Wrapping Up Tuesday Night

By now it was pretty late and the taped music was going. Barbara was still down under the power and I didn't see Bryan anywhere. I decided to just go worship by the stage. Since the volume of the taped worship music was pretty low, I parked myself by one of the speakers (just to the right of the stage) so I could hear it better. I closed my eyes, raised my hands and worshiped along with the music. I sort of hoped that someone would come along and pray for me some more -- I'm a glutton when it comes to the Lord's blessing and anointing. But I did not really expect anyone to come because it was quite late and most of the ministry team had stopped praying for people.

I was startled by someone bumping into my left arm, and my eyes popped open. It turned out to be a man wearing one of those Texas Guest Ministry Team badges. He was not actually praying for people at that moment, he was just trying to walk across the altar area and backed into me while moving out of someone else's way. He thought it was neat that I was standing there worshiping. He offered to go get a catcher and pray for me. That sounded pretty good to me.

As soon as he started praying for me, I could feel the Lord's presence and power surge through me. I started contracting from the midsection until I was bending over so low that my head was almost touching the ground and my knees were bending at the same time. When I was almost a ball on the floor I'd stand most of the way up and rhythmically repeat the process. I was aware of these weird motions, but I was so overcome with the Lord's presence that I did not worry about them at all.

His prayers were the simple "More Lord", "Fill her up, Lord", "Send Your power" variety. I remember being impressed at how powerful those simple prayers were. It felt like God really wanted to give me more of His power and His anointing. It felt like God was touching me in the midsection with His finger and then I'd contract down to the ground again. His presence flooded my senses and eventually I couldn't tell if I was standing, bowing or what.

Eventually I went down. The guy followed me down and took my feet. The catcher put his hands on my temples. They simply asked God to send more power -- and He did! It felt like I was connected to a live circuit -- like electricity was shooting through my body. Up to this point it had been a somewhat quiet night for me -- God's presence had been there, but not that overwhelming sense of His power. I had thought of it as a relatively tame night; but not any longer. I was flooded with a sense of God's power and His greatness. I could feel Him filling and filling me. It was like I was becoming more and more alive. His life and His power were pulsing into me.

They stopped praying for me, but God's power continued to shoot through me. I had a very strong sense of His majesty and His holiness. I wanted to make sure that every area of my life was right with Him. His power continued to shoot through me for about 15 or 20 minutes. I lay there for another 5 minutes just resting and feeling surrounded by the Lord's love.

When it was all over, I got up and went over to where Barbara was. She was still down -- which sort of amazed me. God was continuing to touch her and she was shaking mildly and had a big smile on her face. I sat by her for a few minutes. Then I saw they guy who'd last prayed for me. He was just finishing up praying for someone. Then he thanked and released his catcher.

I went up to him and thanked him for praying for me. I explained that I'd been feeling a little unsettled because someone prophesied over me in a way I felt uncomfortable with earlier. I told him how much I appreciated his prayer and how powerfully the Lord had ministered to me through it. He asked me who had prophesied over me earlier. I said that it wasn't really important, that I was not trying to report him or complain about him. But this guy said he'd really like to know. It happened that the man who'd prophesied over me earlier was on the ground, not very far from where we were standing. I noticed him during our conversation, so I went ahead and pointed him out.

He thanked me for pointing the man out, then took both of my hands in his. He started praying for me again. He prayed that God would establish His word in my life and that any words spoken over me which were not from Him would just fall off. The Lord's power hit me just like it did the last time that he prayed for me. Someone walked up to be a catcher -- I guess I looked like I'd be needing one real soon. The only difference was that this time I felt incredible joy sweep over me. I started laughing and could not stop. The man praying for me began laughing too and changed his prayer to "more joy, Lord." I was jerking, bowing and laughing all at the same time. I had a strong sense of God smiling at me. I went down again. Only this time, I remained aware of the people around me -- and I was filled with a deep love for them. It was as though the Lord had put his giant umbrella of His over all of us and was uniting us together under that umbrella of love. There was a man about 15 or 20 feet away who was laying on his side and caught up in Holy laughter. We made eye contact. Then he began laughing and splashing at me. There was an instant unity between us. I wanted God to fill and bless him and he seemed to want the same for me. We continued praying for each other from across the room and were both getting so filled that we could not contain it.

Back before the ministry time started, Barbara had offered to give me a ride back to my hotel. It was a good thing that I did not have to walk considering the state that I was in -- I'd probably never have made it and ended up collapsing on the sidewalk in fits of laughter. Anyhow, Barbara was off of the ground now and walked over to me. She told me that we had to leave now -- it was after 1:30 AM -- and everyone was in the car waiting for us. She tried to help me up, but ended up going down herself. We were both overcome with laughter again. I took two or three steps towards the exit and realized that I was so drunk I could not walk properly. In fact, I was having technical difficulty with simple things like remaining on my feet. Then I was down again. We crawled over to each other and somehow became an intertwined ball of laughing arms and legs.

Bryan came in to see what was keeping us. He sort of untangled us and helped Barbara to her feet. Then, when he let go of her to help me up, Barbara went down again. I took another step or two and was back down again myself. We were right where the aisle feeds into the altar area. Bryan was encouraging us to go, so Barbara and I started trying to crawl up the aisle towards the exit. We made it maybe 8 or 10 rows when we happened to look into each other's eyes. That was a tactical mistake because we were both so overcome with the joy of the Lord that we were back down again, laying on our backs and kicking our feet and laughing uncontrollably. Bryan somehow managed to get both of us up and propped one of us over each shoulder. We made it another 4 rows or so when a ministry team person walked by and said "more Lord." All three of us when down, but Bryan did not stay down long. He ended up supporting each of us with one of his shoulders under each of our armpits and half dragged us towards the exit. I was on his right and Barbara was on his left. We were both having a great time but really trying to cooperate about leaving. It took us quite a while to make it to the exit. By now Bryan was also starting to get drunk, but somehow he managed to stabilize us and move us towards the car. Some folks near the door took pity on Bryan and offered to help us into the car, which was waiting right by the exit. It was certainly a fun way to end the evening.