Dirty Mail.

 I have a deep secret... something I have only ever talked to God about. Its what has been weighing on me most of my life, especially here- because here, I am alone, I can address things within myself freely, and I don't have to be anything but myself.

I felt like, at home, I had built up a reputation for myself in the church (especially in the youth group) and at school. My title: the innocent, the spiritually hungry, charismatic, Jesus lover... It was genuinely me! don't get me wrong. But... I didn't want to make any mistakes- worst of all- I couldn't let my progress slip or fall behind, I didn't want to mess up. I didn't want to give myself room to fail... and if I wasn't hearing God all the time- I was failing in my walk with God.

Growing up in a Charismatic church made me feel left out. People were always getting an anointing from the Holy Spirit, they were getting words of knowledge, they were falling on the floor, getting gold dust, speaking in tongues. I never received any of it, but I WANTED to SO badly. Secretly, I would pray and ask for it. Whenever the speaker would get up with words of knowledge I would BEG God to give him one for me...

Into my teen years, I started to just accept that maybe God didn't want to give me any of that right now, maybe later... But, I kept asking for it and kept being expectant and hungry for a word from Him. As years went by my list of what I wanted spiritually from Him got shorter and shorter... I stopped asking for gold dust, stopped asking for Him to knock me down to the ground, stopped asking for the power of tongues... Finally, its gotten to the point, today, where I am only asking Him for two things: to get a word of knowledge and to hear his voice. With this acceptance, that God didn't want to speak to me the way He did to some people, came building up a wall of religion in knowledge. Knowledge of God was easy to master. Knowing truth was simple, and it wasn't going to fail me because it WAS God's truth, right? maybe that was our relationship... me just knowing His truth...? Me praying and talking to God, but Him only answering back when He felt I was worthy or prayed the right prayer.

Today, during staff testimonies, God started speaking through this guy's testimony sooooooo much that he had to stop telling his own story and just start speaking the Father's love over all of us. He asked people to stand if they had never felt the love of God before... seeing all the people who stood made my heart stir. I just started crying. I don't know why?! I had felt His love many times! But.... I have been secretly asking Him the entire time I have been here to just let me feel Him... in that moment, I became so overcome and overwhelmed by something? so I just went with it, haha:) After I calmed down, doubt started in my head...
I have had a bondage of doubt over me for a long time... doubt that God moves through the Spirit, doubt that anything is real, doubt that He even speaks to people....

....Out of nowhere this staff member, Chris Chun, walks right over to me and says he has a word of knowledge for me:
"I feel like you are doubting, I feel like you have felt God tugging at your heart, and though you are hungry for it, the knowledge you have stored up in your head is hindering your Spirit to move. God wants you to know that He hears you, He sees you, He wants you, and He is going to reveal Himself to you. He is going to break through the wall of knowledge you have built up and enter into you and take you. You can feel Him cant you?"

...........I started to BALL! I could not believe that had just happened to me.... what he had just said to me was MY dirty mail! It was MY secret! I didn't want people to know I had doubt! I didn't want people to know I had built up some religion as a comfort blanket in my head! I didn't want anyone to know that sometimes "i just don't feel anything!" How dare he know about all that! but, at the same time, God! how much YOU LOVED ME enough to speak about my deepest darkest secrets to another person... just to show me that you do KNOW ME! YOU DO HEAR ME! YOU DO SEE ME! YOU DO HEAR MY HEART CRY! YOU DO LOVE ME!

It was so awful! but SO good! I just couldn't believe that I had FINALLY, after all those years of asking, had just received a word of knowledge from GOD?! WOW. Today blew my mind away and realllllllly woke me up a whole lot... this place is CRAZY.

May your heart of hearts be free of dirty mail. May you feel God tugging at you! He receives your heart cries!
A Warrior for the King,
Bekah