Yesterday Mike and I met up at the church with my friend William, who leads a local intercessory prayer ministry here in Corpus Christi. William and his wife had been at our house warming last week and heard some of the spiritual warfare things Mike and I were encountering. He had asked us to meet with him, so that he could encourage us and provide some basic principles for us to utilize in this area of our faith walk.
Within a matter of hours I found it necessary to deploy some of these suggestions, especially those dealing with expanding my prayer covering. Before the day was over, we would see Christopher encounter a serious blowout on a Houston freeway with a car full of Navy cadets, our daughter would crash her bicycle into our pool and the ignition switch went out on our van.
Christopher's car after the blowout
After the Loop 610 incident
Yet through it all, God showed Himself faithful. Christopher and the other cadets were not hurt. Caitlyn was scared, but also unhurt (although her CD player didn’t survive 4ft of water) and a tap from a rubber handle on a socket wrench got the key to turn in the van.
During the afternoon we called on those that God impressed upon us to surround us in a covering of prayer. By 4PM, the spirit of peace within me was overwhelming…those prayers could be felt within and without. We did however call my friend William and asked him to bring a group of intercessors to our home to pray over us and the home.
This morning, I woke up with a heaviness looming over me that seemed very unshakeable. Even as I prayed before service this morning, I just couldn’t seem to shake it. Even Mike’s wife, Kim, could see it on my face. When I got done praying, I opened the door of the church and sat back down. I watched out the window as a woman walked past and then made a button hook into the door.
She declared that she was tired of living on the streets and asked if we could help. At first it was the normal request: “A few dollars for bus fare to Flour Bluff and something to eat at Whataburger.” I asked her if we could pray for her, but she didn’t answer me. She went on to elaborate that she had not slept, that she needed to wash her clothes and that she wanted to get off the streets.
I told her that we did not give out money, but that I would make sure she was fed and we would give her a ride to Flour Bluff if needed. I also offered to let her do laundry and share lunch with our family and Mike’s family. She balked and said she just needed money. I asked her how a few dollars was going to get her off the street?
After a few moments of silence, she asked if she could just have some coffee and said she was going to leave. I reminded her that she had not answered my question about praying for her. She told me I could pray for her, but she saw my bottle of annointing oil and told me that I could not annoint her with oil. I told her that was fair.
I prayed for her deliverance from the streets and the bondage that kept her there. She sat for several minutes, got some coffee and sat down. I started into the service and she kept staring at me. Then all of the sudden, shen leaned over and asked me if we would really help her out as I had indicated before. I reiterated what I had said and then the Lord gave me a word of deliverance that went straight to her heart. Immediately the tears began to flow and we bathed her in prayer.
The Lord had already been impressing upon my wife and I that part of the reason He moved us to Padre Island was to create a safe haven for people He was delivering from the streets. Out here there is no city bus, no red light district, no street culture…a place of safety. Carol and I both felt compelled without speaking that she was to be the first to find the healing and deliverance of God’s kingdom in our home.
As we drove to Mike and Kim’s for lunch, the tears continued to flow…but they were tears of joy and laughter that burst forth from within. She also indicated that she has smoked her last cigarette, so I prayed over her cravings, yearnings and desires. Our new house guest said she had not laughed in years. While lunch was being prepared, our guest showered and was given a new change of clothes. The woman who shared a meal with our families was not the same woman who had entered our door a few hours before.
As the afternoon wore on, the pain of years on the street was released in tears as Carol held tightly to her. I found myself weeping in the adjacent room as I listened to God releasing the pain from within. Several times she exclaimed..”I can’t believe I’m not craving a cigarette.”
This evening the days of hard living had ended in an early bedtime. Carol has already had to comfort her once, because of the nightmares she was having. Our guest’s greatest fear is that we were going to dump her back on the streets. The mess the enemy makes out of people’s lives….truly the earth groans for the touch of Jesus.
Also this evening the intercessory team spent time in our home. The Lord spoke to the group collectively about the testing that Carol and I have been under, saying: “They passed.” Of course that word was proceeded with the word “patience.”
My friend spoke a valuable word to me as well. My role in the kingdom is parental in nature…when the time is right the “fatherly” blessing I give as those restored spread their wings and fly will become monumental.