Through the Hands of a Sewer

My team and I set out to pray for a business and for healing over the owner who was a friend of our hosts. When we got there, our host had each girl on my team touch a different part of her arms and pray over her. Our host said “you guys have power you don’t even know about and I know the Lord is going to reveal it to you today”.

This stood out to me because I have found myself feeling incapable and inadequate to be here many times. Ministry is hard- Some days it looks like manual labor and other days it is speaking to someone you know nothing about and just hoping that your words touch their heart. But something that the Lord has been revealing to me is that when I don’t know what words to say, the Holy Spirit intercedes on my behalf and can use me as a vessel of life to those around me.

We have been talking a lot about spiritual gifts since arriving at training camp in Gainesville, and even more since getting to Costa Rica. I have never truly understood spiritual giftings and have never known what mine was. A few nights ago, we did a worship night with some other teams on our squad & one of the leaders began to pray prophecy over me. 

In all honesty, I have always thought prophecy was telling the future or crazy visions (this is part of it but not all of it). It has never been something I thought I could have or thought to pray for. When our leader was praying for me, he was praying that I would hear from the Lord so clearly and that His spirit would give me words for people and that the Lord would use me to communicate what people need to hear from Him. It turns out, this is prophecy and has been something I have prayed for for a LONG time. 

Each day at ministry here I keep finding myself praying that the Lord would communicate to me where to go or who to speak to and that He would use me to communicate to others, but I never even realized this was prophecy. 

As we prayed over her, I kept hearing the Lord tell me to pray for healing in her wrists and her hands. We continued to pray over her business as a whole. Walking around her shop and the backroom where she hand-sewed the clothing being sold out front, I felt the Lord tell me that she was believing for people to walk alongside her in this business.

So, that is what I began praying for. I prayed for a team that would some alongside her and help her to make her business as prosperous as possible- I continued praying that her joy and light would not grow dim in her discouragement and that she would be able to share the love of Jesus with this team that would walk with her. 

Later, we were talking with her and she mentioned that she was searching for a team to walk with her and that she was feeling discouraged because of some tension in relationships in the store. I asked her a few questions and she explained to us that the team she has helping her were unbelievers and it was causing them to not want to come out and help her. She told us how discouraging it was and how she hoped that they would come to know the love of Jesus and that they would walk with her and help her to grow her business.

I shared with her that I had felt that was something she was searching for and that I had been praying for that and was believing it for her. I told her the things that the Lord had revealed to me when praying and encouraged her that she would have a team around her who loves and supports her. 

My teammate had also been praying over her wrists, fingers, and hands and she asked if she was having any pain there. Then, the woman shared with us that she had been experiencing a lot of pain from hours of working with her hands and that it has been slowing her down and hindering her process.

We decided to ask if we could pray for her again, but more specifically for her hands and her wrists. She invited us to do so and we prayed for full mobilization in her wrist and for strength from the Lord to continue working so that she could provide for herself. Later in the night, our host told us that they had talked and she told her that she is no longer having pain in her wrists and that she felt so encouraged by us.

The Lord is a healer. He healed all throughout the Bible and He is still healing today.  He wants to use us as vessels to heal and bring joy back to people who might find themselves discouraged. I think it is such an honor that we get to join God in what He is already working on and doing in the lives of the people around us.

Meet him through the hands of the sewer and let Him reveal His goodness to you.