It was a Sunday morning and I was responding to an altar call where they asked those who needed a physical healing were asked to come up to the front. For four songs just before that, I had been standing in the front row and had somehow managed to become annoyed by some young people who don't normally come to our church. They were with the traveling speaker, and they came up front to worship and they ended up standing just in front of me. They had this unusual way of worshipping God that included jumping wildly up and down (and not staying in one place) and flinging their arms wildly. They almost hit me several times and I was forced to duck a few times to avoid contact. After that I was concerned about being ht while I worshiped, and that was very distracting for me. I like to close my eyes and shut everything else out and focus in on God, but I did not feel safe doing that around these overly exuberant "guests." And that is why I felt annoyed with them, because they were distracting and kept me from my usual style of worship.
(If I fully trusted God, I would simply close my eyes to shut them out and not worry about them hitting me -- trusting Him to keep that from happening. But my trust is not quite at that level yet so I allowed myself to become distracted and a bit annoyed at the distraction.)
I realized I could just move to another part of the room, but this stubborn steak started up in me. I decided that I needed to learn to worship Him because He deserved it instead of because it was pleasant to come into His presence. So I did my best to worship as I stood in front of my seat, but it was not as effective as I would have liked.
I began to notice an area sort of front center of the alter area where people had come up to worship. There was a nice big spot there with lots of room to either stand or kneel without anyone stepping on me. I began thinking that maybe I should move to that spot so I could worship undisturbed.
I guess God wanted to make it easy for me to do so. The worship leader said that if we needed a physical healing from the Lord, we should step up and take it now instead of waiting until the end of the service. I happened to need a healing in my left elbow, I had hurt it almost three weeks before carrying some luggage and it was still extremely sore. He suggested the people who needed healings come to the front.
Well, I had been eyeing that front center spot anyhow, because it seemed like a nice safe place to worship undisturbed. Besides I really did want the healing. So I moved to that area. A sense of relief came over me at being somewhere that felt safe to close my eyes and focus on God. However, that sense of safe did not last long. The Lord's power came over me and I started shaking. At first it was mild but after a while it was pretty pronounced. I began to worry that maybe my shaking might disturb some of the people that were near me. I really did not want to go from being disturbed by someone else's worship to disturbing others who were trying to worship. So I tried to control the shaking. Then God asked me whether or not I really wanted that healing. Oh I wanted it! (Pain is a great motivator to make someone want healing). So I stopped thinking about what my body was doing and began to press in to the Lord for healing. As long as I was pressing in (and the worship leader had said "The healing virtue is present right now, so receive it"), I decided to present every other little thing to the Lord that needed healing as well. I hoped maybe He would do all of them at once and take care of every little thing in my body.
It was an easy transition from seeking the Lord for healing to focusing on His goodness and glory. Soon I was lost in Him and not thinking about much else. I felt like I needed to kneel, so I did. My eyes flicked open as I started to kneel (to make sure I wasn't going to be on top of anyone as I went down) and I noticed that the lady to my left was also kneeling. That made me smile.
It wasn't long until God's goodness swallowed up everything else and I was lost in worship again. I am not sure exactly when I went from kneeling to laying face down not the carpet because I was soaking in His sweetness. I was focusing totally on God by this point, and not really aware of my surroundings. Suddenly, I felt the weight of a thick cloth being draped over my legs. I thought it was maybe someone covering me with one of the covers we sometimes use at church when someone goes down but is not really dressed for it -- like when someone is wearing a dress or what not. I was in slacks and a shirt, so I did not really need to be covered. I had this brief thought, "Oh isn't that sweet. Someone took time from their own worship to cover me." I did not open my eyes to look and see who it was because I wanted to keep my attention focused on God.
But this thought started running through my mind that there wasn't really a cover over me in the natural, that what I was experiencing was a supernatural sensation. The thought started to become a distraction from my worship, so I decided to open my eyes and look at the covering to end the silent debate as to whether it was natural or supernatural. I was laying on face down on the carpet with my arms stretched out in front of me and my head between my arms, my left cheek on the carpet. I cracked my eyes open and could not see the lower part of my body from that angle, so I had to move my heard. I did, and got a good look at my left side all the way down to my feet. No one had placed any sort of covering over me at all. Yet I could still feel the weight of the material over me even as I looked to see that nothing was there.
I decided that must be something supernatural but when I asked God about it, He did not tell me anything. I decided that I did not want to let the experience pull my attention off of God or distract me from worship. I figured that if God wanted me to know something about it, He would tell me. I had become aware of the people around me when I opened my eyes and I had to concentrate on God for a few minutes to get my focus back on Him. After a bit, I was back deep in worship and surrounded by His goodness.
A little later, I felt a second cloth dropped over me, and it felt very tangible, especially over my right ankle and calf. I figured this time they probably really covered someone near me and part of the cloth got draped over me as well. I was not going to look, I wanted to keep my focus on God. But the question kept running through my mind and I finally decided that maybe it would be less distracting to open my eyes and look than to fight doing so. Again, there was nothing there when I looked. I could still feel the weight of both clothes over me but nothing was there. I tried moving my legs and I could feel the cloth shifting position a bit in response to my moves, but nothing was there.
It was like I had been covered with some invisible heavenly cloth from a few inches below my shoulders to the bottom of both feet. I have prayed about it a bit, but God has not spoken to me about what that means. I began asking a wild guess that maybe it has to do with strengthening my faith -- the "unseen" things of God becoming more tangible in my life.
This is maybe the third time I have had this type of experience over the past couple of months. I really began to wonder what it meant, so I began to seek God and ask Him about it. But He did not say anything in response to my question. Worship finally ended and I went back to my seat, still wondering what that manifestation was all about.
The Lord spoke to me about it during my prayer time two days later. He did not give me a complete explanation, but the piece of it that He did give me made a lot of sense to me. I am not sure if it will make sense to anyone else or not. I have to give a tad of background to explain it.
Recently the Lord has been bringing me into a series of visions that are so light that they seem more like my own imagination than a real vision. So I have been sort of resisting them and double-checking with God... "God is this think I am experience really You, or is it just my imagination?" I have been feeling cautious about opening to these things because I don't want to be ruled by my own imagination, I want to be ruled by Him.
The Lord spoke to me Tuesday morning and reminded me of the first part of a verse, 2 Corinthians 4:18, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen." Then He told me that covering was unseen but still very real and tangible. (I could feel its touch even though I could not see it.) Then He transitioned over to the light visions I was having where I more experienced them than saw them and again reminded me of this verse. I believe He was telling me that I could trust these visions as being from Him even though they were "unseen" (e.g. not as strong and tangible as I was used to.)
There could well be more to what He was doing than that, but at least a part of that experience was designed to answer the many prayers I'd prayed asking if these "light visions" were really from Him. I guess the answer is "yes." So next time I have one I intend to go for it instead of pulling back and wondering whether or not it is really from God.
There are times when I am so grateful that He is such a patient, God!
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