The Biggest Question of All: Part 6
The next morning I woke up fully rested. I knew this would be my last chance to go to the conference, because it ended on Saturday evening. I had to go back again. I was ashamed that I had run out the night before, and I knew that I might never get another chance to hear speakers about the Holy Spirit and this Charismatic Movement again. I got dressed quickly and told my husband that I would be back later in the afternoon.
At the conference I felt like less of an outsider this morning. I was familiar with more of the teaching, and I could get from room to room for the teaching sessions. But now I truly wanted to be an “insider”. I wanted to know this God that I had decided was the best of my options last night. I had decided to throw my lot in with those who believed in God, even though I had no proof, and now it seemed that I was even more touched by the music and the teaching. What had been a wistful yearning in my heart yesterday was now a deep heart desire. At the early session a young woman gave her story of how she had come to the conference the day before and received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and now she felt so much love for Jesus that she wanted to share a song with us, and she began to sing. I had never seen or heard someone sing so sweetly or so beautifully. She sang directly to Jesus.
“Truly,” I thought, “she KNOWS He is real.” Oh, how I wanted what she had! Oh how I wanted to KNOW!!!
As the second session that I was to attend was getting started, the teacher, stopped mid-sentence and said that he was going to take some questions from the audience, but that he felt that the Holy Spirit was wanting to move while we were just taking this question and answer period, and that if any of us felt His presence, to just sit and breathe Him in. A person raised his hand and asked a question, and suddenly I felt a sense of a Presence, a kind of hesitant insistence. I breathed Him in, I gave Him room and a Power came over me and into me that swelled and grew until I was swallowed up in it, in the awareness that this Power had the ability to create all things, and yet I was very aware that this Power was holding itself in check, because if it had let itself be felt in totality, my frame would have shattered. THIS POWER WAS REAL! NOW I KNEW! My earthly father, so good and so intelligent, had gotten one thing, the most important thing, wrong. This was Creation Power, and any miracles it ever wanted to accomplish were easily accomplished. I sat, head bowed, so completely swallowed up in Power, in the HOLY SPIRIT, for some time, and then slowly, gently, I was left, and yet not left. The sense of power withdrew, but the love remained. That part of the Holy Spirit that had waited for permission to fill me and had held Himself in check so lovingly so that I wouldn’t be overwhelmed somehow stayed. I felt suddenly that I would never feel alone again. I belonged to GOD.
Slowly the room came back into focus. The session of questions and answers was wrapping up. I became aware of the people around me. Evidently no one had any suspicion that my whole world had changed during that session. The teacher invited anyone who wanted prayer for the baptism to stay after the class, and I still did not have any kind of prayer language, but the one thing I knew was that I had already received the Holy Spirit, so if the thing to do was speak in a prayer language, then I knew that was just a prayer away. At that point, if the proof of what had happened to me were to jump over a building, I would have jumped over a building. I was that sure of what had happened. I walked up to the teacher and said that I had just received the Holy Spirit, but I was not speaking in tongues. The teacher turned to others and said let’s pray for this young lady first, because she is ready to receive, and they put hands on my head and my first word was Abba. After that they just told me to allow the words to come naturally, and to not question my experience. I left and went to the ladies room to a stall and just allowed the language to begin to form and flow. I have never once questioned that experience.
As I left the conference, the whole world seemed to glow. I drove home, but my heart was flying. I knew that God was real!!! I KNEW THAT GOD EXISTED AND THAT HE LOVED ME!
That experience happened in May of 1970. That was fifty years ago. My life has never been the same. My life has not been perfect and I have not been perfect, not by a long shot, but I have always had a God-centered life. And that has made all the difference! God answered the biggest question of all. I will always love Him.