Learning to listen.

Nothing is how I thought it was. I'm not even how I thought I was. Thoughts and feelings that I thought were mine, half the time they're not even me. I can see in my little mind's eye the look of confusion upon your face. Therefore, allow me to explain.

Firstly, if this has ever happened before, I will just say that I was not aware of it. But what I am learning is that in all this scope of what I call "me," are all these thoughts and feelings, yes? But God also speaks in thoughts and feelings. So does the enemy. We came up with a pretty good paradigm to determine which is which: God = good, devil = bad.

Well, let me just tell you what happened first so I can have time to organize the explanation in my head. Okay, so we're in Denny's. Probably about twenty of us. They had trouble fitting us all. But one of the interns here, Josh, was sitting right next to me. He's super prophetic. It's pretty awesome. So we played some 'word of knowledge' games. Basically, what happens is that you ask Holy Spirit for a little bit of info on a person that you couldn't possibly have known, and then listen for what He tells you.

Josh pretty much told me my life story. With details I've not mentioned to anyone here, and almost nobody at home. And then decided it was time for me to try it. Since I'd never done this before, I wasn't real hopeful that I could do it. But I asked Holy Spirit to show me some stuff and sat back and waited. What I got was random pictures and words. But I'm learning that God likes to talk to me like that, so I wrote everything down. And when I was ready, I began spouting off my random words and pictures. And was stunned to find out that they actually meant something to him. The random picture of grass being cut was nonsense to me, but became relevant when he told me he is a landscaper. It went on and on.

The next morning we were sitting at breakfast. Having discovered that I can hear God's voice and not muck it up, I decided I will practice it at every opportunity I get. So I sat with Josh at breakfast again to practice. This time was much more difficult. I was having a hard time clearing out my head to listen. I told Josh what was going on, and he helped me narrow stuff down and figured out that a lot of it was coming off other people in the room. I kept hearing the word "tattoo." Josh encouraged me to ask what direction it was coming from. I felt like it was coming from down the table, and when Josh asked, we found out that one of my buddies at the end of the table had been thinking about tattoos.

So apparently, according to Josh, once I'm all trained up, I'll be crazy prophetic too. Which I'm pretty excited about. The cool thing is that this is something that is not just for me to read other people, but for me to read God. And that way, we are gonna be like two peas in a pod! I will keep practicing. This whole getting-to-know-God thing is a ton of fun.

I'll bet you can't wait to read what happens next week...
Peace out!

--Anna Grace

Playing in the sand.

This week has been good, with yesterday being the highlight. We had a guest worship-leader at school whose style didn't really fit with me, so I had a hard time with worship this week. But God has been revealing stuff to me about me that I didn't even realize was there. I won't really get into that now.

But I will tell you about yesterday, which was way cool. It started with breakfast, to which I felt very late because I didn't wake up until ten minutes before I headed out the door. But I was sitting down enjoying a cinnamon-raisin bagel with butter and jam when I heard Rudy call my name and the names of some other girls near me. He pulled us aside and introduced us to a lady from our host church. She had come in to ask for prayer because she was having terrible congestion and couldn't breathe. So us girls prayed for her. And when we were finished, she had tears in her eyes. She looked up and took a deep breath. Her airways were clear, she could breathe deeply and normally.

It was the first time I have prayed for anyone and seen instant healing, and I'm glad it won't be the last. I begin to understand why Bill Johnson calls it "Christian recreation." Their healing heals something in me. And I understand more than ever now that He really is listening, and He doesn't just watch from afar, He touches people.

Later in the afternoon, one of my classes went on a field trip to the beach in Trinidad. It was beautiful. The whole point was to invite Holy Spirit to come and play with us, get to know Him a little better. I wasn't feeling particularly well, so instead of running off down the beach and exploring, I parked myself in the sand and started to make a sand-sculpture because art becomes an obsession that leaves me no focus room for pain. It took a while. Everyone else was wandering back up the beach toward me to leave when I finished it - a sandy seagull - and I headed toward the water to rinse off my hands. Holy Spirit had been with me the whole time, just hanging out. We chit-chatted a little about nothing important. When I headed to the water, just sort of forgetting He was there, I thought to myself, "Man, I love playing in the sand!" Looking down, I saw beautiful patterns in the sand from the breaking waves and retreating water, and heard Him say, "Me too..."

Nothing big or important, maybe, but it really touched my heart. God likes to play in the sand. He really likes to play in the sand with me. 'Cause I'm his favorite. But that's another story for another time.

Peace out!
--Anna Grace

Peace like a river.

It really feels like the theme for this weekend has been peace. Right now I feel like I'm floating in a river of peace. Waves of stillness and calm washing over me. And before you get too wrapped up in the why of it, let me tell you the story of this weekend.

Firstly, the previous week was not really that happy. We had to tell our testimonies, and for those of you who know mine, you know it's not something I like to do. Makes me feel all raw and brings up ickies. So I was dealing with those ickies, and then on Friday, I got smacked down with missing ChaCha (Joe) so I was fighting that all day. Saturday morning was really when it all blew up. I discovered via a frantic Facebook message that a close friend had gone missing Thursday evening. I don't know if you've ever had a friend disappear, but let me tell you that there isn't much that will take your mind off it. Or stop it from wandering to all those things that could have happened. And I couldn't stop thinking about his family or feeling their heartbreak. I don't think I've ever prayed quite so unceasingly or desperately.

Sunday morning I didn't want to go to church. I didn't feel like surrounding myself with cheery people. Love them, but being around cheery people when you are heartbroken is like salt in a wound. Furthermore, trying to really enter into worship and lose yourself in it doesn't totally work when your mind and heart are all wrapped up in pain. I was in the midst of trying to wrestle myself into a worshipful state of mind (haha.) when God decided it was time to have a little chat with me. It went sort of like this:

"Are you ready to let go of this yet?"
"No."
"You know part of me is mystery. This is a mystery I want you to embrace. Trust me on this."
(From here I was trying to remind myself that God is a good guy...) "But I need to know where he is, know that he's safe."
"Is he YOUR responsibility or mine? You really want that weight? Can you help him?"
"Oh. Yeah. I guess that's right."

There were another few moments of wrestling with myself, and I decided to let it all go. Believe that God is good like He says He is, believe that He cared about Vince and his family even more than I do, and that it's all in His hand. And I decided to let him take care of it instead of trying to take it all on myself. At that instant, waves of peace began to roll over me. To lift me up and carry me away. And just like that, worship was over.

When Marty got up and announced that he was going to talk about peace, I almost laughed. "You're a little late on the bandwagon, buddy," I thought to myself. Peace prevailed for that whole afternoon. My focus shifted. Instead of praying for Vince's safety, I prayed instead for his family's peace and that Vince would choose to go home. I knew he was safe.

(Note to the reader: It looks like a happy ending here, but the story isn't over.)

Later that evening I was in the car with some other girls, driving to our evening church service in Arcata. That was when I received a text message with the news that the home church I attended back in Cedar City was no more. My peace fled from me and everything that I'd thought I had dealt with buried me like an avalanche. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.

I got to church, and sure enough, there are all those cheery people again. I made it through the prayer meeting before church somehow. Holy Spirit was there having fun with people, but I felt like the island in the river, surrounded by all the goodness, but not part of the flow. So this time I initiated the conversation with God.

"Okay, God. I see you're here. I see you on all these other folks, but where are you for me? Where do I need to be to find you?"
"I'm in peace."
"Yeah. That's funny. I tried that earlier, if you remember correctly."
"Yeah, I know. You jumped out. I didn't. I'm still here."
"I can't do that right now. I just can't. You have to come get me and pull me to where you are."
"How about you come to me this time?"
(Trying not to be frustrated at God...)(grumblegrumble)"I don't wanna..."
(Here I imagine God raising an eyebrow at me.)
"Okay, fine. You're good and got it all under control and all that jazz. Are we good?"

Apparently, we were good. My peace returned hardcore and worship was incredible after that. There wasn't anyone near me that I knew well enough to be okay tagging them with a glory ball, or I would have, I was so full of Jesus juice!

Anyway, the rest of the story is happy ending. My peace stayed put. And having a little practice finding it on purpose, peace is mine and I don't have to even ask for it anymore. I know where it lives.

Oh, the other happy ending - My friend was found safe and sound and he will be coming home. See? God's got it good.

Peace out, my friends!
--Anna Grace

The Promised Blog!

Okay, so I promised all my friends that I would start this blog up again when I got to where I was going. I was toying with the idea of deleting the former posts and just starting again, but going back through them, I don't think I will. So I will just post a quick update before giving more updates on what I've learned.

My last post (cough)February(cough) detailed my plans to attend The Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California. Let me tell you what actually happened. So, where we left off, I was crazy excited to attend BSSM. Suddenly, I realized that the way I was feeling about BSSM was that if I didn't make it, if I didn't get accepted my life would be worth nothing. I just knew that if I didn't get in, that I had no destiny and would be doomed to a mediocre life forever. When I realized how I was feeling about that, I had to stop and ask myself why. Because God doesn't make people feel that way. So that was when I told God that if BSSM wasn't what He had for me, I was cool with that. But I begged Him just to not leave me hanging, and if BSSM wasn't it, I desperately needed a different direction.

My answer came in the form of an email stating that I had not been accepted into the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, but that the Bethel School of Supernatural Discipleship would be a much better fit. I felt like I'd been dropped off a cliff. Pushed out of an airplane. The foundation of the world had dropped from underneath me and I was falling into panic and confusion. Not too long after this, I received a phone call from BSSD Director Willy Bowles.

As we talked about BSSD in my phone interview, I was relieved that this interview was a lot more like a conversation than an interrogation, and throughout the conversation, I always felt like the expectation was already there for me to attend. It ended with the affirmation that I was in. Suddenly, the fall from the cliff turned into a bungee jump. There really was a cord attached. God had caught me.

With no idea how I was going to pay for it, I began to save up money. During this time, my family in Cedar City was going through some hard times. My "daddy," was diagnosed with liver cancer earlier in the year and Jesus took him home. Later that year, I got sick and had to take two weeks off work. All the money that I'd painstakingly saved to pay for school, which was still nowhere near what I needed, went to my living expenses during that time. My faith-o-meter, already stretched by the stupid illness, dropped to zero.

Imagine then, how I felt when my family approached me and told me they had decided to use the money that Joe had left to pay for my school. All of it. My heart broke and mended all in one action. Once again, God stepped in and rescued me, despite my own failure.

So ends the story of how I ended up here and begins another story entirely. The story to come I will attempt to post on Fridays or Saturdays, just to keep you all updated. For however many people read this, anyway, this will be the primary place for updates. For small details of things that have already happened here, see my Facebook notes.

More to come!

--Anna Grace