My Miracle

This is a true story. 

I was at summer camp with my church in 2004. I wasn't able to worship or really get anything out of the messages at camp. I was just to distracted. Not by anything in particular, just kinda everything. Then something happened. 

During the last night, the speaker had already finished and everyone else was worshiping in an extended worship session. I sat down and just asked God what was going on with me. I couldn't figure it out. I could hardly think. I knew I was His as I am now but I felt so distant. Nothing was wrong in my life. Life was great. Good family, good friends. So I asked God what I should pray for. He laid a few things on my heart so I began to pray for friends or family. But then I finally asked God to fix me. To help me with my unbelief because there had been so much of it. I didn't know what else to do. I missed His presence. Then God told me to pray for His peace, and so I did. 

But then there was... silence.  It was only quiet. There was just.... nothing. It was like when your house is completely silent for a long time and suddenly the AC shuts off and you realize what silence is really like. I could still hear the worship going on around me, still see my feet as I stared at the ground. I couldn't move. My soul was muffled. I was frozen in shock of the emptiness. God had remove His presence from me. He was silent. Completely and totally silent. 

I stared at the ground for the last two songs and as people started to leave for their church groups. Many of my friends in my youth group had out their hands on me during those last songs and, though I knew they were praying for me, I still couldn't move. God was still gone. If it wasn't for the slow movement of my chest from my small breaths, my friends probably would have thought I was dead. Eventually we had to leave so I rose, zombily stiff, and slowly walked out toward where our church group was supposed to meet. 

People tried to talk to me but my responses were nothing more than a shrug or a nod. There was still nothing. I made my way to my seat in the other building and sat down. Nothing. 

Everyone began to give testament to what God had shown them or taught them that week or commitments that they had made. I still didn't move. There wasn't anything to move for. In my mind I began to question everything; God, my salvation, life. But I knew the evidence of these things in the past. At one point I thought that I may have been possessed by a demon of some kind. An hour went by. Then Matt, the Youth Pastor, stopped everything and had everyone bow their heads and he prayed. He never said my name but he prayed for God to move through the room and for healing; his hand joining all the others that had been on my back for the past hour of testimonies. There was still nothing. 

After Matt's prayer they went back to doing what they were doing before. A few more testimonies later, I heard something. Not noise, but quiet words in my soul. "I love you," echoed through the void. Then I felt Him. God began to replenish my soul. A song that we had been singing began to play in my head, "Bread of life, come heal my soul, Living water, overflow." Those words began to repeat in my head over and over. God was healing my soul from the hours He left me to myself and for the first time at camp, I worshiped. I didn't sing or move my lips, I simply began to pray those words to God. I could feel my blood start to move again, my eyes began to focus, sounds were no longer muffled, my arms and legs no longer felt frozen, my breath became easier; I was free. Free from absence. 

God did what I asked of Him: He gave me a glimpse of what I would be like without Him. He showed me He was there by showing me what it would be like if He wasn't. He is always there, whether He has the AC on or not.