amazed
i heard on the news this morning there might be another storm tonight like the one last night, so i rallied some of my friends from the dhop to meet up at crown point to see the storm in all it's glory. we didn't see the storm but we saw God.
as you can see from the picture above, sunset was amazing. that's patrick on the wall of the vista house. along with patrick and myself, kelly, ben and seabrook were there. sunset was indescribable, casting it's rosy cloak over the majesty of the columbia river gorge. i felt God so close as He enjoyed my awe at His beautiful work. soon the other sunset-watchers left and there were only a few others there beside us. we got out the guitar and a hand drum and worshipped for a bit as the last of the sunset slipped beyond sight. it was magnificent.
as we finished singing and walked a bit away from the car a guy asked us for directions back to the freeway. as we chatted with him it came out that he was out here because his friend moved out and he came along for the road trip for company. as we were talking with him i was pretty sure he was a christian so i started asking him questions. i felt like we were supposed to pray with him, but i didn't want to freak him out. turns out his name is ken, and he is not only a christian, but he's the dean of a college in illinois and is some sort of lay minister for the college group at his catholic parish. pretty cool. he got really jazzed when we told him about the house of prayer. we tried to invite him to our thing this friday but he'll be gone.
as we were finishing our chat with him he asked us to pray for him. i was wondering how it would go since he was catholic and we lean toward a more 'exuberant' style of prayer than is usually associated with the catholic church, so i quietly prayed for God to give us wisdom, then began to pray the things God put on my heart for ken. as i did i suddenly realized he was speaking in tongues! it was so cool. we all prayed for him and then he asked us if he could give us each a blessing. up to then he'd seemed kindof shy, but as he put his hands on each of our heads there was a quiet confidence and authority that carried with it a sense of the presence of God. as he blessed me he said, 'may the love of God be so evident in and through you that people know that they've been with Jesus'. the coolest thing was that it's not the first time someone has prayed this for me or spoken it over me. each of the blessings ken gave the others were the same way, but each very different. isn't that wild?
tonight God surrounded me with friends, kissed me with an amazing sunset and covered me in His love. all this and He worked it out in a way that blessed a stranger
as well. what a beautiful God.
5 comments:
Nice! Wish I could've been there!
:-)#
Sheena, that was such a good idea. I'm so glad that we got to go...that picture turned out amazing and a lot of my pictures turned out prettty good too.... I'll have to do something about that...though I hate spending stinking .25 per picture to send it...maybe I'll just pick the best one and send it...though there are so many good ones.
did anybody see the picture of the complete rainbow and the lightning strike in this morning's paper. pretty awesome. but, why any of those people were standing at the tallest point in the city below a radio tower is beyond me.
sounds beautiful. i missed the sunset tonight. i'm so grateful God so genereously gives us good sky to enjoy. he could have created it to be the same color all the time, day and night, same same same...but instead we are treated to spectacular works of art just by looking up. Amazing God of artistry and wonder!
Just to spiritualize everything :-)...I think it is interesting that as we finished praying in the south God began to show us signs in the sky of mercy and judgement as He did before(...remember the rainbow and lightning that came after prayer on the eastside?) but this time combined with the fire of the sun...hmmm....east, mercy, west, judgement, south, wall of fire of His continuous presence....what is He saying through it all????? remember the sky last Thursday as we were praying for our upcoming "Fire in the Night"? that same night in the very south of our region a significant church caught on fire...the pastor was literally thrown out of the doors just in time..."who can dwell among everlasting burnings?" The picture Kelly sent of the tornado and the rainbow was amazing. His judgements MUST come to destroy all that is hindering our knowledge of Him, His mercy allows us to not be completely destroyed, His fire is both a protection and a provision to us.......our God is so good....life with Him always fascinates me.
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