Photo by Erin E. Photography
It has been the cry of my heart lately for this joy the Lord has instilled within me to spill over to His people. How sweet is this place—the place where we can stand before the Lord as the broken beings that we are and feel overwhelmed by the love He lavishes upon us when we feel so far from worthy. It is here in this place that we see that this love can’t just stay captive within us, but is meant to spread like wildfire among us. With this revelation, I have asked God to reveal my spiritual gifts to me and allow them to bless others. Being the faithful and sweet God that He is, He has done just that.
I was home in Cincinnati for the weekend and attended church with my mother one Sunday morning. We found a seat in the crowded room and began to worship. I am very observant and absolutely LOVE watching people worship Jesus, so sometimes I feel like the Lord wants me to worship by watching. When I do this, I see glimpses of heaven around the room, hearts surrendered, weights lifted, and expressions that long to see His face.
This particular morning there was a woman two seats from me that I could not seem to pull my eyes away from. She was PUMPED to be at the service. You know those people that you see at church that are about to just lose it because they are completely sold out on the love of Jesus that they may just fall out of their chair or burst through the ceiling? Yeah, well, she was one of those. It was awesome.
Worship ended and our pastor delivered his message. To be honest, I have no idea what it was about, because the whole service I heard the Lord telling me something about this girl that He wanted me to share with her. Me being the sometimes doubtful person that I am, thought to myself, No, this isn’t from the Lord; I’m making this up. I kept going back and forth in my head the entire service, and by the end of our pastor’s message I decided that I wasn’t going to say anything to her. Usually when I feel the Lord is wanting me to speak or deliver a message to someone, my heart is beating out of my chest, but it wasn’t in this particular case, so that’s what further supported my reasoning to not say anything. Shortly after thinking this, my heart began to beat really fast and I could hardly stand keeping the words in any longer. I was still dead-set on not saying anything though. But as we all know, God is persistent, strong, and fierce with his love, so He was not content with stopping there.
Before our pastor got off stage, he said, “I feel like there’s someone in the room that has a gambling problem and I want to tell you that he wants to deliver you from that. I just had to say that; I couldn’t be disobedient to the Lord.”
I then thought to myself, You’re funny God. Fine, I’ll tell her; I can’t be disobedient either. I tapped her on the shoulder and said, “The Lord has been speaking to me about you this whole service, and I’m not sure what this means to you but I feel like the Lord wants you to know that He is so proud of you and is holding the weight that you surrendered to Him.”
The woman began to weep. She reached out and hugged me for quite some time, crying in my arms while I whispered, “You’re beautiful” in her ear, and I just held her for a minute. I looked at her one last time, smiled, and went on my way.
I don’t know the story behind it all or what this meant to her, but I do know on that very day the Lord used the cry of my heart to speak love and life into hers, and for that I will be forever grateful. He hears our cries, he puts courage in our bones, and he uses His children to speak the language that only He could create—love. To Him alone be the glory.
A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.
