Wednesday Evening

We got back to the church around 6:00 PM. Since Ron and Sigrid were on the ministry team, they were able to go in early and get seats. They invited me to come in with them. Since I was not on the ministry team and we wanted to sit together, they chose unreserved seats in the front row just to the left of the stage (the section reserved for deaf people when they have sign language interpreters). But the weren't doing it that night.

I remembered being amazed that I ended up with such excellent seats both nights and I didn't do anything to try and get good seats either time. Then the Lord reminded me of my last trip out and how He'd put me behind a pole so I could not see anything. He had done that to show me that things which used to drive me nuts (like not seeing) no longer bothered me so much. Ever since then, He seems to be going out of His way to give me good seats. (Mind you, I'm not complaining!)

Worship for the Wed evening service was very good. I could really feel the Lord's presence. During the first song, Ron (from Delaware) walked up to me and asked me if he could talk to me sometime tonight. I said sure. I had an inner witness that this would be the conversation God hinted at earlier this morning where I could tell Ron what he'd done to hurt me. "But Lord," I prayed, "please orchestrate this. I'll not bring this up unless Ron gives me a very natural opening. Who knows, maybe he wants to talk about something totally unrelated..." I felt a real peace just leaving it in His hands. I went back to worship and it seemed even more wonderful than before. Sigrid was on my left. She dropped to her knees and I could really feel the Lord's presence radiating off of her. (It turns out that she was having a very powerful encounter with the Lord where He gave her a sword and led her to do an intercessory act with it. Perhaps Sigrid will share her experience... so I'll not say more.)

The teaching, quite frankly, did not do much for me. Then they started ministry time with a call for those who were feeling discouraged and disillusioned to come forward. That did not seem to apply to me, so I stayed in my seat. They invited those who just wanted more of God to go the back of the room and line up on the red lines. I don't really like it back there much. So I decided to wait a while -- maybe 45 minutes or so -- until they were done with the specific ministry call and then go up front for prayer.

Sigrid had not started praying yet, so I went over to her and asked her to hunt me up sometime tonight and pray for me. She said, "How about now?" and sort of moved me to a more appropriate spot to pray -- which happened to be more or less front center of the alter area. I mentioned that I hadn't gone up for this call because I was not really struggling with disappointment and disillusionment. She did not seem to think it mattered much and went ahead and prayed for me. So, I got ministry right away and did not have to wait a long time.

When Sigrid prayed for me, it was quite prophetic. The Lord was inviting me to take His hand so He could gently lead me to the next step. He was also inviting me into more prophetic ministry. Now Sigrid had no way of knowing this, but two of my rather constant prayers lately (and I've not told anyone) were, "Lord, please take me by the hand and lead me to where You want me to be" and "Lord, do whatever You need to do in me, but please be gentle." She hit both of them in the same sentence. The Lord's presence and power were all over me and then I was down. I found myself asking God how to take His hand. In my mind's eye, I visualized His hand and reached for it with mine. But it was like grasping thin air. Then God told me that He would teach me how to take His hand. He said that one of the things He was going to start doing a lot more of was telling me what He was going to do before He did it. "As a matter of fact," He said, "I'm going to put you to sleep for a little nap." I didn't think He meant right up there at the alter with everyone around me laughing, shaking, crying, some shouting, etc.

The Lord had me recite to Him what I wanted to tell Ron (about why I was struggling with forgiving him). As I ran through it in my mind, I found that some of what I wanted to say (defending myself) sounded sort of proud. The Lord started revealing to me that there were some areas of pride in my life that He wanted to purge away. I felt almost horrified by them, but again could not work up tears. Instead, I intently started begging the Lord to help me change that area of my life. The Lord promised me He'd change me if I worked with Him. He also showed me how to tell Ron what he'd done to hurt me without defending myself and without attacking Ron.

Then this incredible peace swept over me and I was soon so totally lost in His goodness and peace that I was totally unaware of the things going on around me. The verse "He giveth His beloved sleep..." ran through my mind.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up. I felt very comfortable and refreshed and surrounded by the Lord's presence. It took me a few minutes to get oriented and realize I was up at the altar in the ministry area. Then I remembered that the Lord had told me that He was going to put me to sleep for a little while and He did. I lay there for a while longer, just in case He wanted to do anything else. Then I got up -- it was about 11:45, so I'd probably been asleep about 45 minutes. I decided to go the cafe, but it was already closed. (It used to close at midnight, but I guess they've changed the hours since my last trip.) So I went back to my seat and sat back down.

Almost immediately, one of the people who was laying on the ground not far from my chair got up and came over to me. It was Ron. He asked if we could have our conversation now. I said sure. So he asked me why I'd sent him a request asking to be removed from his mailing list. Talk about a perfect opportunity opening up! I had the opportunity to share with Ron what he had done to hurt me. I'll not go into the details here, but Ron did listen to everything I had to say. He never apologized or admitted that what he did was wrong, but he did listen and he did not say anything negative to me. I felt like that gave me the release I needed to let go. Ron wanted to know what I had not come to him with my concern, why I just cut off communication instead. In reality, I didn't do that because I didn't think we had enough of a relationship for me to approach him in that manner. But he was right, the Biblical model is that I should have gone to him. So I apologized for not going to Ron with this and thanked him for coming to me. After the discussion was over, we gave each other a hug.