"If anybody tries to lay their hands on me, I'm outta there!"

In my last post I spoke about the dreams I began having after my conversion. The nights were great, but during the day I wanted to talk to people about God, but ,with the exception of my mom, nobody wanted to talk about Him. I thought about God day and night and started getting depressed due to the lack of people willing to talk about Him. "Lord, you don't have many friends here", I would tell Him. This wasn't true... I just couldn't find them! One day, after Mass, I saw a pamphlet in the back of the Church that described a seminar called Life in the Spirit. Having had bad [horrendous really] experiences with the Charismatic Movement as a child I was very wary about attending but I was desperate to learn and talk to anybody about God. I understood, by that time, that what I had undergone as a child was a form of "toxic religion" and didn't really mean that every charismatic christian group was like this [after a period of counseling, I had mostly come to terms with this part of my past]. It was on Tuesday night from 7:00 - 9:00 and my husband was asleep at this time since he worked third shift back then. After some prayer, I decided to go. I figured that I could stop attending if I didn't like it.

The first meeting was great, everyone talked about God, prayed, and someone gave a talk on the Holy Spirit. The people were kind and you could tell that they really loved God. "This is cool", I thought to myself, "I can handle this."  The second meeting was a little different; after speaking about God, people started praying in tongues. "Here we go", I said to the Lord, "The bizzare stuff is coming next." I didn't know how to speak in tongues, but I had known people who had this gift and the thought didn't thrill me.  " Lord, if I did that I would probably accidentally blaspheme you or something. You probably shouldn't give me this gift."

I skipped the next week. The following week I felt the strong urge to go. "Okay, Lord, but if anybody tries to lay their hands on me I'm outta there!" I went and no one laid a hand on me but the meetings were getting stranger and stranger. At one point a bunch of people got up and started singing to the Lord, all in different languages! The harmonies were spectacular!  "Wow!", I said to God, "that's pretty awesome."  After the singing, people started standing up and giving " Words of Knowledge". These were all passages from the Bible. I remember praying very hard and saying, "Please, Lord, don't give me one of these words. I'm too shy and afraid to stand up in front of all these people." At that moment, someone stood up and said, "My strength is made perfect in weakness."  I giggled... I knew this one was for me, I could feel it. Luckily, the Lord never called on me and I relaxed and enjoyed the seminars in the weeks that followed. Until, that is, the final week. When they explained that teams would be praying over all the newcomers I got really nervous and started to panic. Though I knew this group wasn't like the ones from my childhood, by the time it was my turn I had a panic attack. My body was drenched with sweat from head to toe and my hands were icy cold. I tried taking steady breaths and tried to relax. The team started praying over me and.....nothing. Nothing bad happened. I didn't know what I was expecting, but the only experience that I had ever had with charismatic groups in the past were the kind who thought there were demons behind every cough and sneeze and the devil's minions were lurking about in every corner ready to pounce on us if we were not good. By the time I was 16,  I had stopped going to church because I was terrified of God the Father - He didn't seem very loving to me, or to my brothers and sisters. We all left the church, though our pain had nothing to do with Catholicism. Luckily, we were all confirmed, but that was about it. But I am digressing [or maybe I should say: regressing ], nothing bad happened while I was being prayed over and it was fine. One of the ladies even had a vision of me in heaven at the Lord's table and he was anointing me with oil .
Did I ever have vivid dreams that night! With the exception of this seminar I have had no involvement in the Charismatic Movement [except for the childhood stuff]  but I do know a few people who have charisms. I am not sure why I didn't join this group. I think part of it is that I love peace and quiet. The Church that I attend is very traditional and beautiful, this Christmas we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1st Mass celebrated here! The architecture is incredible and Catholic to the bone: I love it here. And it was here, in this quiet, old, church that I first started receiving "Words of Knowledge".

I can speak in tongues, now, but I rarely do so. Only in emergencies :)

Confirmations in the spirit and holy dreams

http://www.markmallett.com/blog/?p=1480

Some may wonder why I often leave links to Mark Mallett's site. There are a number of reasons. The first is that I believe that he has a true prophetic gift. Second, the "words" he receives come to him in a similar manner as mine do and when I read certain writings of his I get a witness in the spirit. A witness in the spirit usually comes to me when the Lord wants to confirm another person's words to show me the truth in them. This doesn't only happen to me on Mark Mallett's site, the Lord often uses it whenever He wants to draw my attention to something in particular. The Holy Spirit floods me and it feels as like a mixture of heat and electricity, waves of it. He does this when He is giving me "words", also. If the word is particularly strong my body sometimes shakes. It has just been in this past year that the shaking has started and I was concerned at first until I heard that this is not uncommon. Another reason that I believe that his charisms are real is that some of his "words" and dreams have been the same as mine.

I often use the terms "word of knowledge" and "prophetic word" interchangeably but they are actually two different things. There is also "word of wisdom" which is slightly different. I will attempt over the next couple weeks to explain what I know about these charisms, as well as prophetic dreams, as simply as I can. Many people only believe what they can see with their eyes and forget that there is a spiritual world, also, and we are not simply matter but spiritual beings. There is a certain snobbery that exists today that says charisms are no longer needed; we are too enlightened for that. I say:
They are needed now as never before in history. The Holy Spirit didn't stop giving these gifts, many people simply don't want them or are unaware of them. Some of the Christian sites that I have read will not have anything to do with charisms or private revelations, apparitions and miracles. I cannot understand why. The Spirit gives these gifts to build the Church, they didn't suddenly stop existing. People don't trust them, but they can be extremely helpful. At least that is what I have found in my own life.  Almost every personal prophetic word the Lord has given me has come true including the birth of my baby which came with a time.  Well, except for one, which was just given to me and a few that will take some time to fully play out, but I have faith that God's word is good.

It is very hard to get information in books or over the internet about charisms, especially among Catholics, so I am just going to try to explain in my own words what little I have learned about some of them. I do not have all the charisms so those might be a little harder to explain.

I'll start with the gift of dreams since this was the first charism that I noticed outside of prayer charisms. The dreams started almost immediately after the Lord brought my soul into the presence of His Mercy http://openingthefloodgatesofmercy.blogspot.com/2009/06/heart-of-jesus-infinite-in-mercy.html . I called them "Holy Spirit dreams" for lack of a better word. I didn't know much about the spiritual life at this point; I was like a baby cradled in the arms of God, one who couldn't even walk yet. The first dreams consisted of knowledge being poured into my head while I slept. I was aware that this was going on, I would "catch" the Lord at it many times. In the morning I would wake up knowing things about God that I had previously not known. One day I woke up with the words "indoctrination of the Holy Spirit on my lips", other times I would be given things. In one dream Jesus put an old coin in my hand [ I wrote about this one on one of my blogs], in another, I was in a room reading beautiful ancient scrolls in another language. These dreams continued in this fashion for a period of time, it was as if the Lord was preparing me for something. Meanwhile, I started attending daily Mass and became a daily communicant [after a long confession, of course]. I also started reading the bible, praying the rosary and reading about the saints. I was bowled over when I heard about St. Faustina and the Divine Mercy. The first time I saw the Divine Mercy picture, I said, " Lord! That picture reminds me of what happened to me, the rays which pierced my soul, the mercy and love emanating from your Heart. That's what You did to me!"  I  bought her diary not too long after that and was fascinated with it. I started praying the Mercy Chaplet and this is when I started waking up every single night at 3:33. It was strange. I would go to sleep and would get woken up at 3:33, never 3:32 or 3:34 but always 3:33 on the nose. I took this as a call to prayer and started praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy in the middle of the night. I later read somewhere that 333 was the number of the Trinity. Once, I got a word of knowledge that this was a call to the prayer warriors and God was waking up many Christians at this time to pray for the world. Some people get woken up at 3:00 instead and almost everyone that this happens to takes it as a call to prayer.

I have posted about some of my dreams on my blogs including one in which I was given a glimpse of hell. In some I was battling demons and losing until St. Michael came to help me. The minute St. Michael stepped into the picture they were done for. I think this one was to teach me to call on St. Michael whenever I needed help, so I started praying the St. Michael prayer. The dreams continued and still do. Some have been prophetic dreams, many have been spiritual battles and some are just conversations with the Lord. These dreams are unlike regular dreams, they are extremely vivid and filled with power.

I'll have to continue this in another post, I just realized how long it was getting :)