to pray for some of the people who were still down. Many of them started laughing as I prayed for them. I wondered why the Lord had not chosen to fill me with laughter this time, but was not particularly worried about it.

I ended up sitting down next to Linda, who was praying for her sister Dianna and another lady who were both drunk with the Holy Spirit and laughter. We shared for a few moments, and I ended up pulling out my oil and anointing her forehead and praying for her chornic and deep cough. Then somehow I got caught up in the laughter and ended up on the floor laughing uncontrollably with Dianna and her friend. Everything that happened was funny. I decided that my scoop neck dress might let my bra show in this position and tried to put on my coat so that my bra wouldn't show. It took me about 10 minutes to get my coat on because I was laughing so hard. Finally the laughter died down and we started praying for Dianna, who has cancer.

Actually, her sister Linda started praying for Dianna first, and Dianna's body started reacting with lots of shaking. It was sort of funny, because Dianna was standing up at the time. She said she was doing "an earthquake dance". At some point I was led to pray for Dianna as well. I placed one hand on her chest and the other on her back. My hands got so hot as they stayed there.

None of us really knew what the Lord was doing or exactly how to pray. We kept our hands on Dianna as the manisfestations continued. We probably spent more time talking and marveling at the manisfestations of God's healing in her body than we did actually praying. God seemed to be doing the work and we were just along for the ride. The lumps in Dianna's leg seemed to be getting smaller and two of them vanished all together was we prayed. At certain points some of us would start shaking really fast. We could feel God's presense. It ended up with two other ladies and a man also praying with us for Dianna.

At one point the heat was coming through us so much that the soles of our feet literally burned and we found ourselves transfering our weight from foot to foot to relieve the burning. During this time, Dianna was having dramatic changes in her body. The swelling in her knee went down visably and sensation came back to her knee. The lumps continued decreasing in size. At some point we decided that Dianna would be more comfortable laying down. A couple of people left and it ended up being Linda, myself and the oriental lady praying for Dianna. The man who had been praying, Don, felt led to pick up the guitar and do worship music as we prayed.

We alternated between being caught up in the Lord's presence, talking like excited little kids about the manisfestations and what each other (and especially what Dianna) was experiencing, and inviting the Lord to come with more power and complete the healing. We prayed until 3:00 AM. By the end of the prayer, two of the lumps had completely dissolved and the other four were drastically smaller. We don't know why God did not complete the work that night, but are trusting Him to complete the healing before Friday, when she is scheduled for surgery and for kemotheorapy to start.