How Many Voices? One Voice.

Rather than tell about my day-by-day, despite how good they were, I just wanna share about the retreat, and what led up to it, 'cause it's gonna be a long enough blog anyway. That is, except for one thing. Last week was homecoming week at school. On Wednesday, I dressed as Mr. Beaumont.



Alright, Friday is when it began. On second thought, that's not entirely true. That's when the physical manifestation began, 'cause, of course, the inward incubation was going on long beforehand. God had been telling me things during worship every Wednesday, and, fed up with sitting around while younger girl leaders stepped up to the plate, I started telling these things to Pastor Nick. Unfortunately, none of what God told me was applying to the services. I was still desiring the supernatural, the spiritual gifts and whatnot, not so much for myself (but definitely not excluding me), but for Paradigm.

God told me that spiritual gifts would be poured out on the retreat (that's a prophetic word, by the way, a gift of the spirit), so I've been praying faithfully every morning for that to happen. I've also been praying for my One every morning. These prayers were sounding worthless to me, though. God kept telling me things during the service that didn't apply, so why would He keep me right on track for the retreat? And my One? There's no encouragement there. The most positive response I've gotten out of her is "I still love you, but I don't want anything to do with God," (friend love, not another kind). I've also been praying for Chad R., for him to step up in leadership, for Alex, that purity would fill his speech, and for my small group, but all seemed worthless. I kept at it, listening to sermons by Pastor Benny Perez a lot, 'cause I needed some encouragement, particularly in the areas of spiritual gifts.

Back to Friday. Pastor Tim asked me to direct traffic (to keep people from going into the back parking lot). Unfortunately, it was hot outside, but I wasn't about to disobey my pastor, no sir-ee-bob (spell check?), so I did so with cunning and style, not to mention pizzaz. Rest assured, everyone that mattered went to the front. Following this, we had our bus ride. There was some confusion, 'cause we had Mrs. Newman and a driver who had to be paid by the hour, with buses that were rented by the mile. Naturally, as I later found out, the hired bus driver took the longest route possible, which turned out two-hour drive into a four-hour one. Plus, Mrs. Newman's bus broke down, forcing all of Paradigm to fit in one bus. Three to a seat, not to mention several of us who didn't get a seat (I managed to have a third of a cheek on one, but that doesn't count). We got to the camp and did some good worship. My expectations could have been quite low for Matt Duhon, but I didn't want to be distracted by that during worship, since he would be leading all weekend, so I gave it to God and tried to give him a chance. Worship was great, but Matt Duhon did talk in the middle of it about God killing someone 'cause it was their last chance to come back. I gave this to God too. 'Cause after all, what if that's actually what someone needed to hear? At least he had boldness. Still, I didn't approve of it.

Saturday, I woke up in plenty time for a shower. Many of us had weathered many a retreat, and expected everyone else to bring shower supplies (shampoo, soap, etc.). I kicked it up a notch, though, and didn't bring a towel. But they had plenty of paper towels, so I rinsed, used paper towels to dry off, then borrowed a normal towel for my hair. For the morning session and all the sessions onward, Pastor Adam McCain spoke. He spoke on resisting temptation, and how his best friend first in high school, then on into Bible school, was a better speaker and basically better at being a Christian than Pastor Adam, but he didn't know how to resist temptation, and it led to him being a piece of crap. Hiro couldn't understand what he was saying, but he definitely understood Pastor Adam's crazy body language. Worship was definitely good in there, too, and God definitely was a part of it. Then we had free time, but I spent most of it at a giant swing. I'm sorry about that typo, 'cause it was THE giant swing. This thing was a monster, double-seater, pulley-enhanced, rocket that shot you over a pit of death, then pulled you right back in before you lose your soul. I went on this crazy contraption with Shadow (Adam Williams). The weight difference, of course, was massive (I weighed roughly 100 pounds less), so when we went up, I got the thrill of shooting down at an accelerated speed without the harness's tugging being too unpleasant for my important lower areas. Good times there, good times.

(Courtesy of ProjectNemeth.com)

Then came the service. I felt out of it during pre-service prayer, and I asked God about it, but He said that He didn't want me to feel like I was flowing perfectly with all of it. So when it was time to worship, I kicked it up a notch and went nuts, giving all of that to God physically, mentally, and spiritually (which is how I try to worship, not to mention in spirit and in truth). Pastor Nick came up and gave words to a few people from on-stage, words that he was supposed to share earlier, but he had been uncomfortable about it. I was surprised. After more heart-gutting worship, Pastor Adam spoke on the power of the Holy Spirit. Doing things as Jesus did them. And doing greater than Jesus had done. He told all kinds of stories, and he later apologized for taking up ministry time with his talking, but I was glad to hear them, 'cause it was a good faith-booster. The main thing that I learned was when he talked about the first time a demon had ever come to him. His parents were on a plane to Europe for a missions trip, and he was all alone in the house, in his room. In the middle of the night, a demon appeared in the corner of the room, and said, "Your parents aren't here now. Can you defend yourself?" And he tried to pray it away, but nothing worked, until God told him to just worship with all he had, and as soon as he did so (in his underwear), the demon left. Now I know what to do if I ever encounter such a problem. Ministry time came after he spoke, and all the people who hadn't been baptized in the Holy Spirit were asked to come forward for prayer from the adult leaders and interns. Those leaders, in turn, were told to prophesy, speak words of knowledge, and all that jazz. I didn't feel left out at all, not being one of those. I did feel like I was to lead that night more than I was to follow. Then I saw Alex standing on the other side of the room in between those praying and the chairs, with his arms crossed, and his head tilted down. God told me to go hug him. Some doubt entered my mind, going back to all those services where I had had words that weren't quite pertinent to what God was doing at the time, but honestly, it just came down to me not feeling like it. Then Alex sat down, arms still crossed, on the carpet. I finally decided to go and hug him. Obeying that one command allowed me to do real altar ministry for the first time. I had done some in The Core and a lil' as a student leader, but I already had a relationship with Alex, so there was something more to it. Anyway, all I had done was hugged him, and sat hugging him until Pastor Tim took us both to the side and he began to talk to Alex, and ask him specific questions. Then he turned it over to me, 'cause Alex didn't wanna be confessing things to him, and we talked, and prayed, and hugged, and God was definitely in there. Following this, Chad R. found me and told me that my prayer time was not in vain. That things were happening because of my prayers. He also told me that all the things God had been telling me to tell people, I didn't need to be taking to someone over me. I was supposed to go directly to the people and tell them. Then God told me to tell Isaiah and Wesley, two junior high guys who were messing around in the back a lil' bit, that God wanted to talk to them, so they need to read their Bibles every night. As cheezy as that sounded, I thought of how I almost disobeyed God about hugging Alex, so I went and told the two of them what God had said. This was followed by more good worship ("Oh taste and see that the Lord is good"), then a bonfire, where I ate s'mores.

This morning (Sunday), we went to our last session. Awesome worship, once again, followed by Pastor Adam talking about hearing the One Voice, and how to keep things from getting in the way of hearing it. After he spoke, we broke up into groups and talked and prayed first about what different things keep us from hearing God. Then we prayed for God to show us something to help us with our Ones. He hasn't shown me yet, but it's a'comin'. Following all of this, we ate lunch, got back on the buses (notice that the word is plural this time), and got back in around three hours. I saw Katie and Michelle when I got off, and that took me off-guard, but it was the good kind of off-guard, so I worked with it. Also, I'm crazy-sore, thanks to that worship, so walking is a challenge in itself. On the bright side, I think that God brought a lot of healing to my mouth, 'cause Priscilla's mouth sounds worse off than mine, even though my surgery was supposed to be worse, in terms of pain and recovery. Also, my ear (not the ear canal, but the ridge above it that curves around) had gotten all swollen the past few weeks, and I would squeeze it ('cause every swollen thing pops like a pimple, right?), and clear junk would come out, but it would get right back to being tender and swollen afterwards. The other day, though, I reached up to feel it. I knew that it might be tender, so I was very careful to touch ever so lightly. Well, as soon as I had barely touched it, it spit out green mucousy stuff. That may sound gross, but here's what I think happened. I think that as soon as I did the laying on of hands, even though it wasn't for that purpose, God healed it, and made the infection spew right out. It's fully healed now. I'm writing this paper at 1:40 AM (I started writing it like an hour and a half ago), so I'd best get off to start homework. I didn't wanna skip out on this blog.