God stories never grow old or out of date. And their impact is just as powerful today as on the day that it happened. Even if our memories become a little faded, just talking about our experience will bring the reality of them right back to the present. Each time the story is re-told, it has the opportunity to impact the lives of the listeners, forever.
Recently, I had two opportunities to talk about my ‘on the floor’ experience. It is not a story that I share lightly as it marked the beginning of my deep spiritual journey and it brought healing in my life in a place that I never even knew I needed. Each time I tell my story, it has a profound impact on every listener. Not because it happened to me, but because it is about how God chose to show up in my life and do something that is completely ‘out of this world’ just because of His great LOVE. He wanted me to experience His love and to heal me with His love.
In Romans, chapter 13 verse 8 tells us something extremely important.
Romans 13:8-10 New Living Translation (NLT)
Love Fulfills God’s Requirements
8 Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.9 For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.”[a] These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.
It is not enough for us to just believe in God. We need to love God, with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength. And we need to love our neighbor as ourselves.
But how do we love if we have never been taught to love or shown any love?
God knows exactly how much love we have been given in our lives and he also knows and understands our capacity to give love back. If we haven’t been loved, its very hard to love.
This was my experience as a child. I yearned for love. I strived for love. And yet I felt undeserving of love.
And then God stepped in!
In a charismatic church environment, during the time of the ‘Toronto Blessing’, I had my very first Holy Spirit experience.
And it was live changing.
After the service, when it was time for prayer, I went up to the front of the church. I waited, with my eyes closed, to feel the touch of the pastors hand on my head, and in my heart I kept repeating ‘Lord, if this is of you, let me experience all of what you have to give.’ All around me, I heard people either laughing or crying, jumping about or dropping to the floor – some were even howling. It took all my will-power to keep my eyes closed instead of gawking in absolute astonishment at the craziness going on around me. Then I felt the pastors hand rest gently on my head and I heard him speak the words ‘Come Lord Jesus, Come’.
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor. I heard the crash as I fell to the ground but I felt absolutely no pain. At first, I lay there still questioning, still aware of what was going on around me, still tempted to peep, but God gently drew me into his presence. I felt an incredible sense of peace and comfort as I was ‘spiritually’ removed from the pandemonium going on around me and taken into a quiet place with God.
I stayed on the floor, in that quiet place for over two hours. During that time, a friend tried to pull me off the floor but I was impossible to move. God had miraculously ‘stuck me to the floor’ so that He could begin and complete a radical work of healing in my life. During those hours, God washed away all my hurts and rejections and replaced each memory with joy and laughter.
How could that possibly happen, you may ask? Well, each bad memory would be brought into my mind’s eye, and I would feel the emotions of that moment flooding over me. I would start sobbing, a deep, heart-wrenching sob but then straight away, God’s peace would wash over me, and I would feel entirely loved and entirely freed from the hold that that hurt had on my life. I would begin to laugh – an uninhibited, right from the gut laugh – and the shadows of that incident were completely erased from my blackboard of my life.
It wasn’t a weird or freaky experience for me. I still felt present in the room and even chatted with my friend and the pastor, but the moment I closed my eyes again, I was transported right back into the Lord’s presence and the miracle work continued.
How did this incident impact my real life (as opposed to my spiritual life)? Well, I had been living with feelings of rejection, insecurity and fear for most of my childhood. I always felt ‘less than’, not good enough and totally insecure. I am the middle daughter of three, and I was always terrified of my dad, who ruled our home with his German Hilter-style, which was very damaging for a sensitive and emotional child like myself. This fear translated into a hatred towards my dad, an insecurity in myself and a jealousy towards my sisters who always seemed to be so strong and capable in my dad’s eyes. At the time of this experience, I could truly say that I hated my dad with all the fear and insecurity and jealousy that was within me.
But when I left the church that night, my heart and my being was completely changed and I felt no more hatred or fear for my dad at all! In fact, I could say that I Love him from the very depths of my heart.
A love that came straight from God.
God is so good. An emotional healing like this would take a thousand sessions in counselling, but God did it in a couple of hours while I was stuck to the floor of the Claremont Vineyard Church.
But that is not where the story ends.
Because of Gods continued love and faithfulness in my life, I am where I am today. Married with my miracle ‘twin girls’.
God has brought a new family and a whole circle of friends into my life whom I never would have known if I were still trapped in my brokenness. And it is these people that I have been able to talk to and share my story with.
It is an even greater testimony to God and His goodness, that He chose to touch and change my life that day so many years ago, not for me, but for the people that He has brought into my life at this time. These people that He loves so much and would love to touch in a beautiful way too.
Because God’s love changes lives!