The story takes place eighteen years ago

I was a guest in a house. And the head of the house was not American. So, when his toilet stopped working it was an unthinkable humiliation. Earlier, I had made an off-color joke that there’s always one bathroom in a house where there’s more than three toilets that’s broken. So, when it broke, he accused me of having cursed it and being an enemy of his family. So, I felt like the functionality of the toilet was personal.

I had never prayed over something to be fixed before. I believed God wanted me to pray over it, though, because he and his wife professed that in the length of time living in that house there was never a plumping problem. And I thought, “No, God does not humiliate his own. This is an opportunity, if I will take it, to prove the power in the name of Jesus.”

I went into the little entryway guest washroom, and I laid hands on the porcelain. I prayed, trying the different styles of every denomination I had ever seen pray in the movies. Finally, I got tired.

I said to the Holy Spirit, “I know you’re real. Tell me how to pray over this toilet, to get it fixed.”

I felt a sort of bounce in my belly, and I heard an enthusiastic reply that began in Spirit so that deeper than words the Holy Spirit said to me that Jesus was jealous that I felt comfortable asking his Holy Spirit to speak plainly for help and assistance, and he wanted to be the one I talk to for help. I was afraid and felt guilty, but my only solution was to not talk at all because I didn’t know what Jesus felt like to talk to, so I felt like I didn’t know to pull his face down from heaven and pay attention to me. The Holy Spirit quickly bubbled in my belly and got my attention so I’d let go of my fear and said it was okay that I was talking to the Holy Spirit, it’s more that I don’t understand the trinity and, even, thinking that Jesus is far away up in heaven not away of me was a flaw in my understanding, but that he is here, because he is the Holy Spirit but that I didn’t know that was his jealousy, but that Jesus wanted me to know that he was very proud that as I thought that he was really far away, up in heaven, somewhere, doing other things, that I would demand of his presence and get my hands on his face and pull him down that I would gain an audience with him. He said he needed more bold prophets like that, it’s simply that I was going to learn how near he is, always. Years before I decided I wanted to write God letters, even though he didn’t have an address. And I would sign the letters, “Always, your daughter Bethany.” And God whispered loudly into my heart, “I’m Always.” And I heard deep inside that he meant he was Always with me, like a good grandpa. In the Kingdom of God, where God teaches his sons who become fathers and grandfathers, grandfathers have a tendency to forsake their reputation for making grandchildren know they are loved. And that’s the idea he gave me, inside the word, “Always.” But there was another idea contained in that moment, that I signed Always, your daughter Bethany, was the beginning of the Holy Spirit building my identity in relationship to God.

And, when the Holy Spirit said I was would learn how near his is, I heard “Always,” and the Holy Spirit said, “Near.” And I heard that I simply can’t communicate the gospel in the name of “Always,” but that I needed to know Jesus is God.

There were a number of emotions during this conversation, too many. And I feared that turning into a muddle of complicated thoughts and feels and worries and wonders would become a blockade between me and the healing of the toilet.

And the Holy Spirit said, “Now, you can know that I am the source of power and not you. So, you will learn that your emotions have nothing to do with it, and never stand in the way.”

Then I heard the Spirit speak to my heart, differently and almost as loud as if standing in the room with me, “Why should I heal the toilet?”

The Spirit made understanding added to me, and moved, first, speaking for me saying the reaction I was meant to have, “You love me? You love me?”

I felt so much joy and awe and fascination that Almighty God loved me.

And the Spirit said, “Now, tell me why I should have compassion on this man’s condition.”

And so, I learned that it had nothing to do with the man or with God’s wants towards the man, that the relationship in development was between God and I. And God was asking me about how I felt. So, because I had a reaction to people and circumstances in my life, I was “calling” my Dad to update him on what just happened and what I just saw. Because the emotion was so big, I had to tell someone. And then, I got to ask him to fix it because I wanted it fixed. And because God was developing my relationship, he didn’t just rush into healing but wanted to hear my answer to the question, “why do you have compassion on him, so that I should have compassion on him?”

I felt like it had to be impressive, like up to the standard of Jesus’s compassion. But I didn’t know what that would be. And I felt like the Holy Spirit said, “Impress me.” And I felt like I had no idea what compassion was or what truly qualified for God’s compassion. I was scared. And I didn’t know how to think because all I recalled was a temporary emotion for the man and for me.

So, the Holy Spirit helped me by asking me to remember the moment I had felt compassion, “What did you see?”

It was his facial expression, pained. And I thought I saw a ripple of that mix of fear and sadness called humiliation. And I told the Holy Spirit what I saw.

Then the Holy Spirit asked me, “What did you feel, then?”

And I thought I felt… (The Holy Spirit stepped in told me to amplify my language, when I had been taught to downplay my emotions to make them sound less overwhelming lest I get accused of being “emotional” which is an accusation of being irrational, which leads to a person believing all they feel is dismissible and/or all emotion impairs right judgement and thus all emotion deserves to be chucked out with the daily rubbish, instead I was too empower my emotional experience with an empowered language, and that’s how I “get God’s attention.”) So, I was going to say, “I felt sadden,” but then I said, “I felt desperate over the man’s condition.”

Suddenly, urgency and determination focused my mind on God: no fear, just clarity, and fervency. That’s good fruit.

The Holy Spirit said, “Now, tell me why I need to help him, and why should I help me right now, and not later, and not with the aid of a plumber. Bring your case before Almighty God in the courts of heaven. Make it tight (assurance moved into my heart that I was going to win my case simply for the sake that I’m of the Daughter of Judge, also all the court loves the Father/judge and so all the court loves the children, too, and so one is going to be upset when I win, but the Father wants me preparing for a day when I face ferocious enemies against souls and he will teach me the language of heavenly court so that my voice will motivate with impressive vernacular; and I heard a whisper, ‘I want this for you,’ I felt fear and honor, simultaneously; but I was supposed to try my very hardest to make a tight argument before Him.) So, what would impress God?”

I tried, saying basically, “Although this man is my enemy and would rather I stay in a gutter than under is roof, I do not have compassion on him as an extension of his lack of kicking me out of his house. That is not the source of my compassion. In this case, his good graces to withhold his desire to see me stranded or dead is negligible. My compassion is this, that he must remain in this environment. He is a weak man to the loss of any, little bit, of reputation, and is weak to the fear of accusations that lead to loss of privileges. I do not envy him his condition or his relationship to his chosen environment. His beautiful love for his wife does not impact my desire to see him helped. Instead, it is this which has moved me to call on you for immediate action and help, he is in deep distress, so that his humiliation has reached a place too deep for me to stomach. I am not willing to see a man be humiliated into the depth of himself. It’s too much hurting. And I don’t want him to suffer that pain. He was not done anything against me to deserve that punishment. It’s too much. I want mercy for his condition. Please, Father, I have compassion on this man for his state of humiliation; I don’t want him humiliated. The humiliation is caused from the action of an outside influence being called to enter his home and require a repair. For that reason, I believe that the act of compassion is required to redeem and set in reverse the humiliation, which he now endures, so that in order for the healing of his humiliation to occur the toilet must be mended, immediately and without outside help of a called on plumber, either one in secret or one with a business license, which would become part of the public record and cause for indisputable and lasting, possibly repeating or revolving humiliation by wicked community members who would enjoy laughing at the wealthy man that they think deserves to be “brought down a peg.” I ask you – I do not want this to happen against this man or his family. Because of the evil in this man’s community, I ask for a radical healing of the entire toilet, in this moment, without any form of delay. Amen. Thank you for your time. I mean, Amen. Your will be done, but I’m serious, and I want it, now.”

The Spirit whispered, “Stick with focusing on me growing in as much compassion as you have – I will give up to the measure of compassion you have – focus on maxing out your own compassion and I will grow a gift the size of which is equally to your compassion.”

“What if I don’t have enough?” I asked.

“Well, I guess you’re going to have to keep trying,” he responded.

The Holy Spirit repeated my word, “Desperate.”

And I thought of all the most intense words I could think of, “I am distraughtly overemotional – overreactive; I mean, I am desperate to see… I am empowered by my compassion… my compassion feels deep and wide so that I will not easily forget my pain and sadness over this moment leading to worry, year after year over his condition, and I will consider it a debt against me”

The Holy Spirit said, “I will not consider it a debt against you, but it will be on record as my vengeance in which I chose to validate my daughter who came into his house a prophet in innocence who was grossly mistreated, so that my compassion on you will have motivated me to humiliate and discredit and shame the professing and working-against enemy of my chosen daughter in Christ Jesus, who loves me, and his devoted to me, and on whom I shower gifts, eternally, so that my wrath will be atoned for against this man.”

I said, “So I shouldn’t bring up myself.”

I felt God standing tall against my enemy and the Spirit said, if I wanted him to express compassion where God’s want is, first, to extend a judgment against his enemy who hurt the one he loves, which is you [me] you have to build a wall of a tsunami of compassion to motivate him to change his mind against his enemy.”

At this point, I didn’t really know how much I was hurt by this man’s rejection, but it was lasting effects for years as it almost robbed me of my loved of travelling and threatened to rob me of my trust in God. But I didn’t know that, at the time. But God knew.

Listening, I felt loved. And I did not feel challenged. And I did not feel that God was being overly punishing. And I feared, but it was just in an overwhelmed, so of way. And the Spirit said, “Do you want to have compassion?”

My first I thought was, “I want to heal the toilet and validate my name.”

And he said, “You don’t know how much of an enemy his is, because he hates me, he has hated you, because you came professing in my name. So that his stubbornness will prevent his mind from accepting that validation you hope for from seeing the toilet healed.”

“When did I profess you?” I asked, because it wasn’t right away that I mentioned Jesus by name.

“In Spirit,” he said and brought to mind that I had immediately claimed the guest suite in Jesus Name, which the family felt, immediately and hated because the family is spiritually allergic to Peace. So, they felt the release of authority of a part of the house as a robbery of property and treated me as though I had robbed them of a part of their house. And that is how it was all counted to me in the courts of heaven as being as right as an out loud, verbal profession of faith in the Name of Jesus, even though I was prevented from immediately announcing the gospel within the hearing of the family.

For a second I felt torn, and I doubted my want to have compassion on my enemy after God said he was more of an enemy than I knew.

But I thought, “Well Jesus said we should love our enemies. And I want to be like you. It’s a greater evil done against me if this man’s hatred removes my want to resemble Jesus.”

God said, “The scripture also said, ‘pray for your enemies.’ I will agree to this act of compassion, rescuing an undeserving man from a condition of his deserving, as I see it fit to punish him (reminding my mind of good-justice which can lead to repentance) if you will agree to pray for him to be blessed into salvation, that he might learn of my name and be redeemed.”

That I thought was too heavy to ask for, and I thought it was too heavy a thing for me to carry. And I feared how much help I was going to have to be in this man’s walk to Jesus. And I doubted that I could carry it very far, at all. And I thought I had gotten myself into too much with this request.

All I had wanted was this man’s toilet fixed so I could rejoice.

Suddenly, I felt this man’s condition was serious. I heard Jesus press against my heart, and he asked me, “What is my purpose?”

And I said, “But I can’t help, this man hates me.”

And he said, “He only hates me.”

And I said, “I don’t know what to do.”

And he said, “How many times have you prayed? Have you never blessed anyone?” And his phrase made me think that he was telling me that I had blessed people in my prayers, before.

As far as I knew I had never healed anyone or saved a soul, though, but I thought of my friends and heard him add to me, “I taught you how you to bless. What do you when you’re angry with your friends and I tell you to bless them, one my one?”

And I recalled.

And he said, “Bless him like one of your friends, when they are treating you with hatred and slander and rumor and accusation and aggression.” And I felt compassion like a spring of clean, cold, glacier water bubble up. And I didn’t care about the bad behavior of my friends because I knew enough about why they behaved badly: I knew about their families, their insecurities and the society in which they live, which is filled with lies and advice that hurts, in the end, but disguised as freedom.

And Jesus said, “I know about him. And I know about what lies are disguised as righteousness, so that all his best efforts are failing, and he can’t discern why; what you see as a bad person, I can see as a person trying hard to do right without a good manual and lacking an appropriate teacher. I want to be this man’s teacher. Will you bless him, for me. That I might meet him?”

“Where?” I asked, thinking that I was supposed to bless him to a specific disposition or location.

“I will meet him in my word. Did you know he has a bible?” he answered.

“Nope,” I responded.

He spoke, “He does because his wife belongs to me. And I had her buy him one. It’s in his bedroom. Bless him to pick it up and read it, that I might be his interpreter by my Spirit.”

I agreed. So, I prayed. And I blessed, with every word that I felt like the Holy Spirit had placed on my tongue to repeat.

Then it was time to heal the toilet.

The Holy Spirit asked me if I still wanted to rescue this man from his condition, because if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be counted against me. And Jesus would use the prayer I had said and finish his work. Instead of compassion I felt a burdened heart mixed with frustration.

But I wanted to be a healer.

And I didn’t want this man’s behavior to change me.

So, I decided that if God cares about my wants, then I wanted this, stupid, toilet fixed for my sack and not for the man’s sack.

And the Holy Spirit moved inside me, speaking for me, “Because you love me? Because you love me?” And I felt more love manifest than I ever knew I could feel. And I was in awe of God loving me.

So, I placed my hand on the toilet and said, “What now.”

The Spirit said, “Because you search for me in feeling, I am going to give you a sensation. It’s the sensation of my power building up. And it will give you a cue. When you get the cue, that means I have built up of the power needed to heal the toilet, this instant. Then you should say, ‘Be healed.’ And I will fix the toilet.”

While the feeling was building the Spirit kept my mind on how much God loves me, and I was being filled with his love for me. I didn’t really think. I listened to the work of the of the Holy Spirit and the cue was a sensation of feeling maximum warm all over, like that perfect moment of having absorbed the heat from a beach-sized bonfire, just before the moment of getting overheated, which would make me turn around to have the bonfire heat my back when the cool night air would mellow the heat off my face. And I felt that sensation of a subway gently stopping before the doors open. And the Holy Spirit said, “We’re ready.” And so I said, “Be healed.” And I heard a click from inside the toilet. Then I felt what I know as “faith.” And this confidence made me test the toilet by flushing it. It worked.

The man heard the flushing water and came running and yelling, “Did you poop or pee?”

I walked out of the bathroom and said, “It’s fixed.”

He yelled, “It’s broken! Did you poop or pee? Because I’m going to have to tell the plumber.”

I said, “You can call the plumber if you want to, but it’s fixed. Go try.”

He yelled, “I’m not to be so stupid as to add more poop into an already broken toilet. I’m not stupid like you!”

I said, “I only flushed water to test it. It’s healed. I prayed.”

His wife said, “I did hear her praying. She’s been in there about an hour.”

I said, “Go, just flush it with the water. It’ll work, I promise.”

He got made about the ‘I promise’ statement. But reluctantly went in and flushed it.

He came out and declared, “It worked. But it was broken before.”

I said, “I know, that’s why I prayed. I believed you. But I ask God for a miracle for you, in Jesus name. And Jesus decided to fix it, for you.”

He got mad at me for responding and said he had been talking to his wife, adding some accusations that I had been working against his relationship with her, this entire time. I walked away.

Once in the guest suite, I breathed in the peace of Jesus. And he asked me to pray for him, again. But this time the prayer was not for the man, that was enough, but it was a prayer for me because I needed extra washing, inside, since Jesus had told me and brought it to my attention how bad this man had treated me, and its knowledge I can’t unknow, and after that knowledge was added to me, I would be very aware of his bad behavior. So, I prayed and blessed the man and forgave him. And I fell asleep without dinner because I didn’t want to leave the room.

The next day, the man decided to drive the family into town, and me included, because I wanted to be trusted in the house, alone. While he drove, we passed a cemetery. He asked me a question regarding American views on graveyard, explaining that he wanted to know if I had similar views as his wife held. So, I described that people were welcome to visit graveyards as long they don’t step on the grass over a body (since this conversation, I have been to many graveyards which lack spacing so that I can abide by this superstition, and I don’t believe in it anymore.)  After hearing a respect for the dead, he asked me about my experience with Jesus. I shared some thoughts out of the depths of my heavy heart.

I don’t know the rest of his testimony.

But, that was the story of my first healing.

And I learned, this:

• God’s love for the healer is reason enough
• God loves to build up our conversation and thinking skills
• God loves to talk to us
• God builds us up into mighty speakers in his court
• God’s love for us covers flaws while we’re learning
• God will move for our compassion, not just his own
• Jesus will remind us of the need of salvation
• Jesus will carry the heaviness of the burden of saving a soul
• Honestly is all we need
• God’s love in enough for us