No more fear!

"God is not asking us to not feel fear but to move forward when we feel fear because He is with us." -Joyce Meyer

         Oh that fear thing, I have let it get the better of me for too long in my life.  My whole week at training camp was stepping out in fear and trusting my Father was with me.  The days leading up to training were also filled with a lot of fear.  The fear of having 4 weeks to raise $3,600 from the day I would return home from training camp, the fear of getting on a plane for the second time in my life and going by myself across the country, and ultimately the fear of not knowing what my life was going to be like for the week.  Little did I know that first step of going to training camp was just one of many steps I would take in fear and see the incredible outcomes of trusting Jesus.
       The first couple of days of training camp were great!  Powerful worship, awesome teachings, and getting to know the amazing people I would eventually come to know as my family.  A couple of days into it we were doing a session on healing and Ron Walborn (our teacher) asked if anyone needed healing and a young woman raised her hand and the short story was she was a dancer who was a part of ministry that reaches out to dancers in the crazy show business world and she had broken a bone and torn two tendons.  We all prayed for her and for healing and I was comfortable praying for her at the same time as 300 other people.  
       After we prayed for her Ron told us to ask people on our team if they needed healing and to break up into groups and to pray for healing over them.  I was freaking out on the inside because I am terrified of praying out loud for other people, that is going way beyond my comfort zone.  We grouped off and in my group my teammate Carly (you can go to carly blalock.myadventures.org to read her story) had always been to pop her should out of place, she had been going to physical therapy to help with the discomfort and pain, and the doctor told her she would most likely have to get surgery when she got back from the trip.  Before we prayed for her she showed us how she can pop it out and how it creates a huge crater.  We put our hands on her shoulder and began to take turns praying out loud for healing for Carly's shoulder, and her arm started to get really warm and started to tremble, it was so crazy! We stopped and asked her how she felt and she tried popping her shoulder out of place and she could barely make a dent in her shoulder where she had just showed us a huge crater…we were freaking out!
        We put our hands back on her shoulder and started praying for full healing, then Kayla started praying stability in her shoulder and stability in her life and at that point her arm was warm, trembling, and you could feel the muscles moving inside and making popping noises.  God was healing her right under our hands!! After we were done praying for her Carly tried to pop her shoulder out of place, something she could do her whole life, and she couldn't do it at all anymore.  She was completely healed! Oh and the young woman who had broken a broken bone and two torn tendons, she danced a dance for the Lord at the end of week on two healthy legs.  The God in the Bible who healed in the past, He still heals today!
          The next night we invited the Holy Spirit to come meet with us.  We could either ask the Holy Spirit to come meet with us ourselves or we could go to one of the leaders and ask them to pray with us.  If you have not guessed by now, I am the type of person who would go straight to a leader and ask them to pray with me, but this night during worship I felt my Father asking me to come to Him myself.  I stood there for awhile and felt the uncomfortableness growing inside me, who am I to ask the Holy Spirit to come meet with me? Finally, I closed my eyes, raised my hands, and told God, "Here I am, arms held high, show me what you got."  
          As soon as I said those words my arms got really warm and started to shake.  Naturally I got a little scared and put my arms down, with my eyes still closed and my arms still shaking I felt someone put their hand on my back and start to pray for me.  They prayed the Holy Spirit would come fill me up and I would let go of all the fear I was holding on to, as they continued to pray this prayer for me my whole body warmed up, and I got the most incredible tingling feeling, and I was shaking.  I was letting go of all the fear I was holding on to about raising money, leaving my job, and my family, and letting the Holy Spirit consume me.  Needless to say, I have never worshipped my Father like I did that night. It was the most indescribable encounter.
          Towards the end of the week we were given a lesson on how God speaks to us for other people to hear, whether it be through pictures while we are praying, song lyrics, words, a memory.  We then had to put this to action and pray for our teammates and listen to what our Father was telling us to tell them.  You would think after having an incredible encounter with the Holy Spirit I would be pumped for this.  Ha!  This was by far the scariest night for me.  We did a couple of different exercises and I was completely stuck.  I couldn't do it.  Keep in mind I was never one of the ones to get prayed for and spoken to by my teammates, God knew what He was doing.  He knew how hard it was for me just to pray out loud, let speak out loud to what He was telling me to tell others.  At one point our leaders told us to raise our hands if we were having a hard time with this, I raised my hand.  My leader Matt came and prayed with me and he prayed I would open my heart and let God speak to me.  
        After that they had half of us close our eyes and the other half go and put their hand on our shoulders to let us know they were and we would start to pray for them.  I felt the hand on my shoulder and I started to pray and what do you know? I picture pops in my head of a car in a desert.  I go along with it and the words just start pouring out of my mouth of how God wants the person in front of me (my eyes are still closed so I don't know who it is) to get in this car and go after Him but this person keeps trying to put all this baggage in the car and it's preventing him from going and God's telling them to leave the baggage behind and just take off after Him.  I open my eyes and my teammate is freaking out because that is exactly what has been going on in their life right now at training camp and I am freaking out because God spoke to me through a picture. What?!  This is crazy.  We closed our eyes again and someone put their hand on my should and I saw balloons, and each balloon represented a fear or doubt this person was holding on to, this person was only letting go of one balloon at a time and God was wanting them to release them all at once and trust what He is going to do with them.  So weird right?  I open my eyes and the person in front me said that was right on.  God does the craziest things in the craziest ways sometimes. 
         This was just a glimpse in my whirlwind of a ride that was training camp.  God took the box I had put Him in without even realizing it and shattered it!  He is the God who STILL heals, who STILL meets with His children, and who STILL speaks through us.  He has given me a wonderful new family I am going to spend 9 months with and I can't wait!  I have let go of a lot of fear ever since training camp  and this is just the beginning!!  I can't wait to bring His love to the nations!  Look out world, here we come! 
         
                                             My family of 23!
   kd                                                                                 My family of 6!