SPIRIT FILLED

I am going to try and make this a short, concise post, because I want to write it and post is right now! But we shall see how that goes…

I feel like I have been being nudged, a little more every day to share some of the way that the Holy Spirit has manifested itself in my life. (Gosh. I totally hate the way that sentence sounds-- Please bare with me as I try to express what is on my heart).

In the last 6 months God has done a HUGE work on my previously skeptical heart. But as it goes with things I have been a skeptic about in the past, I almost always turn out to be a full fledged believer! Here is a random little backstory from over 6 years ago to try to articulate my point about skepticism. I was pregnant with my first baby, Tylyn at the time, and my new husband was preparing/training for his upcoming baseball season. It was this year (the one where I was turning into a whale) that my husband decided to get into the best physical shape of his life! And it went BEYOND his normal, athletic, workout-aholic regimine. He was like turning into a fitness beast-- and again I was turning into a whale. While all of this was happening, he was giddily trying to share all of his new found knowledge on diet and exercise for strength, performance and endurance, with me. Needless to say, I wanted nothing of it. I seriously did not want to hear a word about low carb, paleo diets. I didn’t want to discuss supplements. And I may have been holding a slight grudge about his timing on getting in such good shape. And then, we had our baby… and then I wanted to loose all the baby weight… and then I struggled to do so...and then I finally started asking my husband for that very advice (wisdom) that he was anxious to give me just 6 months before. And when I actually listened, and then actually applied and TRIED his advice, WOW! My whole world changed. And I got in the best shape of my life (unfortunately it only lasted a couple of months because then I was pregnant again in the blink of an eye). So you see, at first I was a skeptic-- and then I became a believer and have come back to these tried and true methods of diet and exercise time and time and time again!

Luckily, this post has nothing to do with fitness. But it has everything to do with what happens when I am able to change my perception of something that I was once skeptical about.

Now, during the past year and a half my husband started listening to some very “spirit-filled” sermons. Sermon’s preaching about the gifts of the Spirit and how ALL of the gifts are available to anyone/everyone who seek them. This doesn’t sound like anything to be too skeptical about, but when you start to ask in a more personal way, “well if all of the gifts of the spirit are available to ME, then why do I not currently possess all of them..?” It starts to become a little more personal. It starts to step on your toes a little. And you start to not want to hear about those gifts that you perhaps do no possess. For me, I was particularly skeptical about the gift of healing. And yet, I FULLY have always believed in the supernatural ability of healing through the Holy Spirit and prayer. But I didn’t really believe that I personally had the power to perform these healings.

Let me back up a little more. I was not raised in the most spirit filled church. Yes, my church believed in the Holy Spirit, but it was not a ‘raise your hands in worship/speaking in tongues’ kind of church. (Isn’t it funny that raising our hands and speaking in tongues is what we have boiled down being “spirit filled” to?) Anyway, again YES I believed that the Holy Spirit was alive, active and had dominion in my life. In fact, when I was 9 years old my Dad had a very aggressive, terminal form of aortic cancer, that he was completely healed of. My dad has been over 20 years, cancer free to this day. And today, I believe the story of his healing is the same as it was regurgitated to me when I was 9 years old. My parents went to the Mayo Clinic for my father’s treatment only a few short days after his diagnosis, leaving my sisters and I home in the care of family. And on one of their visits back home, between treatments, after a church service at our home church, I watched as the pastor and elders of our church laid hands on my dad and prayed for his complete healing in Jesus name. Now, I admit I am not sure on the exact timeline, but the end result was nothing short of miraculous- the doctors had decided to perform surgery to try and remove some of the cancer and during the surgery they found no remaining cancer! I can remember clear as day, getting a phone call in my 4th grade classroom with my Aunt telling me that his cancer was GONE! A MIRACLE! Thank you Jesus!

Now, experiencing miracles does not come without more questions as to the Supernatural. Questions of “Why do some people not get healed?” and “Why do some people seem to be ‘better’ vessels for healing than others?” “What kind of miracles can we expect to see God perform?” “Can God perform any miracle? Can He make a new organ? Can He raise the dead (still?)? Can He…” I promise the list of questions gets longer with the more supernatural/miraculous experiences that you see or experience (most definitely not shorter).

I think that when you experience a miracle, you mind tries to come up with some ”natural” and logical explanation as to what occurred. When Hadley was about 1 year old, Tyson came home, sure that he had broken several bones in his foot. He was unable to walk, in extreme pain, swollen like a balloon and laid in bed all night. You are probably thinking, ‘why didn’t you go to the hospital?’ Mostly just because Tyson was resolved to wait until the morning and see how it felt. He had broken several bones before. He once broke his wrist at the beginning of a baseball game and proceeded to play (catcher) with his broken wrist the entire 9 inning game. So that evening Hadley and I prayed that Tyson’s foot would be healed. He woke up the next morning and it was as if nothing had happened. And we were all left wondering “was his foot actually as bad as we thought it was? As it looked? As he felt?” Seriously, we tried to rationalize and come up with an explanation that our finite minds could understand. And yet, there was an undeniable knowledge in the back of our minds that it was in fact a miracle, a piece of the supernatural, the power of the Holy Spirit deposited for us to experience just a glimpse of the Glory of God.

A few short years later, we were faced with another mysterious miracle. Tylyn had run full force into a very clean glass door and nearly knocked her 2 front teeth out. I ran her to the closest bathroom, sat her on the counter, blood pouring out of her mouth, and sure enough her 2 front teeth were completely loose and already turning grey. I had no idea what this meant or what would most likely happen next so I of course googled it. The verdict looked grim. Once teeth turn grey the blood vessels have basically been severed and the teeth will fall out. I was so upset that my 3 year old might have to go around for YEARS without her 2 front teeth. To this day I can still sense my anxiety about this diagnosis. But I did what we always did. Hadley and I prayed for her teeth. We prayed that God would miraculously re-solidify her teeth. We prayed that they grey would turn back to white and that her teeth would be like new again! This was another one of those situations where we didn’t rush to the hospital right away. We went to bed that night, planning once again to take her in the morning. But in the morning there was no need! Her teeth were WHITE and they were SOLID! It didn’t make any sense at all but I was praising God for another miracle! The funny thing is that here she is 6 1/2 years old and has yet to lose her first tooth! I keep waiting for one to get loose but we don’t even have a wiggler.

Even with all of these experiences in our past, I was still reluctant to think that I could be or posses the power of the Holy Spirit to heal others. I have never envisioned myself with a healing ministry or walking around asking people if I can pray for them. I have however believed this of my daughter Hadley (as I mentioned she was an active participant the the miracles I mentioned above). So here my husband is, looking for a deeper revelation about what being a Christian means. When he settled on this verse, when Jesus sends out the 12, as His new found verse to live by I once again was faced with my own skepticism.

“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,[a] drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” (Matthew 10:8)

In Mark it goes as far as to say that you will know a believer from a non believer because of these signs:

“And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” (Mark 16:17-18)

If suddenly you feel like the gospel is stepping on your toes a little then you understand what I was feeling too. If I can call myself a believer but not truly believe that I can do all that Jesus called us to do as His disciple, then I in turn question my own faith. A big part of what I was wrestling with was that the revelation being presented to me was coming from my husband- someone who I had been betrayed by and who I fought a spiritual war for, over his soul! I had to realize that I had carried him (spiritually) for awhile and now he was (once again) carrying me. P.S. If that isn’t redemption then I don’t know what is!

And then, as my eyes were being opened to more of the supernatural power that God gives us, I was also given an assignment. And I am most assured that this assignment was from God- to have a supernatural, pain free birth with Olivia. And boy did I taste the sweetness of God’s Glory! He unleashed in me a HUNGER for the supernatural. I explained this in detail in my post about Olivia’s Birth Story. But the more that I have”tasted and seen” of the “sweetest of love” “my heart has become freed” and “my pain is undone!” Oh! It really is that good!

Olivia is 4 months old now and I feel God’s power in me CLEARLY! I shared on social media several weeks ago an experience we had with Emmy. Her had got SMASHED, literally like paper thin, in the door hinge. I only got a quick glance at the severity of it, but it was terribly, terribly, bad! Based on my very, non-medical, observation I thought for sure it was broken, in more places than one. I was for sure thinking we needed to pack our kids in the mini-van and go to the emergency room. Emmy was crying hysterics. She was shaking. She was SCREAMING in pain. And yet, our first reaction was to pray. Tyson was holding her with her tiny hand in his, I clasped my hand over top of theirs and we began praying that God would restore her hand, heal her bones, mend her bruises… and in the name of Jesus we took our hands off of hers for our second glance at it and saw it healing in front of our very eyes. I mean, I swear it was like looking at veins filling with blood, like her flattened hand was being blown new life giving air into it as it puffed right back up to it’s normal size. Then all of the other kids gathered around and they each took turns praying for more healing in Jesus name. And when we looked again her hand was new. It didn’t even swell. It looked as if nothing had happened. Nothing. It was so supernatural, that once again we were left in a stupor, asking each other, “so, what do you think just happened?” and “I’m not sure. What do you think just happened?” I wish we could say we were quick to praise Jesus and admit that it was a miracle. But again, our finite minds try to rationalize things that can’t be explained. Everything happened so quickly, and just 10 minutes after it happened we were finally praising God for the miracle He performed!

Now, all of these past stories bring me to the one little thing that I really wanted to share! I just wanted to put it in all the right context for you…

Yesterday, Jacson had a little miraculous healing too. It was so tiny that I chuckle and my desire to even share it. But it taught me so much! You see, Jacson has been in what has seemed like a very long stage of WHINING! It is the worst! At the drop of a pin he can start whining and fake crying, wailing really. It has been driving Tyson and I crazy. I am sure a lot of it is developmental and some of it may be his attempts at getting some more attention with the new baby. Needless to say I have a hard time being very sympathetic to his every cry. And so yesterday he came running in the house, blubbering tears, unable to answer my simple question of “what is wrong with you?!?!” And I finally figure out through his pointing at his elbow that he got scrapped. Yes, a scrape. A not very big- doesn’t even require a bandaid, SCRAPE! And he was still CRYING! LOUDLY! I was irritated, but asked him out of obligation “Do you want me to pray for it?” He nodded through his tears and so I began to pray. And honestly, I felt silly praying for his tiny scrape. But before I knew it my words weren’t my own. I was praying that “when I am weak, God gives me strength” I wasn’t praying over Jacson at all. I was praying it over MYSELF! I was praying for a renewed mind and spirit as a mother, for the ability to HEAL my kids, their hearts, the hurts, their feelings, even when I physically and spiritually have nothing to give. I wish I knew word-for-word what my prayer was, but when I took my hand off of his little scraped elbow there was NOTHING THERE! His scrapes were gone. New skin grew together and healed it right up in the matter of a couple seconds. I chuckled in amazement and said to Jacson, “Look! Jesus healed your elbow!” He stopped crying and smiled the biggest cutest smile that my heart could handle and ran off to play! And wow! What a miracle it was. Less of a miracle for him, and more of one for me. A reminder that these things that I do, as a mother-as a wife-as a believer, have very little to do with ME and everything to do with HIM! There is absolutely no special prayer to pray, there is no act or work that can accomplish a healing. But it is what is happening in our hearts. I am praising Jesus that he continues to do a work of faith in my heart! My faith is building and growing daily. And my faith is not faith in and of my own abilities it is a faith of HIS ABILITIES! We say it and sing it, “our God is able!” But we still try to do so much on our own and of our own strength. We sing “Our God is able” but we still so often think “I am able” “I am able of this and that…” or “I am UNable”. But when we stop considering all together what our own abilities are, then God becomes ABLE in us! In my experience it is when I am the most weak and vulnerable that God’s strength in me becomes the most evident.

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12: 9-11).