Monday, July 21, 2008

God's Plan (III)

1:03 AM by Christi Bowman

Once back from Africa I knew we would be returning. While in Africa I caught a glimpse of my own children playing along side the children of the care points. I am beginning to see where God gives you visions, visions you see clearly with your spiritual eyes...not your physical eyes. Seeing my children in Africa was a bright spiritual vision from the Lord that got even brighter once I realized what it was and who it came from. I still had to work on Kevin a bit. I didn't do much though. I knew we were going back, and I just began to talk like that...a lot. It did not take Kevin long to ask God to make it supernaturally obvious to him if we were to go to Africa. God responded quickly. One of the ways in which God instilled confidence in Kevin was through a mission organization named AIM.

I LOVE AIM!!! I love the people. I love what they stand for. I love what they do. I love how they acknowledge the Spirit of God. One of my first encounters with the Holy Spirit, maybe my very first one, happened while at the AIM headquarters in GA. I WANTED MORE! I wanted to stay forever. God took me back to IL and walked me through finding the Holy Spirit for myself. One of Kevin's fleeces before God was to write to the founder and head of AIM, Seth Barnes. Kevin gave Seth some back story and told him of our desire to go back to Swaziland. The fleece was all in how Seth responded. If Seth said you have to go back to school, get some experience, training, stuff like that Kevin would know God was saying wait. If Seth was more like yeah lets do this then Kev would feel like God was opening a door. Seth said "this could work". After that we began seeing that God's hands had been, were presently, and still are all over this process.

One of the things AIM does to get you ready to go out into the world is have you take some tests. One of the tests Kevin and I took was the Taylor-Johnson. Kevin and I took this test together on our respective laptops. When we were done we looked at each other and said "that was kind of dumb". The questions were not very introspective and they seemed to be all over the place...no real order. I felt confused after I took it. Kevin and I could not have been more wrong about that test. The results of that test blew us both out of the water. Kevin has blogged some of his thoughts on his test results. My test results came back with leadership potential. It seemed like I had some strong scores in some good areas but my self esteem was so astoundingly low that it was prohibiting me from coming anywhere near what I could be. AIM employs a psychologist to go over the test results once you see them, and he called me to discuss mine on a Wed night after church.

WOW. Words can't describe that conversation. That psychologist is one powerful man. We began talking and I immediately felt at ease. He asked me some questions and I immediately opened up. it was easy. It was though I had been talking to him for years. He started telling me some good things about myself and I started to cry. They were to painful to hear. He started crying with me and what he told me next he said was from God. He said that "I don't see myself the way God sees me" and he told me things that God saw and loved about me personally...and that was powerful!! We talked some more about the child abuse, the sexual, physical, emotional and religious abuse. We talked about the role my parents played, although they were not the abusers. As he continued to talk I felt a heaviness in the air. Everything in view became very sharp, and the world around me though loud, became quiet, peaceful, and still. It was surreal...almost as if time had stopped for everyone but us. He began to pray over the phone and he said to God "I sense that your Spirit is there with Christi right now" and he nailed it. That's what it was and it was amazing. That sense, although not always as overwhelming as that night, has not left me since. He prayed for peace, and direction, and healing for me...and then he hung up. I sat there alone for a while, just enjoying the presence of God, and then I got angry.

More tomorrow.

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