This spring, I led worship for a few retreats of men and women. Leading worship for a groups like these means that I perform music that encourages the participants to sing with me and enter into a deeper experience of God’s presence. I love leading worship. It is one of my favorite things to do.
At one of these retreats, the presenter and I led the people in praying for freedom and for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. I am a traditional Catholic and my tradition dates back to the biblical account of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church in Acts chapter two. When we lead groups like this we incorporate all the best gifts of the Catholic church; the Eucharist, true devotion to Mary, and all the Pentecostal gifts of the Holy Spirit including exhortation and praise, tongues, prophecy and healing. We do it all and it’s so much fun!
During these sessions we frequently get images and words as a means to direct our prayer for the group and/or individuals who have specific needs. As I was leading the worship the Lord directed my attention to one woman. I was drawn to pray for her quietly. As I sang and led the worship, I had an image in my mind of this woman’s heart. I prayed quietly to myself that the Lord would touch and heal the wounds in her heart. Then, I knew that there was more than a spiritual and emotional need for the healing of her heart. The Lord showed me that I was to pray for the healing of her heart valve. Then I got a very specific word that I was to encourage her to go to the cardiologist and get an ultrasound of her heart. That’s when I decided I needed to speak to her privately and discern if this was God or just me running wild in my imagination. After all, I was in a leadership position and I didn’t want the woman to die of a heart attack thinking God was warning her that she might die of a heart attack!
Later that morning, there was a time for people to share what God had done for them personally on this retreat. This woman got up to share and I continued to quietly pray for her, and asked the Lord to give me a sign if I was to talk to her about the specific word I had received during the worship time. The woman got up and shared that the Lord was healing her heart! She said that she had emotional and spiritual wounds of the heart that God was healing that weekend and would continue to heal. I sat in amazement as this beautiful lady shared her wonderful story of the freedom she received in experiencing the presence of God.
It wasn’t long before the weekend ended, this lovely woman came up to me to thank me for leading the worship. I shared with her that even before she shared her story, I had been led to pray for the healing of her heart. Then I gently began to ask her if she had ever seen a cardiologist. She said that the she was being monitored for a slight problem in one of the valves of her heart. Excitedly and gently, so as to not to frighten her, I told her what I believed God had told me and I said that I thought she should get an ultrasound of her heart. The woman smiled and told me she was already scheduled for one later that week! We both laughed as I prayed with her for the Lord to continue his healing work in her heart.
A few weeks ago, as I was praying with someone for a deeper outpouring of the Holy Spirit, I had an image of this woman as a young girl. I knew she was 4 years old at the time. I paused in the prayer to ask her if she was aware of anything happening at that time that may have negatively impacted her life. She looked at me through tears and a smile and shared details about a traumatic experience of abandonment that happened exactly at the age of four. I prayed with her to renounce the abandonment and the fear and anxiety that clung to her from that traumatic childhood event. I instructed her to consider counseling and ongoing prayer with a trusted professional. After we finished our prayer, she looked like a new person. God knew her deepest needs. He met her there and showed her that He was present, even in her darkest moments.
I share these experiences here to demonstrate a very simple and yet deeply profound, biblical principle; “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 7:3).
This weekend we celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in this great country of the United States of America. God created us to live in freedom. And He cares about every intimate detail of our freedom, beginning with our own hearts.
