God in me

Happy is not the right word for how I feel right now. Content, maybe--but that seems too lackadaisical. I feel a deep, settled happiness in my heart, apart from any circumstances. None of this feeling comes from the fact that I got to take a nap this afternoon or that I made cheesy garlic bread pizza for dinner (yum) or that I'm planning on some time with a glass of wine and my latest story characters after my parents go to bed. It's apart from that--much too deep to be affected by these surface events.

Two weeks ago I felt dazzlingly happy. I had just returned from a visit to Bloomington. I was apprehensive going into that weekend and wondering what it would be like to see my campus leaders and the students I used to work with. While I was there, though, I felt really affirmed that I wasn't supposed to have been there this year. Part of me always wondered how it would have worked out if I had different leaders or something, but God used that weekend to build confidence that college ministry was not where I was supposed to be this year, and I wouldn't have grown in the ways that I have if I had stayed.

I got the chance to visit Exodus church while I was there, the church that I started going to second semester. They had a guest speaker who spoke about the spiritual realm. It was one of the best talks I'd heard in a long time. I appreciated how he talked about the topic biblically, then shared his own experience. It made it clear that he was talking about God's heart and God's thoughts on the subject, not just crazy things he'd seen. His main verse was Matthew 11: 12 - "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force." He also talked about John 10:10 - "The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." He made the point that stealing, killing and destroying are violent actions and can't be met passively. He talked about the Jesus-given authority we have in the kingdom of heaven. He held up the keys to his Chevy Impala and said, "I have these keys, which means I control the car. I decide who else drives it, whether it's locked and unlocked, who has access to it and who I want in it or not. Having the keys means I have ownership." He said that Jesus gave us the keys to the kingdom, and we have that same kind of ownership and authority in the heavenly realms.

After the sermon, I knew I had to go back for prayer. My heart was heavy with what he'd said. The speaker (whose name I really wish I could remember) and his wife were waiting to pray with me. I didn't have any clear or collected thoughts for them, but I told them that I used to work for one of the campus ministries and I was visiting a place that I had left in a lot of hurt, and the day before, I'd felt a profound and inexplicable sense of depression. It was one of those times when I know that I know that the Holy Spirit was leading them in prayer because I just gave them that bare information, and the speaker said, "So you feel like your gifts weren't appreciated and you were rejected." Um, yes. Then he said, "Has it happened to you before?" Again, yes! Then they laid hands on me and prayed for me. They took authority over the spirit of rejection in my life and bound it and cast it out. Again, it was one of those times that I knew deep in my heart that the power was broken. There was no question or sense of "I don't think I made myself clear because they're praying for something different," just the words "It's broken" and a deep heart knowledge that the spirit of rejection was broken. They prayed lots of things for me, precious things full of scriptural truth. Then they asked me, "What do you love to do?" The two things that came to mind were "Write and be with children." As I was starting to leave after their prayer, the husband called me back and said, "Wait, I need to tell you something else. If you have something to write, write. Be an instrument through which the fragrance of God's word is diffused."

I was writing down the things they'd said in my journal after the service so I wouldn't forget them. When I wrote that one, I realized that for so long, when I'd tried to write, I'd felt guilty. It was either, "I should be having a quiet time" or "I'm going to write something that dishonors God" or "I should be living in the real world with real people instead of my fantasy world with my characters." While these have been issues at times, I realized that the enemy had built a lie in me and made me believe that I shouldn't write. I felt violent then! Since then, it's been so great to look back at old stories and recapture that love for sharing through words and characters and plots and language. It's good! It's a gift from God to me.

That spiritual high carried through the week. It kind of took a hit when I had a frustrating conversation toward the end of the week. I had asked to talk with this person hoping that I could resolve some junk, but I felt like it just dug up the old junk and made me even more on my guard with them. I've since had to think through it and think about what is true, what are my own misconceptions, what did they really say as opposed to what did I hear, but it is still frustrating. The point was to resolve junk, not to creat new junk that I now have to wade through.

The service today was fantastic, though. It's been so long since I've felt able to fully engage with God in worship, but today I just loved on Him and felt His love flowing back to me. I got prayer after the service again, and the result has been this settled, heart-happy peacefulness. Dare I call it joy?