What if I couldn’t perform?
I had already tried twice before dinner.
But I knew it was worth it to at least try, it was worth it to miss taking a shower, worth it to leave my hair unwashed and unstyled in the curly puff that it had become--even if nothing happened. I began brushing my teeth and washed my face to pass a little more time. Could it Really happen? Would this be my time??? How many people were there? Ohh, it would be sooo hard for me if there were too many people! Why couldn’t I ever focus? Why do I even care how many people there are???
Soon, I left my rectangular shaped living quarters, passing slowly through the dining room to go into the meeting room. Would I let Him down yet again? Could I let go enough to allow Him to have full control? Oh, how I wanted to allow Him to Love me too. But I was scared. What if I embarrassed myself? How did the other girls manage to give Him so much freedom over Their bodies? Was it Really that Good? Yes, it must be. I want it. Now. I Have to try. I want IN.
I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, took a deep breath and walked in nonchalantly. But the other girls didn’t seem to notice me. They were enchanted by Him, busy being loved by Him, feeling Him, breathing Him in, exhaling everything else out. They were talking to Him too. But I couldn’t understand them. It was a foreign language that they were speaking. Not in their native language of Portuguese for which I can immediately recognize upon hearing and minimally understand. It was a language of Love. A heavenly language.
I sat down in a chair close to the center isle of the meeting room and bowed my head to my knees. That’s when she came to me. Her face was even more flushed than before. “Leah. What are you doing?” she asked, as if I was doing something strange and foreign, such as trying to drink water from a bowl instead of a cup. But her words were not judging. They were simply the question that they were. “I’m praying,” I said, with shame in my voice. I felt like a child. Not because of her. But because I didn’t know the first thing about what I was doing. She told me to stand up. “We’re going to baptize you,” she said. She said it the way a mother tells her child he/she Has to do something she already knows he/she Really wants to do anyway but is scared to say that he/she wants it. She said it the way a good friend says “Here, you take the orange one” because the friend knows you prefer it without even having to ask. And I immediately loved her all over again like the sister that she is to me, a love continually renewed by acts such as this since the day she became my spiritual leader. I knew she knew I was scared. I knew she knew how hard I had tried earlier and that I was unsuccessful. But she also knew I Still wanted it. And I was amazed by her faith, that I, after nearly 6 months of having been trying, could let go enough to experience the baptism of the Fire of God, could let go enough to be Filled with Him, could let go enough to say “Here, you take the wheel God.”
I was amazed by my own Faith that I had the nerve to even try again this third time. I felt ashamed before God for not trusting Him enough to let go of myself. But at the same time, just as Jacob refused to stop wrestling with the angel of God until he received a blessing, I’d made up my mind that I would not give up my struggle to trust Him enough to receive His filling. This was the basic theme for why me and the other girls had come to Camp Peniel in the first place. Peniel means “to see God face to face.” We’d come to have an Encounter with God like never before, to have our names changed just as Jacob (which means “Deceiver”) did by wrestling with an angel of God (the angel of God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, meaning “Prince of God”). Truly, I wanted an Encounter with God that would change my life from the spiritual murmur that it was. I was tired of backsliding. I wanted to feel His love so deep that I’d never again Think of betraying Him once I got home. I wanted a new name.
No sooner did I stand up from the chair, she was gone again. But I knew she would get back to me. I knew she was waiting for the Holy Spirit to direct her, to tell her When to come to me. I walked awkwardly to the right side of the room and stood with my eyes closed. I thought, “Okay, just keep it real Leah. Just keep it real with God! And stop thinking of what you hear the others doing around you. Give your attention to God.” And I did. There was a song playing for Him in the background. “Holyyyyy, holyyyyy…” it said. I listened, then suddenly decided to sing to the Lord along with the song. I didn’t try to sound good. I was broken inside. I just wanted Him to know I loved Him. I just wanted to show Him I could worship Him with my heart and not just words. That I could focus on Him and stop being afraid. Soon I began to talk to Him. “Oh, Lord, my God,” I said. “I just want to learn to worship you. I just want to give myself to you. I’m so sorry I hold back. I know you deserve more than me…”
And then I began praying parts of the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t know why. I guess I’ve been understanding the depth of it more and more lately and somehow knew I could pray it with sincerity in my heart to Him because of the newfound genuine understanding. But I didn’t even get to finish because suddenly, without any warning at all, I felt the open hand, the stretched fingers of another in the room cup the bottom of the back of my head where the head meets the neck. I knew this was not her own decision. It was The Holy Spirit of God. It was her Allowing God to use her. She had come upon me so suddenly, so accurately, so powerfully and calculatingly. My eyes were still closed. But I knew what was happening was of God. I could feel it.
The moment she touched me, my groin turn to jello. “God! It’s you! Thank you! Oh, Don’t leave me. I Will surrender. I Will” I told Him. She began to speak in that heavenly language again and I realized it was my Leader’s cousin who had touched me. But just as quickly as she had touched me and began speaking in tongues, I felt another come in front of me touching the left part of my chest with the palm of her hand. She, too, was speaking in tongues. My heart turned to jello as well and my body began to quiver involuntarily, wanting me to fall.
In the past, when this would happen, I would try to stand strong. I would resist letting God fill me with the Fire of His Holy Spirit. I was scared to look like all those other people in Church who jumped and shouted and spoke to God freely, laughing with happiness at whatever He was telling them or making them feel. But this time the moment I felt I was losing control I said to God “Take me, do what you will. I submit myself to you. Take me. I’m tired of struggling. I need you. I need you so bad. Let me feel how Big of a God you are.” With that, I felt someone’s hand on my forehead as well. Surges of something way more than the word Incredible flowed throughout my body. This actually had started the moment the back of my head was touched and increased as the other girls saw fit to place their hands on me too. And it felt, well—good. Really, really good.
I mean, I felt absolutely wonderful. The power of God inside of me felt better than Sex. Better than a drug. Better than anything I’d ever experienced in my life!
(to be continued...part 3)
