Church Camp 2010. Has it been two years already?
I remembered two years ago when I walked through the “prophetic tunnel”, the leaders in the church all prophesied the same thing . And, this time as I walked through the tunnel, it was a very different word indeed. The leaders – the majority of whom I do not know personally – were prophesying stuff over me that echoed my own thoughts and desires. No more about “a father-daughter relationship”. This time, it was about a “renewing of the mind” — exactly what I have been praying for and the very core of my heart’s desire.
The moment I walked in, hours late, sunk into a chair right into the shadows at the back, I couldn’t stop crying. It was a dance segment, i.e. nothing about it was supposed to make you cry. But, it made me, because the presence of the Lord always make me cry at the most inappropriate moments! I remembered once, during an offering message, with everyone poker-faced sitting around me, and the pastor on stage saying the most non-emotional stuff, there I was, crying my heart out. The person sitting next to me had to hand over a tissue, which was embarrassing, because I barely knew her at all.
Kleenex is a must at church. I must try to remember that.
So, as people emerged from the “tunnel”, they were weeping their hearts out. Even guys who I’ve never seen crying were wiping away tears from their eyes. And, me? Nothing. Just poker-face, blank-face. And, I was like, “OK, thanks, God, thanks for always making me cry when no one else around me is. And thanks for the blank emotions when everyone is crying their hearts out.”
So, I was sitting there all by myself, deeply immersed in my own thoughts – which was threatening to drown me out – when suddenly this girl whom I barely knew came over and sat right next to me.
She had been sitting one row ahead, a couple of seats away from me, and as she was sitting there, the Lord spoke to her and said, “Go to that girl sitting over there (i.e. me) and tell her how much I love her, and that I am going to fill her heart with a joy like she has never known before.”
So, this girl did what God told her to do. Got out of her seat, came up to me, and sat beside me.
She said, “I’ve never really met or spoken to you before right?”
I shook my head. No.
She continued – yelling above the loud music and chattering – “I was sitting over there, when God spoke to me and said, ‘Go over to that girl over there and tell her how much I love her.’ Look, I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you are going through at the moment, but God asked me to tell you that He wants to fill your heart with joy, an unspeakable joy.”
I was slightly speechless. “OK…” I said, struggling to find the correct words to say, “Thank you.”
The girl, got up, left, and there I continued sitting in my seat, still blank-faced, still blank-emotion.
Five minutes later, I was crying my heart and two lungs out. Never knew I could cry so hard and so much? But, for the next half hour or so, that was what I was doing. With my head bent down, my hands crossed, and my lungs struggling to take in oxygen given the rapid rate at which I was crying – sounds funny, but it’s true – and at that moment, I could feel the raw emotions within me just bursting forward, materializing in the big, fat, hot tears that were falling off my cheeks, down my outstretched arms, and into the puddle of tears sitting impassively in front of me. That night, I cried a river and flooded the aisle of the row I was sitting in. True story.
A week ago, there was an article in The Straits Times on the rise of Christ in China and how Christinity is sweeping China, a country previously with mostly no religious leanings.
Church pastors in China – mostly underground, because of atheist views from the Communist Party – have to turn away worshippers simply because there are no space left for them, with churches bursting at the seams from huge crowd turnouts.
Hallelujah.
The Lord’s word is made flesh, and the world will watch on.
