About 4 months ago, my mother was dying of cancer, and my family went to visit her. We stayed at a hotel to avoid stressing her too much. One night, my wife took the kids back to the hotel for bed, and I stayed with my mom, dad and brother. I had in mind that we might talk about heaven, or sing some spiritual songs together.
While we were talking, it occurred to me that we should pray for my mother. I believe strongly in God's healing power, as I have been healed a few times in my life, so I had no trouble believing that God could heal her. We all laid hands on her and began to pray and speak in tongues.
As I was praying, I began to see a light... It was as if I was a child approaching the base of a door, and the door was open just a crack, but a blinding light was shining through. I could see nothing else, just light, but what happened next was like nothing I've ever experienced in my life.
I began to feel an intense energy building up in my chest, right around my heart area. It was almost as if I was a puppet, and the hand of God was reaching in through my back and filling me with His energy. Although it was not painful, it was extremely intense, and I felt that it was God's healing power, so I grabbed hold of my mother and put my heart on her side where the cancer was. I just kept praying in tongues.
For the next two hours, I continued to experience God's intense touch on my body; it would move through me in waves - during the high points, I would find myself gasping for breath, and more than once, I cried out for Him to stop, because I feared that if it continued, my body would not be able to take it, and then the power would subside for a few minutes to give me a rest, then it would start up again.
An interesting observation; I was fully aware of my surroundings the entire time, in fact, hyper-aware - to the point where I realized that my brother had left the room, and I called for him to come back, as I had the strong impression that God wanted him in the room with us. I was NEVER in a trance, and never not in control of my faculties.
Another impression that I had was that this was akin to God moving his pinky to touch me; that if He did more than that, I would not have survived it.
I had an intense realization of His love for us, and I wept and continued to speak in tongues the whole time, my eyes filled with tears of joy, and of just being overwhelmed by His presence. I also had numerous impressions about things that God wanted to do in the world, about his love for the world.
I also had the impression that this was not necessarily happening for the healing of my mother, but that God wanted her to trust Him and not be afraid of death. During one of my rests, I communicated this to her. This turned out to be true, as my mother was very moved and comforted by these words, and she did die several weeks later.
That night when I went to bed, the whole night, it was like insights into the Bible and my Christian faith were being downloaded into my brain. I was getting a restful sleep, but I was just learning new things the whole time.
Since that time, the Holy Spirit has stayed very close to me. When I am listening to certain songs, usually Vineyard songs, I can feel the Holy Spirit start to come over me, and I begin to weep and be filled with feelings of love.
One time this happened on the way to work, and as I was walking down the street, I began to see all the people walking down the street as objects of God's love. The message was clear; I had for many years been surrounded by people who hate Christianity, and so I had come to see most of the public as being enemies of God. But at that moment, I realized that these were people who were blinded to God's love, but that He wanted desperately for them to be reached by His love, and that God wants His people to begin obeying Him and reaching out to the lost with His love.
I've also been filled with constant conviction about my own sins, such as being judgemental of others, of allowing myself to become angry or other ways of showing bad character to the world.
I've also had a burden for my neighbours, and a sudden realization of the suffering of others around me that I would have ignored just months ago.
I really feel that my description here is not doing real justice to the experience, but my prayer is that other people of God would be filled with His Spirit in the same way, and that a mighty move of His Spirit will start to change the world.
I have been looking for others who've had similar experiences, and would love to hear if there are others out there that God is touching.
One interesting thing that I discovered in my searches is that Charles Finney wrote about a very similar experience.
You can read his story here: http://www.charismamag.com/site-archives/1446-online-exclusives/june-2011/13590-divine-encounters
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