Monday April 25, 1994

I had to miss most of the meeting this evening as I had a dance lesson with my husband. I got the meeting at about 10:40 and it was pretty much over. Many people had already left. But they were still praying for people at the altar. I went and stood up there. I wanted desparately to come into the Lord's presense, but felt really adgitated for some reason. Maybe I was keyed up from having come from a dance lesson. Someone asked me if I'd help her pray (and catch) a lady she wanted to pray for. I declined indicating that I had just arrived and wanted to receive prayer, but that I needed a few moments to just tune in with God. It makes a really big difference to come up to the altar when you're not in a spirit of worship. She said she'd come pray for me when she was done.

But as I was standing there, Michael Flowers (the worship leader) greeted me. I explained that I'd just gotten there and had come in from secular dancing and was not in the spirit at all. He asked me if I'd like "a drink?" I asked him if he meant prayer and he said yep. It sounded like a good idea to me, so I agreed. But I warned him that I was not in the spirit and was concerned that I might not be receptive to the Lord.

Michael prayed that the Lord would "surprise me" by coming with His presense and power and meeting me. Gee, it was like a switch had been thrown. All of the sudden I could sense God's presense all around me -- and He felt soooo good. I just relaxed into His presense and felt myself falling. At first I just laid there peacefully, drinking in His presence. Then I started alternating between shaking, laughing and resting in the Lord. In general I was more aware of what was going on around me. I wondered if I should get up since God's power was not as strong on me as it had been before. But I felt like the Lord was saying that I needed to wait on Him. So I stayed there and waited, asking Him to come.

After a while, it seemed like His power did increase. My arms started waving wildly. I asked the Lord why these funny things were happening with my body. He did not answer me, but I had a quick mental picture flash before me of someone praying for me by waving their arms over me. I opened my eyes and no one was there, but my own arms were waving over me. It seemed funny to me as if I were praying for myself and I found myself laughing and laughing and laughing. The joy of the Lord filled me more and more.

After a while, the peace of the Lord settled over me again. It was nice just to rest in His presense. They were playing a tape in the background and one of the lines in the chorus was about dancing in victory on streets of gold. I had a mental picture of myself dancing to that song, doing steps I had never even seen before. Then next thing I knew, I was off the floor and dancing to that song. Guess what, I was doing those same steps that I had just seen myself doing.

I had my eyes closed most of the time and my attention was focused on the Lord. It felt like His radiance was bubling through me as I danced. There were still a couple of people laying on the ground around where I was dancing (though they weren't densely packed at this point). I wasn't even aware of them when I started dancing, but I didn't step on anyone. The song went on for a really long time -- it seemed like about 10 minutes. My body became really tired and I wanted to stop, but just could not seem to stop while the song was still going on. This dance involved leaping, twirling and interpertative gestures, so it was physically tiring. But I could sense the Lord all over me even when I was fatigued. When the song ended, I collasped down into a chair. But the Lord's presense was still all over me. I just closed my eyes and raised my hands and worshipped Him.

Then my hands started tingling really strongly. At first I sort of ignored it and worshipped. Then I started thinking that maybe my hands were tingling because God wanted me to pray for someone. So I asked Him to show me if there was someone He wanted me to pray for. I opened my eyes and the first person I saw was Dianna (the one with cancer) laying on the ground being prayed for. I got up and joined them as they prayed. God's power was coming over her and she was shaking. Again, my hand got hot when I put it on her cancer lumps and Dianna could also feel the heat. We prayed and we shared and we prayed some more. We stopped about 12:30 and went home.

When I got to my car, there was a parking ticket on it. At first I was sort of upset, because I had parked right under a sign that said no parking on Tues and Thrus from 12:01 AM until 2:00 AM for street cleaning. It was clearly Monday, not Tuesday, so why the ticket? Then I realized that even thought it seemed like Monday night to me, it was techincally Tuesday after midnight. The Lord whispered to me that the enemy would love to rob me of my joy (thus the ticket) but it is up to me whether or not I would let him. I decided I'd rather have the joy, so I stopped worrying about the ticket and just worshipped the Lord on the 1/2 hour drive home.