Fasting, Tongues, and Love

I wish I would have gotten the chance to write this morning. That would have made my next blog so much cooler. So this morning, I was going to write about how I'm struggling a little bit. Usually, I am very good at knowing when God is speaking to me and when my thoughts are coming from somewhere else, but lately I've been having a hard time with that. I have had a lot of doubts in my head. I have a lot of questions that I want God to answer. So Monday at lunch, I talked with my beautiful mentor, Catherine, about it. She mentioned I just take a week to fast and spend some extra time with God. I took her right up on that. God has been slowly teaching me the importance of fasting, and I had already had it in my head that fasting from something was something I should do this week. Before talking with Catherine, I was just going to fast from chocolate...just because I couldn't really think of anything else. Fasting from food isn't usually a good idea for me. But after talking with Catherine and praying about it, God gave me a whole list of things to fast from this week. One of those things is facebook, so I won't be able to post this on facebook. Hopefully...people will still just check to see if I wrote anything. God doesn't need facebook if He wants people to read this. So there is that and a bunch of other things. Its a hard core fasting week. I want answers from God, and I want them now. That afternoon during class, over half my class was prayed over and received the gift of speaking in tongues. When our teacher, Karen, called people to come up who wanted to prayed over to receive this gift, I found myself at the front of the class...but then I noticed the time. It was almost time to go pick Trent up from child care. I don't like messing around with the Holy Spirit when I need to be somewhere soon. It gets way too easy to loose track of time and be late. So I went and sat down and watched God bless my classmates.

So that's what I would have wrote about this morning. NOW, I have a way cooler story. So this morning during class, we got right back into praying over a couple people who weren't able to speak in tongues yesterday. The Holy Spirit took over...I don't know how many of you have been in a room full of people totally overcome by the Spirit...its hard to describe without making it sound creepy. But anyway, I was just not feeling it. I was feeling worse than I had the day before. God had convicted me over a few big things that I was just feeling terrible about. I ended up walking out in the middle of class to go talk with Catherine...or more like cry my eyes out because I was feeling so empty and unsure of so many things. She said some awesome things...I felt a little better...sorta. I went back to class. People were on the floor. Some where out, some where laughing, some were speaking out things God was giving them for our class or for an individual. I sat down in my chair and started journaling to God about what Catherine had said. Like how this isn't a game to God. He doesn't want me to be in the dark. He doesn't want me to be deceived by the devil. He wants to communicate with me more than I want Him to. This is part of what I wrote:

I know You will speak to me.
I believe in who You are. You are my redeeming and loving Forgiver. I know You are here. Whether I can feel You or not. You are here.

Then God spoke to me (but of course I doubted it at first because that's just my thing these days) and told me to go over to Karen, kneel by her, and put her hand on my head. She was at that point on the ground experiencing the Holy Spirit with everyone else. She wasn't out, but He was clearly all over her. Because I was doubting, I didn't go up. But then my heart started pumping, my adrenaline starting rushing. Go! Just go kneel by her. I will take care of the rest. You have felt this before. You know this is Me. Go. So I went. I went to the front of classroom, stepping over bodies as I went. I knelt down by Karen and placed her hand on my head. She immediately started praying over me, and I immediately felt the Holy Spirit. The experience that followed is crazier and more unbelievable than what I have already talked about it, but this is a little of what I got out of today:
I do know God's voice. I know what it feels like when God tells me to do something, and I don't want to do it, but He makes me anyway. The darkness I was feeling was taken away. I once again feel beautiful and full of God's light and glow. Jesus is crazy in love with me. Crazy in love. This week of fasting has already shown me how little time I have given Him, and how much He wants that time. This week of fasting is not about God giving me answers. Its about me loving Him. Its about me just being in love with Jesus and once again giving my all to Him. Because He is so worthy. So worthy.
So I guess tomorrow is another day! I hope this blog didn't freak you out too much. I'm sure there is more to come. Having a week of learning about and receiving spiritual gifts on top of a week of fasting...I really set myself up to be blown away.

On a side note, I know Jesus is my Provider. I know He has called Trent and I to Korea. I know He will bring in the money through supporters. My leaders wanted the money yesterday. Trent and I had some supporters send money in, but we are still about $2700 short. So overwhelming when you just type it out like that. But again, I know God will provide. Please be praying about this with us!