The Lord gave me the most restful sleep and I woke up feeling incredibly refreshed. I began meditating on the vision He'd given me and on the engagement ring. I assumed that Jesus had been the one to give me the ring because the church is the "bride of Christ." But God corrected me. He said that I was having a special day with each member of the Trinity. Yesterday had been the Holy Spirit's doing. Today was the day that Jesus was meeting with me. I was a bit surprised by that, but God is always doing things to break out of my "theological box," so I decided to just take that information in stride.
First I thanked the Holy Spirit for the awesome day that I had yesterday. And then I asked Jesus what He would like to do.
He said, "Teresa, I know you'd love a cup of coffee, so get dressed and go downstairs to the dining room and get one." I loved His suggestion, and I took Him up on it. I had brought portable ipod speakers with me so I could listen to worship music without wearing earphones. The ipod was playing when I left the room and I decided not to turn it off, since I would only be gone for a short while.
As I got back to the room and was unlocking my door, the Lord spoke to me. He said, "Teresa, I want you to pay special attention to the music as you come in, it is a message from Me."
I opened the door and walked in, and as I walked in, a song by Brian and Jenn Johnson was playing. This is what I heard:
I will draw you and Me together forever
in loving kindness, in faithfulness and grace
no longer your master, but your husband I will be.
You have ravished My heart with one glance of your eyes
How fair is your love, My promised, My bride.
That was God's message to me. It touched me deeply and it also seemed like it was another confirmation of the engagement vision. Wow. I just about melted when I heard that. God seemed to be romancing me so much, and it was incredible to be on the receiving end of this. I told the Lord that I felt like this trip was a honeymoon trip with Him.
He replied, "Don't be so quick to skip the wedding part, because that will be incredibly special. Think of this as an engagement trip instead of as a honeymoon."
[Before anyone gets offended, let me clarify that the Lord was not being exclusive with Me. This intimate relationship with God is for everyone in the body of Christ, I was not singled out as anyone special. God was just showing me what that intimacy (that He wants with each of us) looks like.]
I had a time of worship and intimacy with God. Then I went back downstairs for another cup of coffee, and I watched a little bit of the news that was playing on the dining room television.
As I was leaving the dining room, I noticed a florist delivering a lovely vase of flowers to the front desk. I thought to myself "Those are for me." I knew they really weren't for me, but I would have liked to get something like that. In fact, I had almost bought flowers for myself when I went grocery shopping at Publix the day before, because I love cut flowers. But I decided not to. My husband thinks they are a waste of money because they die so quickly, so I seldom get them, except on Valentine's day or occasionally on my birthday. I knew my husband would not send me flowers, so I knew those were not for me. But a thought ran through my mind: "Wouldn't it be neat if God sent me some flowers?"
[The Lord had done that once before, years ago, when I still worked as a programmer in San Francisco's financial district. I was busily working when He told me to leave my desk "right now" to go outside of the building. I obeyed Him, and as soon as I got outside of the door, some lady walked up to me and gave me this amazingly beautiful bouquet of flowers. (If you want all the details of that story, you can read them on the GodSpeak web page at http://www.godspeak.net/walk/walk_6.html).] I had come to think of those flowers as "flowers from Jesus." And now, as I walked through the hotel lobby and saw the florist, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be neat if Jesus gave me flowers again?"
I did not really expect Him to do that, but I thought it would be neat if He did.
Shortly after I got back to my room, the telephone rang. It was the front desk. They were calling to tell me that there were flowers for me in the lobby. They wanted to know if it would be ok to bring them up to my room.
I could not believe it--those flowers really were for me. Jesus had sent me flowers again. I felt so blessed.
When I got the flowers arrived, they were more gorgeous than they'd looked from the quick glance I saw in the lobby. They were a very large arrangement in a glass vase. There were several orchids and exotic flowers; they looked lovely and smelled wonderful. I put them on the stand next to the computer desk and I got a great deal of pleasure from them for the rest of my stay there.
The flowers came with a card, so I read it. They were from my friend Becky, explaining that an emergency came up and they would not be able to come to Florida to join me. It was sweet of her to send me flowers-- something I would not have expected. But then the Lord spoke to me and said, "I used Becky as the vehicle through which I worked, but those flowers are from Me. I knew you would love them, so I gave them to you."
I spent some time in worship and conversation with the Lord. It was a nice time. But at one point, my mind wandered to the the worship the night before. I remembered I had seen a girl who looked amazingly like Nikki (a very sick young lady from my church in her early or mid-twenties). This person looked just like her, expect she was in perfect health and had vibrant energy. She had stood near me for about half of the worship time. I wasn't sure if there was a natural resemblance, or if I was seeing Nikki's face superimposed over another persons' face as a message from God. At the time, I had a sense that I should call Nikki right then on my cell phone from the meeting, except that I did not have her number programmed into my phone. As I remembered that, I decided to email Nikki and ask for her number and program it into my cell.
After I did that, I I started thinking of some additional things I'd like to get at the grocery store. I decided I did not really need to go there today, I could go tomorrow instead, but I was making a mental-list for when I did go.
The Lord broke into my thoughts. He reminded me of the man who trained the ministry team last night. His voice had been hoarse from shouting over music of worship team rehearsal/sound check to train us. The Lord suggested that I go to the grocery store and get him some cough drops to soothe his throat. Of course, I obeyed immediately.
I had to walk down a long coordinator to get from my room to the exit where my car was parked. I ran into a lady (Dina) who was walking along the same coordinator, and we struck up a conversation. (As I said earlier, the atmosphere in the hotel was very friendly and most of the people staying there had come for the renewal meetings. It felt more like we were all part of a big family instead of being total strangers.)
The conversation was interesting to both of us, so when she reached her door, we stopped there and continued talking. We were discussing spiritual gifts, and the gift of prophecy came up. She thought that people could only prophesy "when the spirit moved." I told her that is true for those who don't have the gift or office; but those with the gift of prophecy can get a word any time then want. She asked me if I'd ever experienced that. I replied, "Yes, I can get a word for anyone any time I want."
A lady and her husband walked by just as I said that. She kept walking, but she said (in a teasing way), "Ok, give me a word."
So I teasingly said "27...oh, did you mean a prophetic word?"
I considered giving her a real prophesy since she had asked, but she kept walking. She called over her shoulder, "I was just razzing you, I don't really expect a word."
However, Dina had this longing look on her face. She said, "I am not asking you to prophesy to me, but I would sure love to get a word. I have been a Christian for 23 years, and I have never been prophesied to."
How can you say no to a request like that? I started to "tune in to the Lord" for a word for her, but God put a check in my spirit. He seemed to be saying, "Wait." So I told her that I was in a "Go to the grocery store" mode right now, but when I got back in about 1/2 hour, I would give her a call and she could come to my room and I'd prophesy to her. She said that she'd like that.
The Lord began to give me a word for her as I was getting in my car, about her being a princess, but not fully understanding or living in her inheritance. God has a way of adding a special and personal touch with His children. When I was shopping for the cough drops, I found a night light shaped like a crown that had the word "Princess" on it. The Lord prompted me to get that for Dina, to go along with His word to her. (I also picked up a few more groceries for myself.)
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