I think that a lot of times, we forget how good God is. I mean, we remember he is good in a very broad and general sense of the word, but we forget that he is also good in an up close and personal way too. He's actually a real sweetheart. I also think that we tend to forget that we can like God. I'm not sure about all of you, but there hasn't been a single day where I didn't love Jesus. But lately, I think I'd forgotten how to like him. But I was reminded today, which was really cool. :)
So I'll start my story off by explaining that my day yesterday started off not so great. First of all, somehow I managed to get contaminated this week, so I have not been "up to snuff" the last few days. I also woke up this morning pretty tired and a little bit grumpy. Breakfast was early, and class was long. After lunch and clean up, I had a couple of hours free, so I took a nap. I had all kinds of weird dreams, and I woke up with a horrible headache. I was not a happy camper. Which made working joyfully for The Lord while cleaning up the house slightly difficult. Now I'll be the first to admit it. This day was turning out less than ideal, and I had a really bad attitude about it. I asked The Lord to help me out and give me patience and his joy...It didn't work. By the time dinner rolled around I was as grumpy as ever, and my head ad stomach felt like they were at war with the rest of my body. And I was about ready to snap the head off of the first person who looked at me wrong.
At dinner Bobby (one of the base staff guys), asked if we wanted to go to IHOP with him this evening. Now if you are anything like me, you're probably like, 'pancakes...?' Well. That's the wrong one. IHOP as in the international house of prayer. Not pancakes. I can't say I was super inclined to go. I was grumpy and my roommate, Rachael, and I made plans to go into town and do laundry and stop at Walmart so I could pick up some apples (I've been having a huge apple craving you guys. It's bad). But I just felt like I should go. I was going to say I didn't want to, that I had plans. But every time I was about to, I felt guilty and like I really really should go. It made sense at the time, nothing seemed strange about it. Although in hindsight I can't tell you why I would feel guilty for not wanting to go. It's a weekly thing, I could have just as easily gone next week.
But back to my story. We get to the IHOP young adult service and Mickayla and I make a beeline for the bathroom. We walk in and there is a clique of girls hanging out and chitchatting. They laugh and say apologize for being in the way, making a joke about having a bathroom club. They were friendly, but not unusually so. The weird part was as we were walking out the door they all introduced themselves to us and proceeded to invite us into their conversation. Now if you aren't a girl, this might not seem unusual. Girls clique in the bathroom all the time and chat. They just usually keep to their own group. I have never seen a group if girls just so easy and willing to invite someone new into their group. Especially in the bathroom. I was really surprised. And that's just the beginning.
We waited outside for worship, and people came up to us to introduce themselves just because they didn't recognize us. When worship started, I was a little weirded out. The IHOP church service is one of those places that encourages people to worship god however they see fit- dance, flag things, jumping and shouting, they have tables to the sides with art supplies, you can stand, you can sit, you can run. Now I personally see people dancing and jumping and waving flags and my first instinct is to roll my eyes and assume they're just showing off. Which is a horrible reaction. But it all just seems so hokey to me. But as I was worshipping, the presence of the Holy Spirit was so strong; I looked at the faces of the people dancing and shouting and drawing, and I was amazed. Every single one of them had the same look of joy an complete rapture on their face. And suddenly I knew that it was real. These people were actually dancing and worshipping in the throne room of heaven. They were bowing down and laying themselves completely bare at the feet of their Heavenly Father. I can't even begin to explain to you what a humbling realization that is. I have always believed that the arts have a special place in The Lord's heart, and this just resolidified that in my own heart. The Lord continued to work on my heart throughout worship, and we had a good talk. The sermon was about Love and writing the word of The Lord on your heart and really developing a love for the word. It was a good sermon. But what comes next is really cool, we went into the prophecy rooms after service. Each of us signed up for an individual time slot. I was slightly weirded out at the idea that a bunch of people were going to pray and God was going to tell them things about me. But they prophecy according to Corinthians , which is to bring encouragement, comfort, and exhortation. And guys, God is just really sweet. I was told exactly what I needed to hear, and reminded how much The Lord really loves me. And that's a good feeling. Have you ever just walked away feeling like you got a giant hug from God? It's such a cool feeling. But my story doesn't end there! Earlier in the day, I confided in my parents an area I was struggling with. And I prayed all day that The Lord would help me overcome my nasty attitude about it and that he would help me step out of my comfort zone. While waiting for the other girls, I was talking with one of my leaders, Mickayla, and I suddenly had a peace about the whole situation, and I knew that God had hear my prayer. Which, ironically, I'm now realizing was one of the things they told me in the prophecy room not 5 minutes before. God's good huh? And the next part is my favorite part of the whole day. When we were driving away from IHOP we noticed a car was following us. They followed us all the way back to ywam. Bobby, Mickayla, and I went to see what was going on. There was this little old man in a car full of brea boxes. He rolled down his window and asked for Greg. We were confused. Did he mean Greg our base leader? He wasn't there... The old man asked for Franko (an IHOP staff guy we met), I explained to him that we weren't part of IHOP's ACTS school, that we were ywam. He got so excited. "Ywam?! I love ywam!!" He hopped out of his car and I kid you not, talking a mile a minute he tells us that his ministry is giving away food. He raises support so that he can work for an organization that gives food to people who need it or other ministry organizations. He the proceeds to pull out a dozen boxes of bread and tell us to take as much as we want and that ACTS can have whatever is left. How cool is that??!! It was such an amazing blessing. God is so good you guys.
