About 5 years or so ago, after years of sitting under very legalistic, religious teaching/preaching, I finally realized that I needed to know Who God really was and who I was to Him. All of the stuff from before was a cherished part of my journey, but not at all where God wanted me to stay. After 25 years of putting God in a box I truly realized how dumb it was to believe that He could only be what the various churches I had been in had said He was...the huge hammer in the sky ready to whack me on the head if I did something wrong, the One Who would only love me when I was obeying Him...and on and on.
My daughter had been visiting a youth group at Hope Chapel...the church everyone warned us to stay away from...LOL! She was thriving and growing more in love with God every day! She went on a missions trip to Nicaragua with the youth and God changed her in a mighty way. All of that testified to me that I needed something more, something different.
Things in our home at that time were not good...but I won't go into that here, but I got to know the youth pastor and his wife and they were very aware of all that was going on in our home. They were so kind and they prayed for us and just were always there to listen when we needed to talk. They helped my daughter immensely and I am ever grateful for that!
I had been saved for almost 25 years at that point and I loved God, but during this time, as I leaned on Him and began to turn to Him for every little thing, I realized that I needed more of Him. I had begun attending Hope Chapel and one Sunday was propelled toward the front and I clung to the youth pastor and his wife and just cried and cried and cried. They prayed over me and with me and held me and let me cry. When I got home that day it's like something happened at the altar that was still with me and I went into my room and just meditated on what had happened and talked to God about it. I believe I was baptized in the Holy Spirit as I cried out to God that morning and told Him that I wanted all He had for me!
I had other members in my family who had been in charismatic churches and we avoided them and prayed for them that they would see that they were being deceived by those awful money sucking, fake preachers. Little did I know I was about to follow in their footsteps on an awesome journey to my Father's heart! I told God that even if He wanted me to speak in tongues I would do it for Him, but I was going to need help! I prayed to be able to speak in tongues even though I was skeptical and really in my heart didn't believe it would happen. Wasn't that really just for the book of Acts Christians way back when?
God brought back to my remembrance another time years before when I had prayed for him to show me who was right...the Baptists or the charismatics. I thought I had received a word of tongues from God and I repeated it over and over, later just to cast it aside as not really being from Him, but from my active imagination. Well, I remembered now that the word was something like shondela sha...my closest recollection. I started to say that word over and over again and I told God if this was my "word" I was going to pray it with all my might. It felt weird, but I did it anyway. A few more shonda type words came to my mind and I started saying those until I had my own little short shonda prayer...(laugh out loud). I would pray it quietly to myself in corporate prayer times at church, at home after I had prayed all of my "in English" prayers I could think to pray, before I went to bed, and on and on.
Finally, one night I said, "Lord, I know I am a tough nut to crack, but I want to KNOW that this is truly something you want me to have and I want it to be for REAL!" I woke up with a vision/dream in the night. It was a scroll, even in the antiquey type colors you see when they show an old treasure map in a movie, browns and tans with the burned edges. On it were 2 words, "goo loom". I sat up and immediately wrote the words down. I started to say the words pronouncing them in different ways. Goo loom...gooloom...golum (that scary guy in Lord of the Rings...LOL!). I said, Lord, I know you aren't giving me his name!"
As I pondered this word, I thought, it would be just like God to give me the pronunciation of a word, so maybe it's spelled differently. I kept saying my word and it started sounding like gulum to me (u as in but). Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a word person. I am a medical editor proofer, who homeschooled her kids and her fav subject was English/grammar...so I was intrigued to say the least, in this treasure hunt. You know I had to go to Google for some help! I found Gulum...it has the 2 dots over each "u", so they are pronounced kind of like a long "u". I am like, okay, what language is this? Finally I found the word on a record album cover and when I looked up the nationality of the artist, she was Turkish. I tried to get Google to translate my word and it wouldn't. Finally I had the bright idea to find a Turkish establishment of some sort and ended up calling a Turkish bakery in Chesapeake, VA. I said, "Does anyone there actually speak Turkish?" The girl giggled and said, "Yes, wait a minute." The woman who came to the phone barely understood me and put the girl back on the phone to translate. I said, "I know you'll think I'm crazy, but I need to know the meaning of a word." I spelled the word for them. I heard giggling and I was worried...hope it's not a bad word! LOL! The girl came back to the phone and said, "This word is a term of endearment. People call their children this sometimes, even sometimes name them this. It can mean, honey, sweet and/or rose. I asked for the proper pronunciation, thanked her and hung up. By then I was on the floor and the tears were flowing! How cool is it that my God knows me so intimately that He can plan such a treasure hunt for me, to prove to me that His gifts are real and that He wants me to have them...in fact, He had already deposited them in me through His Holy Spirit?!
I believe that my Abba, my Daddy,was telling me that I am dear to Him and that I am His honey sweet rose! I still struggled for awhile with shondalas, until I finally got my brain out of the way and I now have the awesome language of my Father's homeland, Heaven! It flows like silk off my tongue to my Father and it tells an infinite God infinite thoughts and prayers that I can't even comprehend! It is only one of my personal proofs that He is Who He says He is and that I am all He says I am!
I love Him so much and I pray that you will know Him too if you don't already and that you'll know Him BETTER if you already do!
Peace, love and joy in the Holy Spirit!
Teresa
(P.S. - Just to let you know, many people get this language spontaneously. Not everyone is as hard headed as me!)
