This is part 5 of a series of blogs about my first 3 years at Washington
and Lee University. Make sure to read
the first 4 posts before this one, which picks up halfway through my second year! Also,
I realize a few parts might be a bit confusing because I tried not to use many
names. Just bear with me and rejoice in what God has done!
Second semester of sophomore year,
God really began to stir things up. On
the first weekend after Christmas break, one of my friends brought a
freshman named Joy to the Prayer Room.
She cried through the entire meeting but finally explained that God had spoken
to her over break and asked her to give Him more of her life. At the start of the year, she had been drawn
to some of the worldly influences of college but now she wanted to return to
her first love. And she did. With all of her heart. She came to the Prayer Room the following
night and has come pretty much every night since. She was the first to truly commit to joining
us in daily worship and prayer and gave Chris and I renewed energy
to continue on.
The following weeks were equally
exciting. People were getting saved
right and left, and they had powerful testimonies. One friend heard God tell her to read a
specific verse in a book of the Bible that she had never heard of. It struck her heart, and she showed up in the
Prayer Room as those of us already inside were praying for her salvation. Surprised by her sudden entry, we
transitioned back to worship as she sat on the floor, her black, mascara-laden
tears soaking the pages of her Bible. I
didn’t realize I was staring until Chris’ chapstick hit me in the back of the
head, causing me to turn around and see him frantically motioning at me to pray with
her. Moments later, I held her hands as
she committed her life to Jesus.
Just two days later, her testimony
helped her best friend to recognize that she also needed a real and personal relationship with the Lord. The Holy Spirit was
clearly gripping her heart, and that Sunday, I felt God leading me to sit behind
her in church. I don't remember a word of the sermon, but I do remember praying hard for her salvation, and rejoicing in tears when, at the end of the service, she prayed with our pastor to
receive Christ.
A few weeks later, both of them were baptized at Jordan's Point, and at their baptism, I really felt the
Spirit of God and was touched by how He had answered our prayers. It was a beautiful time, and Chris, Joy, and I
were encouraged to keep praying for salvation on campus.
Soon after that, we began praying
for a freshman girl who someone else had asked us to pray for. We’d never met her, but we lifted her up each
night in prayer. A week or two later, I
was inspired to lead a Spanish Bible study.
It only lasted three weeks, but in those weeks, two Spanish-speaking students
started coming to church with us, and the very girl who we’d been praying for
showed up. She didn’t speak Spanish but
asked to join our Bible study, and not even realizing that she was the one we’d
been praying for, I gladly welcomed her.
In the following months, she got involved with our church and also
committed her life to Christ. It was a crazy time!
Yet in the day to day, prayer still seemed dry. While God's hand was clearly moving in our lives and on our
campus, the three of us in the Prayer Room often didn't really feel it. Worshiping and praying for over an hour every night can be monotonous if you lose sight of the love behind the sacrifice. But we persevered, and even during our prayer meetings, it certainly wasn’t always
boring. Sometimes friends came in to
pray with us, and occasionally, leaders of
other campus ministries joined in to pray during our meetings. And sometimes we really felt the presence of the Lord as we prayed for certain things or rejoiced over the salvation of our friends and prayed for more to follow.
But perhaps the most dramatic night was when we attempted to rescue a wounded baby
bird that we found next to its dead sibling right outside the Prayer Room door …Well, I suppose in reality, it was Joy that did the rescuing while I stayed at a distance, still horrified
by the dead bird on the doorstep, and Chris tried to calm me down. But either way it was quite an ordeal.
Eventually the school year ended,
but since all three of us were staying in Lexington over the summer, we
continued our prayer meetings through June and July. More people than usual were able to come in
the summer months, and we began to develop a bit more community amongst prayer
warriors. But summer flew by, and I was
soon cleaning up the Prayer Room for the year, which took forever, not because of all the posters I had to take down, but mostly because of the baby snake that I encountered underneath one of the shelves. What an ordeal... But anyway, that was the end of sophomore
year. Of course, many other exciting
things happened that year, but that’s a story for another day. So after July, I went home for the
rest of the summer with half of my college years now behind me. But God certainly wasn’t finished with me
yet. He's still chipping away that this little piece of clay.
To be continued…
 |
| Joy, Chris, and I |
No comments:
Post a Comment