The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

This morning I felt a nudge from Holy Spirit sort of encouraging me to check out what was going on at the Sid Roth Show this week. Roth, a Messianic Jew, interviews Christian mystics, evangelists, pastors, worship leaders, film makers, and anyone who is hungry for God and has a contagious testimony about being a "normal" Christian. I ended up watching the latest show with this guy name Robert Gay. Check out the show at link below and let me know what you think about it:
http://sidroth.org/television/this-weeks-episode

What is amazing about Robert's testimony is that it reminded me of something very mystical and kind of weird that happened to me years ago that I have rarely spoken of until now. I was afraid to tell anyone because of the way it was handled.... 

I will have to give some back story first:

Recently, I was taking a class on inner healing and my classmates and I were "practicing" healing prayer on each other. The Lord spoke to me very powerfully through a colleague by way of a prophetic word and told me that it was time to write about what happened to me as a child growing up in church. I was filled with fear immediately because I would never want to disrespect anyone living or dead. However, some really interesting things happened that have shaped my worldview and have shaped me as a woman of God.

I grew up as a pastors kid. Go figure. My Dad is considered by many to be a great man of God pretty much a pillar in the faith. 

One night in the early 1990's, the Holy Spirit came and visited me and I could not get away. He was that intense that I wanted to run. I ran as far as my parent's bedroom and got my Dad and we prayed into the night for hours and hours. I was speaking in tongues and crying and just filled to overflowing with the power of the Holy Spirit! It was wonderful!

I was thirteen years old and had just begun the ninth grade. Over the next two weeks or so, I had trouble speaking English. This went on and finally I could speak some English and the rest was all in tongues. I was treated like a crazy person! My parents did not know what to do with me. They were completely at a loss for what was happening and overwhelmed by it. My classmates thought that I had lost my mind...

Now, I should mention that I was attending a private Christian school. I had rarely came in contact with a non-believer. I am not writing to condemn the school or my home church, or to put anybody on blast. However, I am writing to encourage you to teach your children about the Holy Spirit. Everybody in the church on Sunday needs to learn and be taught about the Holy Spirit. 

Was what happened to me real? Was it "normal" Christianity? YES! I know now that this is what we now call normal Christianity. So why after over 20 years have I been silent about this amazingly life-changing event in my life? Because I was taught to be ashamed of it, and now as an older, more mature woman in the Lord, I feel the urgency to encourage others to not be ashamed of the Lord and His working in your life.

Paul wrote in Romans 12:2 that once we are saved we become like new creatures. Transformed. Changed into the created beings that God intended for us to be in the first place. I am not the same person I was at thirteen. I am changed by the inner working power of the Holy Spirit. It has been a lot of work. There is still much work to be done in me.

If you are a bored, depressed, angry, or frustrated Christian (like I was back in 2011) ask God to make you hungry for more of His presence. He blesses those who get hungry for more of the normal ways of doing Christianity.

I urge you to get hungry for God. I urge you to ask for the Holy Spirit to encounter you. He is a living person. Jesus called Him the "Comforter".  He has never let me down. He is the smartest person I know.