my story, or parts thereof

My story, like every life story, is long and complex. To truly share my heart on this subject would likely require a book, which some have told me they would read, if I ever wrote it. Maybe this will be the beginning.

My experience… I was born in a Christian family, my Dad a pastor/high school principal, my mom a stay at home mom. We were born and bred Mennonite Brethren, one of many sects following the post reformer named Menno Simons, but my dad preached wherever. Sometime around my fifth year it was our routine, our ritual, for mom to read a Bible story at bedtime and pray “now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord my soul to take. Amen” We did that every night, cuddled warm in our jammies and our blankies, and our mom. I felt so very secure, so safe, so loved during those times. One day I told mom I wanted to feel that way all the time. She said I could if I asked Jesus into my heart. So I did. I was never the same after that.

I associated Jesus with warmth and softness, love and security. I had no concept of sin, no concept of death, no concept of Jesus on a cross. Just a child like faith that Jesus loved me and now lived inside me. That was what I knew for my next five years. At age 10 my dad was the camp director at a summer camp. He had for the last five years been teaching at a Bible School, so he went to summer camp every year. I think this was the first time we all went along, and that’s because we were actually moving from one province to another that summer. All our stuff was in storage, and camp was home. Anyway, I was 10, but listening in at a teen camp. The speaker was talking about sin ( I think)…about heart sin, about the fact that Jesus had to actually die for my sin. For my sin. Somehow it hit home. This wasn’t just warm fuzzy blankets and Jesus in my heart. This was death…this was big…this meant something. I confessed my sin to Jesus that night. I was never the same after that.

We moved to Linden, I grew up here, I fell in love here, I survived junior high here, I sang in the choir, volunteered in the youth group, obeyed my parents (mostly, except for curfews…I’ve never been good with time…people always come first…my parents didn’t really get that, since the only people I was out with after curfew was Kerry…but hey…look at us now!!) I graduated high school here.

Then I went to Capernwray Bible Centre, only a 10 week stint. Spring school they called it then, April to June. There in the beauty of the gulf islands on the Pacific Coast I learned how to worship. I saw God in creation, I saw him in his word. I learned about relationship. I was never the same after that.

I came home and I missed the sanctuary of that place, the safety, the beauty, the community. But, there was Kerry. We got married. I was 18. We were blissfully happy. We “bought” (read: borrowed tons and tons of money, from the bank, and from the dad) a farm, built a barn, and built a life. We had a baby. We lived on the brink of bankruptcy for years at a time. We lost our business partner (Kerry’s brother, who wanted out and went off to be a mechanic). We inherited twice the work load, and twice the debt. Kerry learned that he didn’t like the work, or the debt, but here we were. We had another baby. Kerry went into a very, very black hole. He left me behind. He was here, but not here. I was alone, with two babies. I talked to people, but they didn’t understand. I went into my own black hole, and sang in the choir, and led a women’s group. Nothing about my church helped me. I needed to try harder, read the Bible more, pray more, take more responsibility in the church programs ( after all, the older women in the church had all “done their time”…now it was my turn). I missed my sanctuary, but I couldn’t find it. It was far, far away.

One day I couldn’t take it anymore. I yelled at God (in the silence of my heart). I told him this was all his fault. That he wasn’t holding up his end of the bargain. He had made promises that he wasn’t keeping. My yoke is easy, my burden is light…what a joke! The fruit of the Spirit??? Peace? Joy?? Where?? Why??

He must have been waiting for that moment, because precisely then, he rescued me. He picked me up onto his lap, held my ear to his chest, and let me listen to his heart beat, feel his strength, his hugeness, his love. He held me, I don’t know for how long, but long enough that I’ll never forget it. It was as real as me sitting on this chair right now, although I know I never left the floor I was curled up on. I can still feel him when I think about it. I have never been the same.

He didn’t change my circumstances at all right then, but he sure changed me. I found my sanctuary again, and I found love. For the first time, I actually loved God, because he first loved me. Within the year he changed the circumstances too, and thereby sort of rescued Kerry, although his real rescue didn’t come till later. We handed over the mortgage on the farm to a cousin, and walked away free (sort of – long story, but not important right now). We moved into town.

Our church hired a new associate pastor who was far from our ordinary array of pastors. He was full of life, full of truth, full of grace. He taught us all kinds of things we’d never heard before. He taught us about grace. He taught us about Jesus alone as opposed to Jesus plus. My heart said “Yes and Amen” right away. I drank it in like water for a long thirsty soul. Finally someone read the Bible the way I did, saw truth the way I saw it. I could say what I believed and he didn’t argue with me. It was wonderful! I was free. Free to learn, free to explore, free to love! I was in my glory! The Bible became alive to me. The Spirit became alive to me. In retrospect, I believe that the day God held me on his lap, the day he rescued me, was the day I was baptized in the Spirit, but I wouldn’t recognize that until later.

Previous to this, if I read about grace, if I read about freedom, if I read about the Holy Spirit, I was taught to be suspicious of it. I must not truly understand, I wasn’t educated enough, not smart enough, not holy enough, to understand. The very thought of assurance of salvation, of freedom, of abundance in life, of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, was like standing on the edge of a precipice far too dangerous and unstable to hold my weight. But, a precipice doesn’t scare an eagle, and I’d been given wings to fly!

This pastor didn’t stay long, and the old teaching resumed, as if he’d never come, but it was long enough for me to be set free. God began speaking to me in pictures, in concepts, in visions which I will record another time. He began putting love in my heart for those in our church who felt lost, who never knew about freedom, compassion so huge that I wept through a lot of our church services. Our worship team worshiped; a living, active, powerful, loving, gracious God. There were moments, in our worship, when his power, and his love all but overwhelmed me, causing my body to tremble, to lose it’s strength, I would bend to my knees before I fell to them. These were wonderful days. Days of such intimacy, such passion. Things I had only read about were happening to me. I could not explain this, I could not take credit for it, I could not produce it, only receive it, bask in it, refuse to ‘quench’ it, and beg for more. I have never been the same.

God opened doors for ministry for me. He started bringing youth to my doorstep, along with a love, a compassion, and a strange sort of ‘identifying with,’ that I couldn’t explain apart from the equipping of God. I had formerly been quite shy, even afraid of the youth, now I found myself weeping for them, praying for them, loving them, wanting to be with them, wanting to minister. God opened more doors for me. A young, crazy, passionate, full-of-life, full-of-Jesus guy moved to town, affiliated with the church next door. He saw what God was doing and asked to come along side. He quickly jumped on board with all his passion and enthusiasm, and a full blown youth ministry was born, with him at the forefront, me in the background…praying, and loving, and praying, and loving.

Eventually, through this ministry, God moved us, from the church I grew up in, to the church next door. It was a good move for us, but not an easy one. I wept as if someone had died. I loved this body with my whole being. I felt as if huge chunks of my heart were being ripped out, torn and bloody, and left behind. I knew with my whole heart it was the right move to make, but there was a heavy cost. I paid it in tears.

In the church next door, God chose to reveal himself in entirely different ways. While in my home church, God spoke to me, almost entirely, directly. Spirit to Spirit, Word of God to heart, father to daughter. In the church next door, he spoke to me almost entirely through the body, through his other children. All the things I had learned about in secret, were being joyfully shouted from the roof-tops! Assurance, grace, freedom, the life of the Spirit, all of it, as much as they knew, they preached.

Again, I received it with joy, but there was a part of me that longed for the intimacy of the face to face relationship. I would ask God about this. Why would he withhold it? I got the very clear, very quiet, very sure answer, that this was intentional. I was meant to learn how to ‘receive’ from the body of Christ. This was how he had designed the church to function. Building one another up, loving one another, speaking the truth in love, growing in grace and in the knowledge of God. It took a while, but once I learned to rest in this, learned to rest, period, he started bringing back the face to face, the intimacy. Now there is balance, or, it seems like it to me. It’s good. It’s peaceful. It’s steady.

Like all things in life, things are fluid. Things change. We stayed in town for a full seven years, but then we had the opportunity to move back to the farm. It scared me a lot. Many of the years we had lived on the farm were dark. The depression, the huge debt, (investment, as my husband prefers to call it) the ‘isolation’ (I’m a townie at heart…). I was not excited to go back, but Kerry was sure, so I followed, he looked at it as a gift from God. His ideas of God had changed radically. His freedom had come.

I continued doing youth work. The problems in these kids’ lives overwhelmed me at times. Made me feel they needed more than a pat on the back on a Friday night. They needed a real encounter with Jesus Christ. My opportunities with the kids were always very short. I didn’t have hours and hours to delve into the depths of their personal nightmares, their horrific family lives. I would read in the Bible how Jesus, though asked one question, would answer an entirely different question, the root question…the one at the core. He had the ability to cut through all the diversions, all the smoke screens, all the defense mechanisms and get to the heart. I found myself praying for this ability. I’ve heard it called the ‘gift of knowledge’, as listed in 1Cor.12 (I think…). I wanted it. Not for myself, but for the kids.

One day a group of us were praying. Someone asked what I would like prayed for, for me, and I shared this with them. They prayed this for me, as well as for other more general things. After we were done, a dear sweet lady asked to talk to me in private. She wanted to pray for me further. She asked me if I prayed in tongues. I said, very simply, no, I don’t. It was almost funny the look of shock on her face. She studied mine and asked ‘Are you sure??’ I assured her…really, no… She looked so puzzled. She said, ‘I could have sworn you were baptized in the Spirit!’ (she is –or maybe was- one of the many people who believe that ‘if there’s no tongues, there’s no baptism’. I’m not one of those…) I wasn’t sure how to respond to this, so I shrugged and said nothing. She said, ‘Well, we have to pray this for you!’ As if I couldn’t live without it. Again I shrugged. She asked me what I knew about tongues. I said not a lot. I’ve read about it in the Bible, I’ve heard of some lovely people who have it, I’ve read about it in the more ‘charismatic’ books, but I’d never heard them, never had them, never really longed for them. She asked if I knew there were three different kinds? No I certainly did not. She explained it very simply, very logically, very Biblically. I was amazed after hearing this, that I hadn’t figured that out for myself. Just never really thought about it, I guess. She explained that there were the tongues that were a ‘known language from another culture,’ but that you had never taken the time to learn. This kind is clearly described in Acts 2. Then there’s the kind that is for the building up of the body. The kind that is not meant to be spoken unless there is known to be an interpreter. And then there’s the third kind. The kind that is the ‘tongues of angels’, that no one understands, not even yourself. The spirit is fully engaged, but the mind is unfruitful. It is this kind of tongues that Paul wishes ‘everyone spoke… as much as he does.’ This is the kind that edifies the soul. I wonder if this is the kind that we are meant to pray ‘without ceasing’.

This was new information for me, but I was puzzled as to how this had become the subject of our conversation. I did not see the point of tongues. Who did it benefit? How would it help the kids in youth ministry? In anything really. But, she was insistent. She said it was the most wonderful gift. She asked if she could pray for me. I said sure, but really, all I wanted was the gift I had asked for. She laid her hands on my head and prayed, then asked me to pray. I still prayed for the ‘gift of knowledge’. She prayed again. She encouraged me to just speak out jibberish, like ‘la,la,la,la,hallelujah,la,la’ and that the Spirit would then ‘take over.’ She was very genuine. Apparently lots of people receive tongues this way. I told God (silently, in my head) that I did not really want to have tongues, but if that’s what he wanted for me, then, OK, but I would not speak mumbo jumbo out loud. If he wanted me to have it, he would have to give it to me silently. I’m not sure if one should bargain with God, but, that’s exactly what I did. By now she was praying in tongues out loud, which was fascinating! It sounded exactly like another language, like overhearing a Middle Eastern person in a mall. It was so fluid, so easy, so complex. Nothing ‘la,la,la’ about it! Eventually she gave up on me, or at the very least decided to go home…. And I was still a single language speaker. I shrugged my shoulders yet again and went home. Life went on.

Months went by, I never gave it any more thought. Life went on. One Sunday morning, we’re in church, I’m minding my business. Preacher’s preaching, encouraging us to spend some time just quietly asking God if there’s anyone he’d like us to go over and pray for, or encourage, or minister in any way. We’re learning to listen to the voice of God. I’m praying, quietly, listening… I hear nothing, just peace. Then someone near me gets up and walks over to someone else. I know there is history between these two, bad blood as it were. For this one to go over to that one is a big deal. I start to pray “Oh Go…………….. (silently, only mouthing the words), but I can’t finish his name. This incredible stream of words I had never learned came pouring out of my mouth, silently, my lips and my tongue mouthing sounds I had never made before. I was so startled! Caught completely off guard! And then I laughed! (Quietly of course…) I clamped my mouth shut and checked to see if anyone had noticed… no one had. I opened my mouth again…there it was again, or rather, still! It felt as if, while my mouth was clamped shut, I had simply turned the volume off on the radio, the sound was still carrying on, but I had missed it, when I opened my mouth, it just continued, not where I had left off, but where it was continuously going. It was like a river that never stopped flowing, whether you were there to watch it or not. It was fascinating! Delightful! Fabulous!

The sermon carried on, people returned to their seats, words kept flowing. I could fully concentrate on the sermon, think my own thoughts, marvel at this amazing gift, and still the words flow, non-stop. I have to miss stuff to breath, if you can understand that. The river carries on. It’s unbelievably fast, like an oriental language. My tongue makes sounds I can’t reproduce in English. My friend’s was lilting, melodic. Mine is fast. They do not sound the same. We stand to sing a few songs. I cannot sing in English and speak in tongues at the same time. I cannot speak in tongues ‘in my mind’ like I do in English, the mouth, the tongue has to be involved, and the mouth cannot speak two languages at once. But it can flip between the two in a micro-second. There is no effort required. None. It is amazing! This happened I think 4 years ago. I can pray like this continuously, non-stop day in, day out. I fall asleep praying like this, I wake up and in a second, if I choose to, I’m praying again. I am in complete control of it. I never HAVE to do it. I’ve only done it a couple times out loud for other people, when they ask me what it sounds like, but it feels inappropriate, like it’s private, but I’ll whisper it while others are praying, if I know they’re OK with it, I sing it out loud in church when everyone else is singing. I pray it out loud in the car, or when I’m alone at home. I can’t understand a word of it, but it seems to me to be intercessory in nature. If I quiet my ordinary thoughts, my mind seems always to begin to pray for other people, but I don’t actually know.

I’ve learned that, like all the gifts of the Spirit, all the gifts of God, it is a gift of grace. It is not something I earned, or maintain. One of the most encouraging things about it is it’s constancy. It never leaves, like Jesus, like the Spirit, always there. Sometimes, when I’m at my worst in selfish thoughts, or angry as anything, thinking horrible, judging thoughts, I turn my mind to God and the tongues are still there, reassuring me, proving to me that it’s grace, grace, and nothing but grace.

Another thing I think, but am not certain of, is that this river has been flowing all my life. I’ve always had it, at the very least since I was born again. It didn’t feel like a new thing. While wondrous and awe inspiring, at the same time, it feels completely natural. This leads me to believe, or at least to wonder about, that it’s true… every believer does have this gift, but, like mine… for one reason or another, it has not yet been revealed, the door has not yet been opened. I don’t know why… I don’t know how to open it, but I believe it’s there, wired right in to every believer. Not everyone has the gift of tongues that needs to be interpreted, not everyone receives a known language to reach an existing people group, but I believe everyone has this one. The heavenly language, that edifies the soul.

This is by far, not the most significant spiritual experience in my life. It hasn’t really changed me, at least not that I can tell. But it is a fabulous gift! It never ceases to fascinate me. It makes me smile. It makes me know that God is infinitely creative, continuously active, undeniably interesting. People in our circles so rarely talk about this, but it should be the most natural thing to the children of God. It is mysterious, but not scary. It doesn’t come from me, but from God, so why not talk about it. Every good and perfect gift comes from the father, not from me, it’s all him. I would love for everyone I know to have this gift, but there is much misinformation about it, much suspicion, much fear that if I ‘ask for a fish, he will give me a snake’.

I don’t know that I ever got the ‘gift of knowledge’ that I asked for, although some people say that I say things while I pray for them (in English) that impact them profoundly, that reach right to the core. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just praying, but maybe that’s how it’s meant to be. That gift is not for me, it’s for others, so if I don’t see it, or don’t know about it, I guess that’s OK, as long as other people are blessed.

My latest thing I’ve been praying for is a true understanding of the gift of healing. I seem to have this thirst for knowledge, this huge desire to minister ‘Christ the Healer’ to the sick. I am not interested in praying for ‘the doctors to have wisdom’, which is hard, because that is what most people want me to pray for them. I have much to learn about this, but maybe that’s part of my problem… I want to understand with my mind what can only probably be received in the Spirit.

So, that’s my story, at least my overview of my story… there is much more to tell, but, that’s long enough for now. “All praise to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hasblessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.... We do not lack any spiritual gift as we eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.”