I honestly have no idea how to write this out on paper to convey the magnitude of this experience in my life. I’m going to start with this: as a team, we went to evangelize in the town square of Ponce, Puerto Rico. My group split off from the others and prayed at the beginning for anything the Holy Spirit wanted to show us. I saw green and purple and heard bells, similar to the ones on top of store doors that jingle when you walk in.
Through the prayer walk I was walking and feeling kind of discouraged because no one stood out to me and nothing really made me feel the overwhelming power of the Spirit… until we walked down an alley with shops on either side. My leader Meg and I both saw a dress shop and Meg decided we were going in. We entered and I felt drawn to the back of the shop so I almost ran there, where I saw a man in a salmon-colored shirt and I knew I needed pray for him. I didn’t know what he needed prayer for yet so I walked around a bit to see if the Holy Spirit would tell me. I walked into an aisle and open my eyes to see row upon row of green dresses. I knew I needed to pray for that man.
So I walked up to the counter with our translator Jonathan and I asked to speak to the man behind the counter. The other men were both confused and had no idea what was going on so I informed them, “My name is Sahara and I’m a missionary from the USA, and is there any way I can pray for him?”
There was a big deal behind the counter and Jonathan didn’t tell us all of it, but the man said no to our prayers because he was Muslim. So we left and went outside. Meg stopped our whole group and had me pray for that man outside the shop and that’s when I saw a bell on the door. Since the doors were open I hadn’t noticed before. So I prayed for the man in the salmon shirt outside his store and afterwards, I got the worst feeling of brokenness and confusion I’ve ever felt. I cried (A LOT). I could feel the pain and hurt in his heart.
Later I found out it was a wave of discernment, which is feeling other people’s emotions through the Holy Spirit. I felt so broken I cried for most of the day.
God puts people in our paths to challenge us, to change us, and to grow us. This man certainly did change, challenge, and help me grow more than he may ever know, but God does everything for a reason. Even if I don’t know the reason yet, there is definitely a reason.
