351- Prayer and Support

351 – Prayer and Support

April 3, 1989 Monday

Prayed believing prayers & verses. Still uptight. Everything is difficult!

In the afternoon I picked up Dennis Bennett’s book, 9:00 in the Morning, which Linda lent us. It is the story of his baptism in the Holy Spirit. Cried. Began praying in tongues.

Everything lifted. I became a changed person.

Till later… when I focused on the house mess. We have extra furniture from Deborah, clothes from Beth—aaaaaa! This place is too small for all of this!! Began praying in tongues again.

Yesterday I really looked at the boys’ Sunday schedule and marveled.

Sunday morning they have Sunday School – I teach Daniel, Dan teaches Mark and Stevie. There are no other students. Timmy goes with Helen’s class. Then the kids sit through the worship and teaching of the main service.

We go home for lunch and are back at the church at 4:30 for a meeting, then service at 6. There is no planned activity for them, yet they are amazingly content. Supernaturally content. God, you are supremely gracious as we go through these things.

April 5 – my 44^th birthday

God came through via Karen! She sent $50! We all went out to pizza!! Thank You so much, Jesus!

April 6

Victorious day!! Got prayer from Dan and good support from God!

317 – Hong Kong, Anyone?

317 – Hong Kong, Anyone??

September 7, 1988

Colossians 1:6 All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing.

Faith and Forest Dodge, who lead Elim Fellowship, came to see us at the Pletchers from 7:30- almost 9pm. “Would you consider going to Hong Kong? Kevin Graves, our missionary there, needs someone to help him get Bibles into China!”

Dan ended up telling them we will stick with our plan to go to Japan.

September 9

Deut 9:3 I am to be assured today that the Lord GOD goes before me like a devouring fire, to destroy my enemies and subdue them!

Our day is packed with school for 3 boys, making dinner for the Pletchers and us (we are taking turns), visiting Bema, and (because Cheryl left the car for us) we will go to Ames for a pj’s sale.

Prayers from Colossians 3:

v 8 Please help me get back into walking, praying in the Spirit more because it helps my attitude and personality so much!

v 15 Please help me to be victorious today with PEACE ruling over my heart. That is what I am called to.

v 16 I want the Word of Christ to dwell in my richly, I want to sing thankfully and gratefully to the Lord!

September 10

I feel the Lord gave me insight through a children’s book I was reading aloud to the boys. I want to explain that when I am cross with them it is because I am out of fellowship with God. In Christ I have no reason to be angry. If I am truly submitted to the Lord Jesus and His will for me, and if I am truly submitted to Dan—I should be rejoicing all the time as the Word says. Lord, for whatever sorrow was in my heart today and caused me to be cross and bitter please forgive me and teach me this. Please don’t let the lesson slip away.

208 ~ Glorious Times

208 – Glorious Times

September 20, 1986

Yesterday God called me apart!

I walked at noon toward the school but then turned and walked up the hill and into a field of waist-high wildflowers: yellow and purple. Bordering the field on one end were deciduous trees of every changing color. On my left, a quaint old red-brown farm house. I stood in the rain under my little blue Japanese umbrella and read Galatians in my Phillip’s pocket Bible. I had been needy, crying out to God. Through Galatians he reaffirmed:

* do not hold man’s approval in high regard—only God’s approval

*you are not under the law but under grace

* your righteousness is not of the law by your good deeds, but by faith in Jesus Christ

* walk in faith

It was a glorious time.

Dan wanted me to go to Elim to the prayer meeting. So I did. I’m often hesitant to go out on my own, especially driving the country roads at night.

As I drove on campus to the meeting, Tracey Belcastro had just pulled in. We walked together and sat together with her husband and interceded together and talked afterwards. She is a person I have been wanting to know. We have agreed to be prayer partners. God is gracious.

God lifted me through worship and then blessed me with a new release of my prayer language in intercessory prayer. He is so precious.

On Friday, God touched me in an interesting way: In my prayers before the home school meeting, feeling desperate for peace in place of anxiety, I felt a sensation on my head just back from my hairline moving from the right temple area, across to the left. Hmmmm. At the meeting I was freer to be me than I have been in ages—with no second thoughts or deep introspection. Praise Jesus.

58- The Holy Spirit

In Japan we had acutely realized our need for more teaching, more enlightenment, more growth in Christ.

When we returned from Japan we continued attending the EFree church. Yet, soon after we returned, we became very interested when a couple in the church began talking about the Holy Spirit. The subject was not taken up by the leadership as a topic to be pursued, but our interest was keen. We chose to change churches to pursue our quest for a deeper relationship with Jesus. Life Center church became our home church for many years.

Through new friends, we met Dick Munn and he prayed over us for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When he was praying for Dan, he said his hands got very very hot and Dan began speaking in tongues fluently. I, on the other hand, while experiencing the same man’s prayers on the same night needed to pursued the Lord on and off for months to receive my prayer language!

woman praying — Crying out to the Lord to receive my prayer language.

Many days when the boys went down for their naps, I would kneel by our bed and I would seek God on the matter. One day I heard very clearly: “You don’t want to let go of control of your tongue. You are not willing to trust Me in this.” The conviction came, and I realized He was right! I agreed with Him and turned fully to Him, and began giving Him full access to renewing my mind and releasing my language. And finally after more seeking and praying tongues came. Thank You, Jesus.

At Life Center we joined the class that one of the elders, Bruce McKaig, was teaching about HEALING. This fed our hungry spirits and we began putting the teachings to use in our home, taking advantage of most illnesses to practice our new faith. We still went to the doctor. We combined faith and medicine.

God had arrested our attention in Japan that we were blocked in spiritual power. The couple who was seeking Holy Spirit fullness piqued our interest so that we pursued the Holy Spirit in a church that believed in His real power to heal and deliver. The prayer in the Munn’s home brought us to the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and the healing class expanded personal power and increased our faith in our knowledge of the Spirit’s power.

We were also reading books like They Speak with Other Tongues by John Sherrill, which is Episcopal priest’s Dennis Bennett’s story of the experience he had in 1960 of his personal Pentecost. I also read Prison to Praise, by Merlin Carothers. When everything seemed to be against him, he was advised by a Christian to stop complaining about his problems and start praising God FOR each problem! It changed his life and sharing this principle became his world-wide ministry, and it continues today after his death. When he was baptized in the Spirit, he was filled with overwhelming love for everyone he saw. The book can be accessed online as a pdf.