Charlotte July 29, 2008

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.

– Corrie Ten Boom –

 

hey there, this is charlotte i thought i’d tell you a little about myself, so here we go…

the best way to describe me is…well…i’m not who i was. i’m a “pk” (pastor’s kid) and i have been saved for about 14 years. but i didn’t really know God like a friend, a father; much less loveHim. how can you love someone you don’t know? when i was around 12 God started talking to me, telling me what His heart was. now at that time i was having dreams and this weird urge to pray alot about the things God was showing me. i talked to mom and dad about what i was feeling, and they said that God was calling me intercede with Him for the things on His heart. i can remember weeping for family members that didn’t know Him; something i would have never cared about until then. well God began to work in my dad’s ministries also, showing him that He really does want to talk to us; He also began sharing His heart’s desires for our town.

as i became a teenager i allowed rebellion in my heart and started doubting everything i knew. i went through a very rough time, when i though i was right, no matter who said what. but, because of His grace and goodness, He kept calling me, asking me to open the door to Him again and welcome His authority in my life. the Lord be praised that i did eventually see where i was, repented, and began to seek Him again. this was the pivotal point in my life where i had a love encounter with God that completely changed my life and fueled my hunger for intimacy with Him. soon after i got involved with prophetic outreaches, which is basically hearing God’s heart for a stranger in wal-mart or the grocery store and tell them what you felt that He said. when on the outreaches we also prayed for any sick person that let us pray for them…and God moved in miraculous ways!

i can remember my first night going on an outreach…we prayed before we got to wal-mart and we just asked Him which aisles He wanted us to go down, and someone felt that God wanted to heal someones leg tonight, so we wrote everything we heard down and went inside. after a period of walking around the grocery section, we saw the person God had told us about…a woman being pushed in a wheelchair with a cast on her leg. it was perfect…He set us up! we approached her as nonchalantly as possible under the circumstances and asked her what happened to her leg. she told us that she had fallen off a horse and broken/fractured her leg and was in great pain. we asked if we could pray for her, and she said yes. so we got on our knees around the wheelchair in the dairy section at wal-mart and asked God to show His love and glory to this woman and her boyfriend (who was pushing the wheelchair). we could feel the fire of God coming through our hands into that broken leg, and we asked her if she felt any different. she felt a little better! well that wasn’t what God said, He wanted to completely her, so we prayed again and this time we asked her if would try to do something she couldn’t have done. so she tried walking, but it still hurt, so we prayed one more time and then she started walking around! she suddenly started crying and we asked what was wrong and she told us that God had healed something she didn’t tell us, where the crutches were was sore, but God already knew and healed that too! so after that i had no doubt that God was real or if He loved us…it was so obvious!

as you know all things come to an end and God told us to move to another town. that brings me to the most recent “falling away”. about four months ago dad had a repentance service at our new church. i thought i had repented, and was “alright” with God. but my mom pulled me aside after the service and told me what the Lord had shown her: that i had stopped pressing into Him for His heart and that had allowed myself to get lukewarm. and she was exactly right. i did some heavy duty praying and repenting and came back to my first love, Jesus. i’m not saying i’m perfect or anything near that, because i have my days when i’m as much of a jerk as the next guy, but His love continues to draw me in.

that’s my story…what’s yours?

 

 

 

 

 

a few unnecessary but fun details about my life: i love to sing. i love chocolate. i love watching movies. i have a ipod nano third generation that i use all the time. i’ve had braces twice. my childhood dream job: being a chef on food network. i still sleep with my penguin plushy i got at seaworld at least five years ago. i love music. i’m home schooled. my slogan: “Jesus. chocolate. brandon heath.” i only listen to christian music. i’m obsessed with taking pictures every where i go. my bffl’s: jay, jessica and grant