BRITISH BAPTIST RECIEVES HOLY LAUGHTER / INNER HEALING

I am a missionary for a Baptist Church. My particular emphasis is to further God's kingdom here in my home town, particularly within youth culture.

15 years ago I was in a pro rock band, we were signed with what was then CBS Records.

The bass player in the band is an old friend of mine, Andy, who is currently working in 'production' and is one of the worship leaders at Holy Trinity, Brompton. A year ago last July when things 'broke out' at HTB, Andy phoned me and said that he wanted to pray for me and could I come up to London to one of HTB's lunch time prayer meetings. In fact he explained that the three prayer times a day that HTB had, morning, lunch and afternoon were all rolling into one and that something extraordinary was happening. He reckoned nobody was getting any work done.

After a little hesitancy on my part and a good deal of insistence on Andy's, I sensed the Lord urging me to go and so I agreed to meet him that very lunch time. All the way to London I sensed that God was going to meet with me. Part of me was scared and the other part was excited. I know London pretty well but unbelievably I got lost coming out of Kensington tube station and literally ran the last two miles to HTB because I was late. All the while God whispered to me that I wasn't going to miss out.

When I finally got there, I rather breathlessly found my way in to a downstairs room that was packed with people half of whom were lying on the floor laughing or crying. Now I'd seen this kind of thing a bit before but it was still a bit of a culture shock seeing it in a respectable Church of England setting.

Quite quickly I saw Andy, he was busy praying for people and presently, he came over and greeted me. I could see the glint of excitement in his eyes as he explained that he couldn't explain or even begin to understand what was happening. All he knew was that God was doing something quite special. Eventually he began to pray for me and quite quickly I keeled over and began to laugh uncontrollably. I felt a little detached, my mind was saying "What is going on?" but my spirit was definitely being engaged.

Shortly, Andy came back to me, having left me to pray for others. he began praying for me again and said that he believed God wished to heal me of a burden of guilt that I had been carrying around subconsciously for 8 years regarding my father's death from cancer and my failure to speak to him at any great depth about Jesus at that time. This was a word of knowledge. Instantly my laughter turned to tears and I wept uncontrollably for about 20 minutes. All the time I knew God was doing a work of inner healing but I couldn't rationalise it.

All in all I guess I was on the deck for around 45 minutes. When I got up, I knew God had met with me in a special way and that something extraordinary was going on. Although I had seen some of what was happening before, I was unprepared for the intensity of the experience.