Drinking the Cool-Aid

YWAM is more charismatic than most everything. Every day you hear, "God gave me a word/picture/vision for you." I've always said, "Sometimes I think of neat things to share, but should I say God put that in my mind?" It's so easy to say, "Hey! I thought of this..." But it's so much more spiritual to say, "Hey! I FELT this..." or especially, "I felt led to share this..." Then there's the compromise way "This came to mind..." cause that could totally be from either me or God, and they pretty much assume I mean from God. But how do you know?

One friend suggested to just share it anyway, and if it strikes the receiver as meaningful or if other people have shared the same thing, then it's probably from God. Makes sense. I also figure if it's something I thought up purely on my own, it's still nice to share it.

As a bit of background, I spent a lot of the weekend praying and reading the Bible over the weekend, so I was a much better Christian and ready to hear from the Lord. Heh.

So I tried it yesterday. Our lecturer stopped talking and said to pray and then go bless someone. So I prayed about it, and I felt like blessing Michelle, and I prayed and thought about what to say, and then I went and prayed for her, and as I was praying, she started crying because it was very moving stuff for her. Neat.

Then today I misunderstood our lecturer. He had all the staff leaders come up for prayer. Turns out, it was so that they could pray for other people. I thought it was for them to receive prayer. So I prayed about who to pray for and then I saw my small group leader was standing there without someone, and I prayed and thought about what to say. And then before I went up to him, I saw all the leaders were the ones doing the praying, and I went up to him anyway and explained to him my misunderstanding and can I pray for him anyway and he said yes. (I didn't think it's funny at the time, but now that I'm writing this, it sounds funny. Imagine people being told to come up to receive prayer and then someone comes up to pray for the prayer minister. Heh.) Anyway, he said he was blown away by what I prayed for. Sweet. This was at the end of worship.

At the end of the lecture (which is after worship) he had us stand back-to-back with someone, wait on the Lord for a word to share with them, and then share it. I grabbed our school leader Dawn cause she was right next to me. Her youngest son is leaving for college next year. My word for her was about one of the difficulties of empty-nester-ness, the transition of identity for the mom who has always said, "I see who I am as a mother raising kids." The word was three-fold...
1: You're still a mom, even if the roles have adjusted.
2: The next chapters in your story are good too. Keep looking forward.
3: God never intended a church community to be a single generation of peers, so it's providential that you're caring for these kids here.
She said that I was echoing things Joy Dawson had told her the previous day and these issues have been on her heart, so she was going to write down what I told her. Cool. I'm pretty sure I only thought of what to say cause my mom would be an empty nester without Molly and Mia, and the third point came straight from Ian Nelson, but God still can get credit for those circumstances, so I won't worry about how supernatural my word of encouragement was.