The group practiced healing prayer. Those praying over people would share words or images that came to mind about the person. Sometimes what they shared meant something very personal to the prayee. Other times what they had to share was generic. Other times it was ambiguous and could apply to just about anything. For example, they would tell a sad person they received the word “sad “when praying. Or they would say, “I suspect there’s something heavy on your heart”. Those answers, of course, didn’t require much discernment or seeking of the Holy Spirit to figure out since people typically came to healing prayer because their hearts were troubled. However, I kept going in hopes I would get a specific and meaningful message from God. I wanted so badly to have a divine meeting with Jesus.
I asked for group prayer to cure the feeling of sadness I’d been experiencing. As they began praying I closed my eyes. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The images I saw in my head were normal images/visuals you would see whenever your mind wanders. Perhaps it was because I was seating with my head down I saw an image of myself in the exact same position in the corner of a room. I looked pretty sad. When the group finished they all shared how they saw the word “depression”. I was unimpressed with that answer as you had to be blind or insensitive not to notice how sad I looked. As I was preparing to leave and write-off the ministry permanently one of the men in the group followed me and asked me how I was doing.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I told you I was feeling a little down,” I replied in an annoyed voice.
“It’s just that I saw this image of you when I was praying” he said.
I mockingly said to him, “oh really? Did I look depressed?”
“Actually you did. I’m just concerned because I saw you sitting with your head down in a corner room. You look so sad,” he said.
Immediately I was paralyzed with chills when he said “corner room”. He went on to say how it made him feel bad for me because I looked so helpless. He began describing what I was wearing, my facial expression, and specific details that matched exactly the image I saw when the group prayed over me. I was dumbfounded and stood there for a few seconds staring at him. I didn’t know what to say.
I finally snapped out of my trance and thanked him for the prayer and started to turn away to leave. He called out “listen, God cares deeply about you and I care about you too. Please come back next week so I can check up on you.” It was then that my heart began to register that God really loved me because he wanted me to know he saw how sad and broken I was, and that he wanted to do something about it by speaking through the man who prayed for me.
A few months later I had another experience that changed my heart permanently. I was having a conversation with a friend on the phone and I couldn’t help but space out as he was talking. That day I was desperate in my heart for love and affirmation from God but I didn’t know how to ask or express it. This need was so great that it made it impossible to listen to my friend talk. I had to quickly hang up phone.
I was frustrated because I had been crying out to God over the past year for some supernatural, life changing encounter that I hoped would help get me out of my miserable state. Aside from my one experience at healing and deliverance prayer, I still haven’t had any other experiences that confirmed God’s love for me. I remembered thinking to myself that if God was all powerful and can part the red sea why can’t he heal me. I was in a miserable state I couldn’t get out of and all I really wanted God to do was come get me out of this awful place. I remembered thinking “God, I wished you’d come get me.”
A few seconds later the phone rang. It was my friend and the first words out of his mouth were “I need to come get you.” My friend said in a matter of fact tone that I got lost during the conversation, so to remedy the problem he needed to back track to where I was lost and look for me. “That’s what I need to do. I need to come get you. Next time, I will come get you.” He said it half a dozen times. What amazed me was that I didn’t share anything about wanting love and affirmation from God. The way that I ended the phone call and what we talked about didn’t require a that kind of followup phone call. In fact, nothing warranted it. It just happened out of the blue and because it happened that way I really believe it was God’s doing. My heart finally opened up to God’s love because that experience confirmed to me God loved me and that he would come and rescue me. Life was going to be different now. I was no longer alone and trapped in this miserable situation because I knew in my heart God would come and take me out of those places. He will come get me. I finally got it.
My experience caused me to approach God more intimately and prayed more honestly and openly about the things that were weighing me down. As those things were being released to God, my life transformed because God healed my past hurts. I had a spiritual awakening and developed spiritual gifts like words of knowledge, prophetic words, and some healing abilities. I started to have dreams, visions, and powerful encounters that I didn’t even know were possible.
My broken relationships with those I love were restored. I finally came to experience what it was like to be a new creation in Jesus Christ because I became a different person. I grew up experiencing anxiety on a daily basis because my parents fought a lot, but since my spiritual awakening I’ve had consistent peace and confidence. Those things that once bothered me and at times paralyzed me with fear have become more manageable. And though challenges continue to erupt in my life to shake my faith, I’m able to persevere through because I more sensitive Jesus’ nearby presence during the hard times. What’s even more amazing is that I’m occasionally used by God to pray over people and am given words and images to share with them to touch their lives.
We are created to bond intimately with God. God’s love is meant to be experienced personally in our lives. If you never experienced his love in a personal way and would like to know it, then please begin to pray that God will reach out to you in a specific way so you will know that it’s him. When you know that God loves you, you begin to surrender more of yourself to him and the more of you God has the more he can reconcile and make whole. God is love and he does all things through love. And it’s from knowing and understanding this love that your life begins to be wonderfully transformed.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
