MY BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT

9/20/02:  About 20+ years ago, I was in a Sunday School class at Briarwood (when they were in the old building).  My teacher was Howard Borland and there were between 30-40 people in the class as I recall.  I was so very shy that I would not even say ‘here’ when roll was called.  I was fine having a conversation with one-on-one, etc.  However, I just was terrified of speaking at all in front of people.  Howard Borland would pass out bible verses on pieces of paper to everyone and when he came to a certain place in his teaching would call on that verse to be read.  I remember we were in desks (high school) because the Sunday School classes were in the school class rooms.  I can remember distinctly holding onto the desk for dear life as I knew I could not read a verse in front of people.  (I guess maybe I would have panic attacks but that was before people knew about them.)  I remember praying that I would not pass out.  Howard Borland would call my verse and no one would read.  (They were just passed out and no one knew who got what verse.)  He was a real jovial person and would say, “Now everyone look at your verses.  I know someone has this verse…” on and on.  I was so very afraid they would find out it was me but I just could not read it in front of people.  I was thoroughly terrified.  Then he would say, “I can’t believe there is someone who won’t even read God’s holy word…” etc. on and on and on.  It was so scary as I feared they would come around one day after the class and I knew I could not tolerate another episode but dearly loved the class and wanted to come to it.  I stopped Dixie (his wife) in the hall after class and ‘confessed’ telling her that it was not that I didn’t WANT to read it, but that I was just too shy and too nervous to read in front of people.  She took my hand and there in the hallway began to pray.  I closed my eyes and lowered my head.  She began to pray that not only would I overcome all shyness of speaking before people but that one day I would stand before people and speak with boldness and authority with great joy and actually anticipate every opportunity to do so.  I was so aghast that I actually opened my eyes, dropped my jaw and stared at her as she went on and on.  Even though I was a very proper Presbyterian and even though the hall was full of people passing by from Sunday School into the sanctuary for church I was shocked into to even imagine that a sane woman would be publicly showing her insanity by praying such an absurd thing.  I only wanted her to pray that I could answer “here” and to tell her husband not to pass out bible verses or if he did and no one read that to just read it himself.

In Home Group, we have been studying C. Peter Wagner’s book on Spiritual Gifts.  I know how to tell if something is a gift or not.  It is a gift if it is something you did not have and someone just gave it to you.  It has not one thing to do with your natural talents or abilities.  I may have a child who is not great at riding a bike, yet choose to give her a bike as a gift.  It has nothing to do with the receiver.  I believe that I have the gift of teaching, not because I am great at it nor even good at it but because I know God just chose to mercifully give me that gift.  I believe that when God gives people gifts, He wants them to use them and have opportunities to learn how to use them and practice till they are good at them.

During this same time-frame and just prior to this prayer (as I remember it now) one night I had a very different and very prominent DREAM.  I KNOW this DREAM was from God.  I dreamed that I was in the pulpit of Briarwood church preaching the very GOSPEL with conviction and authority and power.  Every single word was so compelling that no one there could do anything but fix their eyes on the words coming out of my mouth – the words of the power of the GOSPEL.  I remember that anyone who could hear these words could not NOT be saved after hearing those words of God’s Gospel.  I remember that was true of hearing only ONE WORD.  After awakening I could not even remember a single WORD of that sermon, just the power of it, the compelling power.  I wished that I could remember as I was so sure upon awakening that even one of those words spoken to the vilest sinner would cause him to immediately embrace the Lord forever.  The dream was both wonderful and horrifying.  Wonderful because the gospel was so powerful and compelling and horrifying that it was me who was in the front of people speaking at all.

Yet from time to time the Lord reminds me of this DREAM and begins to show me that He has certainly been faithful to that prayer in the halls of the old Brairwood building prayed by one woman of faith.  The Lord knocked all that shyness and nervousness off me the day I went forward at Liberty Church and received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  I got up off the floor having been in the presence of Heaven and forever changed.  I had just finished read a book, “The Light and the Glory”.  I hated history and would never have read that book except that Elizabeth (my elementary aged daughter) had saved her birthday money and bought it for me and I was recovering from a hysterectomy at the time (about 9 years ago) and made myself read one chapter of it a day while laying in bed.  I read about George Whitfield and how when he would speak a single word that thousands were stuck down in an instance.  After reading this part, I looked to the back of the book to find credentials.  The Lord had them there!  It said that there were many things very incredible but they had opted (two authors who are very credible and not even charismatic) to only include material that had been confirmed to every detail by at least three separate reliable people who had never met nor corresponded during their lifetimes).

Shortly after this as I was looking for a new church (but in no way was considering a Charismatic one) I was riding to a school outing (Briarwood) with Jackie (another mom) and she invited me to visit her church.  I agreed believing someone who acted like a normal person was surely a Presbyterian.  After assuring her I’d attend she told me the name of it and I was horrified but couldn’t come up with a way out of it.  I went and it was during the times of refreshing or whatever it was.  I spent the entire time weeping and I didn’t know why.  I thought I had offended her by this so I decided to go back and try to be sane this time.  The same thing happened the second time so I went back a third time.  By now, I was seeing people struck down just as in Whitfield’s day.  Again, I decided to try to attend just once and not cry and then to call it quits but there was something on my heart and I decided to go forward and ask them to pray for it.  I don’t know who it was but they interrupted me and just said, “Never mind about that.  Have you ever asked for the baptism of the Holy Spirit?”

I had had some friends who had always annoyed me about that and I knew that I obeyed God, loved God, served God and had heard it taught by people I trusted that there is a one-time only thing at salvation, no ‘second blessing’.  I thought anything else was just not of God.  Also, the enthusiastic way they insisted everyone had to speak in tongues was very annoying and repelled me from wanting to be around them.  So, one day, knowing I would see these particular friends and knowing they would ask AGAIN, ‘Yes but have you ever ASKED for the baptism of the Holy Spirit?”  I decided to fix this in advance.  I remember so very, very distinctly that I was making up my bed, even what side of the bed I was on! And saying — all in one breath because I didn’t really want it and surely didn’t believe in it.  So I said, “Lord, give me the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, see it’s not true”.  I was glad I could tell them, “Yes, I asked and there is no such thing.”

Anyway, back up at the alter as soon as he asked me, just to make him go back to the subject I had wanted prayer over, I had thought I would say, “Yes I certainly have” and just get on with my prayer request.  That did not happen.  I remembered back to my bed-making and how I had indeed asked for it.  But the SECOND the word, “Yes” came out, that was a far as the Holy Spirit let me go.  Yes, I had asked and WOW did He deliver.  It was as though a mighty bolt of lightening struck me as I staggered backwards.  I landed on the floor amazed.  I had the drunkenness in the Holy Spirit.  It was the Sunday just before the Monday-Saturday that I attended Bill Gothard down at the Civic Center – just as I did each year.  I was so drunk that I couldn’t even read “Women” or “Men” over the bathrooms (for SIX DAYS!) and twice walked into the men’s room!!!  I do not know how I drove but can remember that EVERY WORD spoken at the Bill Gothard conference was as though it was amplified into a thousand meanings and each of them a revelation of God’s perfection and power that I had never heard before.  And just as people say you get when you are high, I ATE like a PIG ALL SIX DAYS.  I wanted to literally put my face into my plate and just not bother with a fork or spoon!  And as I said, He KNOCKED that non-verbal part of my life GONE GONE.  I had tested on the DISC as a melancholic prior to that but believe I was just restraining who God had actually created me to be—which is what I am now:  half choleric and half sanguine.  I have a burning desire to speak and/or write about God and His ways and His secrets that He is desiring to impart to those who will listen.