FireSide Chat

This fireside chat was written on Saturday Morning, July 14, 2007. It is more of a testimony than a formal teaching, but I am hoping that you will find it helpful.

There are times when we think we hear God say something to us, but we feel "afraid" to pass it on to others. That fear can come for either of two reasons. The first is that we might not be 100% sure it was really God--we might be afraid that what we heard came from our own imagination, and we don't want to sound "crazy" to our friends. The second is that the thing that God said might sound a bit "out there," and we think that other people would not be able to accept it. There are times when both reasons operate at the same time.

That happened to me recently. He has been speaking things to me over the past ten days that I did not feel "safe" sharing with others. But this morning (Saturday July 14), God had a prophet from Nigeria telephone me to confirm that what I had heard was really from God. It is a bit of an involved story, so I have to back up to a week and a half ago bring you up to speed and have it make sense.

On Tuesday, July 3, I had a rather serious accident. Some guests had been staying with me and were about to fly home. One of them asked me if she could take the dogs into the yard and play with them before she left. I wanted to check and make sure the driveway gate was closed first. So I cracked the front door open and stuck my head out to look at the gate. My 100 pound german shepherd did something he has never done before. He charged at the partially open door from across the house and jumped on it at high speed. That slammed the door into my head on one side, and slammed the door frame into my head on the other side. I passed out briefly and ended up falling to the ground. I regained consciousness quickly and struggled to my hands and knees, because my dog was licking my face. My guests had run to me, saying, "Are you ok?" and trying to help me up.

I had this huge lump on the left side of my forehead that was easy to see. My guest had me put ice on that. I had another equal sized lump on the lower right side of my head, but it was covered with hair, so we did not see it at first. I also had nausea and blurred vision and a terrible headache. I probably should have gone straight to the hospital because that was a serious head trauma, but I did not. Instead I phoned a friend and asked her if she could drive my guests to the airport. I was too "out of it" to think clearly about health care the day of the accident. The next day was a holiday, so the doctor would not be in, so I did not try to see one. By Thursday, the lump was starting to get smaller and my headaches were less severe, so I decided that I probably did not need to see a doctor about the head injury. However, on Friday, I saw a dermatologist, and he noticed the lump on my head and told me to call my internist right away. I saw him on Saturday, six days after the accident, and he said that I had Post-Concussion Traumatic Syndrome, which is like a burse on the brain. He said that it should clear up in a week or two, and if it did not, he would order a CAT scan.

My teeth started hurting on Saturday afternoon, four days after the accident. I thought, "Oh no! On top of all this, I am going to need a bite adjustment." I decided I'd try to wait it out, because this is a recurring problem that sometimes clears up on it's own. I did not call a dentist on Monday, but the pain got so bad Monday night that I could not sleep at all. I realized that I probably had an abscessed tooth, so on Tuesday I started looking for a dentist who could do root cannels, and who could take care of me before I left for my Singapore trip. I finally found an endodontist (a root cannel specialist) who could take me at 3:30 that afternoon.

As I was driving to the endodontist's office, I wondered if this tooth problem was related to the head trauma of the week before, or was it just something else that happened to go wrong at the same time? I asked God about it, and He began to speak to me. He told me that, in answer to my prayers, He had set me apart for His purposes.

As I drove, God strongly reminded me of a service at the open Heaven conference (10 days earlier) where He had assigned a ministry angel to me. I met the angel in an unusual way. I was at the conference and was standing a few feet in front of my chair (on the front row) with my arms uplifted, worshipping God. I felt someone come up behind me and press against me. The front of their legs lightly touched the back of my legs, their stomach touched my back and the pressed their arms against my up stretched arms, cupping the back of my hands in their palms. It alarmed me at first, as it seemed highly improper for someone to come that close to me during worship. But the instant I became aware of this, God spoke to me and told me that this was an angel that He had just assigned to me, to minister with and through me. The Lord told me He had assigned this angel to me to accomplish His proposes.

There are times when my own skepticism scares me. I could feel the angel touching me, I could feel the anointing on my hands and I could sense the Lord's nearness. But I wondered if this part about the angel was really God, or if it was just my own imagination. So I experimented by praying for some people during this worship time, and I watched the Lord meet them as I prayed for them. There seemed to be a stronger than usual anointing on me, which tended to back up what I was hearing. I was not 100% convinced, but I was mostly convinced. Then I had some other experiences with God and this ministry angel during other meetings at the same conference. In the end I decided that this was not my imagination and God had really assigned a ministry angel to me. But I did not understand what it was about.

All of that flooded into my thinking in a fraction of a second as I drove to the endodontist office. I knew God was recalling it to my memory, but I was not sure why. Was God telling me that this tooth pain was somehow related to an enemy counter-attack against me because I'd been assigned this angel?

I got to the office, and had to fill out a bunch of paperwork, which took my mind off of my experience with God. The endodontist examined me and said that it was a very bad abscess and it had been infected for some time, well over a year. The head trauma probably moved it from chronic to acute. He said that I should have come to him sooner, but it wasn't bothering me before, so I did not know to seek medical attention earlier. It was more infected than what the endodontist was used to seeing. He decided that I needed a root cannel, so he gave me a shot in my mouth to numb it. He left me to work on someone else to give me time to "get numb," saying he'd be back soon.

I was alone in the office and relaxing to some classical music. All of the sudden, I was aware of a very strong presence of God in the room with me. It was just as strong as during a really good worship service when God shows up in a tangible way. I was delighted that God had chosen to come be with me for my root cannel, but I was also a bit puzzled by it. It was only routine dentistry; I had not been worried about the procedure, and I was a bit surprised that He was there with me in such a tangible way.

"Teresa," He asked me, "Do you know how many angels are in this room with you?"

It was a little tiny procedure room, so I figured that there could not be very many. But instead of hazarding a guess, I replied, "No, Lord, how many?"

God told me that there were many angels in there with me, and told me the names of the five of them who I had met before.

About this time I was thinking to myself, "Ok, they gave me a shot to numb the mouth. As far as I know, that is a local anesthetic, and not a mind-altering drug, so it should not be giving me hallucinations." I was trying to sort out if this was really God or if it was my imagination gone wild.

God did not seem to be alarmed by my thoughts. He continued talking to me. "Teresa, would you like to know why I have sent all these angels to be in here with you?"

"Yes, Lord."

"It is to protect you. The enemy of your soul is upset by the anointing that I have placed upon you. He is upset about what I am going to do in Asia, and he wants to prevent your trip to Singapore. The enemy has chosen this moment as the time when he is going to try and kill you. But do not fear, for I will not allow that to happen. This room is full of My angels and I am not going to allow a single demon in this room with you. You are protected and perfectly safe in My arms."

Then I was flooded with this extreme sense of His peace and felt very relaxed. At that instant, it was impossible to be worried or afraid of anything. The sense of His nearness and his goodness flooded my senses, and it stayed on me when the endodontist came back into the room to start the root cannel. My mind should have been paying attention to what they were doing, but I was too lost in the Lord's peace. From time to time God would whisper something comforting to me, like, "you are safe in My arms," or "My angels are protecting you." At the time, I did not think much about it, I just enjoyed the Lord's peace and presence.

But later on, after it was over, I mentally reviewed it. I thought to myself, "Did that really happen, or was my imagination running wild with me?" I was hesitant to tell anyone about it, because I did not want to sound paranoid. Why on earth would the enemy try to kill me in an endodontist office, and why would the Lord fill it full of angels?

It did not fit my sense of logic (spiritual things often don't) and I decided to quietly file this incident away for future meditation. I did not think it would be a good idea to share this with others, because they might think I'd gone off the deep end.

{I was not aware of this at the time, but apprenlty there is some medical danger when you have a large infection in your mouth and it is operated on. There have been cases of the infection getting into people's blood stream and them dieing from it. A friend of mine who works in the medical field told me about it a few days later. So I am guessing that the enemy's strategy against me was to cause the very bad infection in my mouth to somehow get into my blood stream, but God did not allow that to happen.)

I have been having a lot of pain from the root cannel and have been on a narcotic pain killer Wednesday through Friday. I woke up Saturday morning to the phone ringing. I looked at the clock and it was 6:00 AM. I thought to myself, who would call at this hour? I decided to answer the phone and find out.

It was Solomon, a prophet from Nigeria. He had called me once before, and given me a prophetic word, but it was a bad connection and I was not able to make out a good portion of what he said. Parts of the word he had given me lied up directly with things God had been speaking to me, so I considered him a credible prophetic source.

Now he was calling me at 6:00 AM. He wanted me to meet with a friend of his who was in the USA, but that meeting was not possible because I would be in Singapore when the person was in my area. Then he began to prophesy to me again.

The first thing he said really got my attention. He said that someone had pushed me down to the ground and hurt me seriously. That matched the head trauma to the door on July 3. So I told him that happened a week ago Tuesday. He laughed. I don't think he was laughing at the accident, but showing delight that he'd gotten this word of knowledge correct. I did not feel offended at all. Then he said that the devil was very upset with me and recently tried to kill me, but God protected me from that attack. That seemed to match up with my experience in the endodontist's office 4 days ago.

Then he said that God wanted me to know why the devil was trying to kill me. It was because God had recently stood behind me and placed a new level of anointing and authority on me, and the devil wanted to take me out because of the powerful things that God planned to do through me. That matched up very closely with the experience of the ministry angel, that God had given to me in the Open Heaven conference, two weeks ago today. Even the part about how God is standing directly behind me to anoint me matched up with my experience with this ministry angel. It was almost freakily with how closely his prophetic words lined up with recent real experiences!

He told me that the enemy was going to try and kill me one more time on this trip to Singapore, but that God was going to protect me and give me a testimony of His goodness.

Solomon said other things in the word as well, but they are not pertinent to this story, so I am not going to share them here.

The reason I shared this story with you is so that you can see that at times God speaks to us in ways that we question whether or not it is really Him (as opposed to our imagination). But He is faithful to confirm what He said to us through some other source. In my case, He had a prophet from Nigeria phone me and give me a word matching what He has been speaking directly to me. God may do it a different way with you. But if you seek Him for confirmation, He will confirm what He has been saying to you, so that you can know it is really Him.