During this prayer time people received various pictures. These are just one of the ways that Jesus speaks to us. They are powerful and moving images placed into our heads during prayer and/or worship which can seem pretty random, but they are often very relevant and actually pretty apt.
In worship one day, Dora got a picture of a city in mourning. Its inhabitants were all walking around with ash on their foreheads, as if it was ash Wednesday. Except, they never got to Easter Sunday, so the city was permanently covered in a darkness and a sadness. I thought this was bizarre because it linked almost perfectly with a picture which I received. It was of a phoenix, but one which was close to death. You could tell that it had once been a splendid, beautiful creature, but it had lost its shine, and its demeanour was sad and dejected. Eventually it turned to ash. But up out of those ashes, a brand new phoenix began to appear. It had a coat of fire, that shined in the brightest ambers, rubies and golds, brighter than the sun itself. It demonstrated the overwhelming power and beauty of God. It was gentle, yet its magnificent strength and power was obvious. We are made in God's image, so as we grow and experience God more, so we become more like the phoenix. When God brings us back to him, the complete power and glory of the phoenix is unveiled. The creature is heart achingly beautiful and my description really cannot do it justice at all.
We also had a talk on prophecy, and through this, learnt more about the different ways God can speak to us. We all set ourselves challenges, because sometimes we can stop pushing for more due to fears or anxieties. We need courage to conquer this, and the knowledge that our obedience to God will be rewarded. I, myself, struggle with a fear of getting it wrong. I am a perfectionist and very performance based. This means that I find it difficult when I have a word for someone, because I am worried that it won't be relevant or right. I needed to challenge myself to step out more and just go for it. God loves obedience. Sometimes he tests us and he loves it when we step into the unknown for him. I wanted to be more like one of the girls in the group, Abi, who had been given the nickname "Prophecy bomb". She was always hearing from God and told people when she had words for them. She is courageous and gifted in this respect and it definitely challenged me to have more faith and obedience.
Another thing we were lucky enough to experience was Jesus' power to heal. Each and every day my belief of what constitutes "impossible" is being challenged. I have always struggled to have faith in Jesus when it comes to healing. I found it a challenge to ask for prayer, and an almost impossible feat to pray for others. Spending a week surrounded by 14 people whose immediate response to suffering (be it physical or mental) was to pray, I was constantly being challenged. We saw not only healings within our group, but also in strangers who were prayed for out on the streets. One man had injured his shoulder, and after being prayed for, he rotated it, and looked on at the people who had prayed for him with shock. The pain had gone! Someone else had diabetes, and when they were prayed for they felt a tingling sensation in their head and a change. They are going to go to the doctors to get it checked out. Hannah, one of the girls in our team, had a bad knee. It meant that she couldn't kneel during worship. We prayed for her throughout the week and then one day during worship it was healed. She could kneel! Incredible! Fearghal, one of the guys, had dermatitis on one of his hands, and by the end of the week there was no sign of it! God is so good!
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