I can't possibly convey the material that was taught in a four-day school, so this testimony won't really be an account of the school so much as an account of how God met me at the school. The school was teaching intensive, but there was worship before each session and there were occasionally short ministry times. Elvi Glass flew in from North Carolina for this conference and stayed as my house guest. We attended the conference together. I will share this as a series of seven write-ups. The first five describe things I experienced in the school, and the last two describe the healing meetings that Todd had at the same location immediately after the healing school was over.
Monday July 7 (Spirit of Annoyance)
We got there early to register, as did everyone else. By the time we made it through the registration line and went inside, most of the "desirable" seats already had people's stuff laying on them. However, we found a spot that seemed "nice" about 12 rows back, way over to the side on an aisle. The man in front of us was shabbily groomed (his hair and beard, not his clothes) and he started acting really weird. The service had not started, worship music was not going, people were just milling around. There was no evidence of anointing present in the room yet. But he began to shake and convulse like some people do when the Holy Spirit comes on them -- and he also turned his head rather violently from side to side, as if he were emphatically shaking his head NO.
Something in my spirit went "Yuck!" I sort of knew it was the gift of discernment kicking in, that there was not a right spirit on this man. I whispered to Elvi that maybe we might have to move because of the man in front of us, since he was manifesting and I did not think it was the Holy Spirit on him. But I decided to wait a minute or two to see if maybe the man would calm down. I went to the bathroom and when I came back, he had moved from the row in front of us to the row behind us. Since I did not have to keep looking at his manifestation and since these were the "best available" seats, I decided to stay where I was.
I really wanted to have a good attitude, but a lot of things began to annoy me and I could not figure out why on some of them. Others were very obvious. For instance, during worship, I kneeled down on the floor in front of my seat. Elvi had gone to the farthest side aisle to dance. I was the only one in the row. God began to meet me and I was deep in intimacy with Him when suddenly this lady tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to get up so she could sit in the row. I could not believe she would do that, since there was a wide walking aisle separating the rows of pews only three rows behind us and she could have easily used that to go to the other side of the pew that was not blocked and enter there. I remembered thinking to myself, "how disrespectful of God to disturb someone lost in worship when there was no need to do so." It would have been SO easy for her to get into the row from the other side without disturbing anyone. I felt peeved at her. The expression on my face let her know my feelings as I got up to make way for her to enter the row.
Then, when worship was over, Elvi made her way back from the far left aisle to her seat and had to pass this lady. Even though worship was over, the lady still standing (eyes open and looking around) and she blocked Elvi. So Elvi very gently said, "Excuse me." This same lady who had disrupted me when I was kneeling in the middle of the worship service was visibly indignant that Elvi "disturbed" her after worship was over to get back to her seat. I became very offended that she did not mind disrupting me and then was upset that Elvi disrupted her. What a double standard.
The teaching was good, but it seemed SO basic to me on the first day. There were several annoying distractions and the air conditioning was cranked way up and everyone had their coats on and I was freezing! I found it hard to pay attention. I skipped most of the evening session to run an errand I had to run. I remember puzzling over why I was so annoyed at the conference because it was out of character for me.
The next day, we went back to the same seats and the weird man was in them. So we sat two rows behind him (because I did not want to be directly behind him). As worship started, God told me strongly, "Teresa, get up and walk around the sanctuary." I guessed that maybe He wanted to connect me with someone or something like that. So I got up and obeyed. Oddly, when I got about 10 feet away from where we were sitting, I could feel a major change in the atmosphere and was immediately aware of God's sweet presence. I sort of wandered where I felt prompted to go and ended up near the front on the far right side. To my surprise, the rightmost front row was empty -- probably because it was so far to the side. It was a short pew that would hold four or five people -- right in front and totally empty. And Elvi had told me how much she wanted to sit in the front row. Wow. I put my jacket down to hold two seats and went to get Elvi.
Once we got to the seats I turned to Elvi and said, "Doesn't the spiritual atmosphere seem better here." She agreed that there was a very strong difference. I silently asked God why this part of the building felt so different from where we had been sitting. In response, he showed me the "weird man" who seemed to have a cloud around him about two rows in front and behind him and about four feet to either side. It was shaped sort of like a sphere. I immediately understood that this was a demonic sphere of influence that effected the atmosphere immediately around him, and that was what had caused me to feel so annoyed the other day.
Later that day, Todd mentioned his anointing sphere of influence -- that when the anointing was on him, anyone who came within a certain physical distance of him was strongly impacted. He said it was shaped sort of like a cigar.. about 10 feet in front of him and three feet to the back and three feet to either side. As he said that, the Lord again showed me the picture of the man and his dark cloud and I realized that the enemy was imitating God's sphere of anointing with his own sphere of "negative anointing." I had not been aware that the devil did things like that before God showed it to me at the meeting.
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