HEALING: Miraculous Lessons Pt II

Since being in the Discipleship Training School (DTS), I have continued to recognize God’s miraculous lessons in my life.  Like I discussed in my previous blog, he had begun a spiritual healing process (which I believe will continue for the rest of my life).  In this DTS, I have begun a renewed emotional and physical healing process.

Within the first few weeks of being in the DTS, I was really missing my life and people I loved in Arizona.  One day, I was overwhelmed with sadness over missing them and I was also having a really bad day with my depression in general and was dwelling on my self-criticism.  I was in the prayer room that night.  Two girls that I had never spoken to before came to pray for me.  They laid hands on me and gave a generic prayer.  Then, they both told me they each received a word:

1.        The first girl told me that I was beautiful whether I thought so or not.  God was pleased with me as his creation that he had called “good.”

2.        The second girl told me that Jesus recognized how much I had given up to seek him.  She told me that he would soon replace my sacrifice with a jewel.

It was an incredible message of peace into my life, and I accepted it with open arms.  Soon, I realized that sacrificing my own desires is a daily process.  One time in worship, I experienced the presence of Christ so strongly that I was truly able to relinquish everything that I want with my own heart and mind so freely.  I knew that Christ fulfilled more than what I could ever want and was better than anything or anyone I could ever want.  Even now, I need to remind myself of that experience and how much more worth the relationship with our Creator has than anything of this earth.

However, those were not the only words of encouragement I received from people.  Within the next few weeks, I also had three separate individuals, none of which knew me very well, come to tell me that they saw a vision (or image) of me.  I soon recognized that there was a pattern of them seeing me as “childlike.”  They were as follows:

                     1.        I was dancing in the presence of God, free like a little child dances in the presence of her father.  I had wisdom written on my hands, wisdom that only an adult could possess.  At the same time, though, I was completely childlike in my liberation.

                     2.       I was playing with Christ like a little kid with her dad.  He was whispering secrets in her ear and they were laughing together.  I had learned that my relationship with my Father is not just fear and prostration.  I had learned that he has a Father’s love.

                     3.       I was very young looking, without my glasses.  My eyes had been healed to understand God in a new way.  My worldview had changed.

I held these in my heart and anticipated that I was going to experience something new.  The next week, our speaker came and talked not on “Dying to Self” as we had been told.  Instead, he talked about what it means “To Be Childlike.”  Obviously, this immediately got my attention.  It was also not taught in the way that I have been accustomed.  He did NOT teach that being childlike means you just accept things with blind faith (a teaching I strongly dislike).  He DID teach that being childlike means that you:

     -Don’t love based on physical appearance or performance

     -Don’t have a sexual agenda

     -Have abstract thinking and an open mind to learn new things

     -Demonstrate an open and transparent attitude

     -Are honest, trusting, affectionate, tranquil, and resilient

     -Are fresh, creative, and a learner

     -Are quick to be intimate, to laugh, and to give

     -Are the child of our Heavenly Father

This teaching changed the way I viewed my call to “be like a child” in the kingdom of God.  It was beautiful and encouraging, and I began to pray in this way.  Soon, God brought up a lot of bitterness I had in my heart and people that I needed to forgive for hurting me.  For me to be honest, trusting, tranquil, and to love openly and easily like a child, I needed to surrender my pain and past. 

While in prayer, I saw an image of God sewing up my heart and that’s exactly what I experienced emotionally that day.  It’s like I became a new person, bitterness uprooted and freedom planted.

Since then, love has come more easily to me and so has obedience.  When praying for a stranger in church, I had a specific image and word for her.  I explained it to her (awkwardly in Spanish) and she cried as I showed her the Bible passages that I felt like God was telling me to show her.  She said, “Muchas gracias” to me three times before I left.  I am so excited to be used as an encouragement to God.  It truly has become like a beautiful, close-knit relationship.  God can whisper his secrets to me and I can share them with others with a renewed sense of freedom.  I can love people with God’s love again, and he’s with me the whole time, my Father.  He has been healing me emotionally.

Recently, I’ve been praying for physical/mental healing.  This prayer was rooted in a dream I had a few weeks before I came to the DTS.  God spoke to me in the dream and said, “It’s good to ask for healing.”  I still don’t know if that means he will say, “Yes!” but I sure am hoping!  We all know that Jesus can heal me, after all!  I’m currently off my medication (which was not working anyway) and am taking a few months off to see if God will be willing to stretch out his hand and touch my brain.  I have an actual chemical imbalance that causes the depression and I need an actual physical healing of my body. 

One day about a week ago, I was in the process of lowering my dose and I prayed all afternoon with the prayer of the Gentile woman who asked Jesus to heal her child.  Jesus told her that he came to help the Jews and not the Gentile.  She would not relent, saying that even dogs eat the crumbs under the table of the master.  For her faith, Jesus healed her.  I prayed all day that God would give me the crumbs off his table so that I could experience mental healing.  That night, I went to a small bonfire with only two other guys singing in worship.  One guy had a guitar and was singing.  After a while, he began to prophesy through his singing.  He sang, “You are my child.  I am your Father.  I have good plans for you,” and other, although beautiful, more generic messages.  I was enjoying the worship and sat and contemplated and prayed.  Then, he started speaking to me directly through the singer, “You have asked for crumbs off my table.  You have asked for crumbs.  But you will ask for crumbs no longer.  I’m giving you a meal.  I’m giving you a meal.”  I began crying uncontrollably and I accept this prophecy, too, with open hands, hoping it was for me. 

Since then, we had an awesome service about missions.  At the end, we stood if we felt called to missions so the speaker could pray for us.  I stood, although I angrily prayed the whole time that there was no way I could actually live out my call, because God had made it impossible for me.  “I can’t go to unreached people groups!” I told God in my heart.  “You’re sending me there, but I’m single and alone.  I don’t know anyone I can serve with to provide community and safety in an indigenous group or closed country.”  I continued, “And you allow me to have depression!  You know what it’s like just trying to survive, let alone serving others with my whole life!”

Words burst into my head like a canon going off.  They screamed in the darkness of my closed eyelids, “Peace be with you.”  I looked it up in the Bible and found that John 21 has that phrase three times when Jesus shows himself to the disciples after his resurrection.  He says it to them before breathing the Holy Spirit on them and sending them out.  I was amazed at such a blatant and powerful response to my prayer.  Since then, I have felt a lot of peace about my depression.  I believe that I will be healed.  Even if I’m not, though—like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said—God is still my Lord.

God is so beautiful and active in our lives.  His miraculous lessons, speaking to me, have brought me so much spiritual and emotional healing.  I am ecstatic to share these stories with you so that he would receive even more glory for these acts of kindness.

Also, I’d like to ask you to pray with me for a miracle of physical healing from depression.  Remember that it takes about 4-6 weeks to get the old meds out of my system so I should know in about two months for sure if God has answered my prayer or not.  I hope that we can celebrate together for this wonder in two months, but even if we cannot for this particular wonder, thank God that he demonstrates new mercies and wonders in our lives each day!