Changing... (Part 2)

2011-07-04T21:11:00.000+02:00

What is someone supposed to do with a completely new paradigm? How was I to make sense of all this? I wasn't even sure I understood myself anymore. Jesus had just rocked my world, but now that the conference was over, I was expected to not just walk right back into the world I had always known, but I was expected to live there too. This was going to be hard.

While at the conference, I had met sides of Jesus I never knew existed. I didn't want to go back to what I knew before...the works and the striving and always second guessing every little thing I did. Though on the outside the fruit of all that looked okay, the inside of the fruit was really nowhere close to being ripe...and you know when fruit is not ripe, it is either sour or completely flavorless (which pretty much summed up my "saved" life so far).

I wanted to be able to spend time with the Jesus I met at the conference. I had already experienced radical transformation at the conference...I wanted that to take root. I wanted the fruit from that!

So, the journey began. I spent time in the Word of God like never before...I could hardly believe I had missed all this before. I spent time worshipping the Lord...sometimes on my knees, sometimes on my face, sometimes weeping, sometimes laughing, sometimes jumping up and down and dancing, sometimes in solemn reverence...but always full of love and joy and the assurance that Jesus knew me and loved me and never had a reservation about dying on the cross so I could be restored into the presence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I began to attend some more conferences...not seeking "experiences" mind you, but seeking more understanding of Jesus, and healing and deliverance, and truth. I weighed everything I learned and began to see some of that good and ripening fruit I was looking for. At this point, most of the "ripeness" I was seeing was in myself...Holy Spirit cleaning out more of the junk and filling those places with love and truth. Some of the fruit was that my new "automatic" reaction to someone cutting me off in traffic was now speaking grace and blessing over the driver instead of what I used to do before (which I won't even mention).

And the fact that the fruit I was seeing was in myself wasn't a bad or selfish thing at all. I mean, the me I was out in public meant absolutely nothing if that wasn't also the private me. Who you are when you are alone is who you really are...and the alone me and the out-in-public me were finally becoming one in the same person. Joy!!

Plus, people know when someone is not being genuine. Fake sticks out like a sore thumb. Jesus was genuine, and I want to be like Him!

Anyway, so I attended a few more conferences, learning more about the Holy Spirit, healing, deliverance, the nature of the Father, discernment, etc.... I came away from each one both overwhelmed with all I had learned, and awed by the power of God.

In January 2008, less than 8 months after attending the Voice of the Prophets conference that so rocked me, beginning this whole transformation journey, I traveled to Pennsylvania to attend a meeting. After a series of fantastic events that could only have been orchestrated by an all-knowing, all-powerful, loving and very personal Father God, I knew very clearly what the Holy Spirit was telling me to do next. Quit my job, move, sell my house and go back to school...

Changing... (Part 1)

2011-06-19T19:01:00.000+02:00

Ok. So, I'm in the process of completely changing my blog. Why? Because over the past few years my life has completely changed. Sooooooooo, I'm naturally thinking that maybe my blog should change too.

(...and it's not like I kept up with it all that well in the past anyway. But, I'm hoping and praying that maybe that part will change too. Oy!! So, maybe this will be a new beginning of sorts...or worth a try at least.)

So...now you're probably asking, "Ok, Beckie...what's changed?" I'll tell you...

About 4 years ago I was happily working as an Medical ICU nurse at a teaching hospital in a University town. I was going to a church, had bought my first home and was living a pretty good Christian life. I was walking the walk, talking the talk and generally an all-around good girl. Except that something was missing. I didn't realize it at the time, but something was missing. There had to be more. I didn't know what it was, but I knew there had to be more.

Some friends of mine from church had been going to some meetings and wanted me to come to one with them. We met in the mornings and prayed together as intercessors, so we were pretty open with each other and trusted one another...so, I knew I could trust them. However, me being me at the time made excuse after excuse to not go. (Can't get time off work, didn't have the money, who would take care of my house? You get the picture.)

Finally they said, "Beckie, we don't think you understand...you're coming with us!" And, wouldn't you know it...suddenly I had the time and the money and my house was just fine! So, off I went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I had no idea what was going to happen. None. Zero. I was clueless.

This was a conference called Voice of the Prophets put on by an organization called Global Awakening. I had no idea what a prophet was, I hadn't heard of any of the speakers, and I had never seen so many Christians gathered together in one place. I had also never heard the Bible explained quite so clearly, never experienced such amazing worship and never seen such genuinely loving believers as during that conference.

I spent part of the conference trying to find the heresy in what was being taught. I mean, I didn't want to be decieved you know. But, I couldn't. Why? Because God kept convicting my heart. I didn't even know that God spoke to people today, yet I kept hearing His voice, deep inside me saying, "Pay attention. What you just heard is truth. Search My scriptures. Search your heart. Search My heart!"

I scoured the scriptures...not understanding much of what I read. But, still, it was undeniable...God loves me and He speaks to His children today. The more I read, the more I realized God was explaining things to me in scripture...HE was helping me to understand it. Finally, I had opened my heart to Him, and He was filling it!

This was the MORE I had been looking for!

Let me clarify. The more was NOT the conference. The more was God's own heart! Instead of trying to be a good Christian girl, I had found HIM!! I had found God! And, He loved me, and He spoke to my heart and began to fill me with His perfect love. The beginning of "never to be the same ever again" was here!

While I was there, God found some wounded areas inside of me that desperately needed His healing touch. Well...He knew they were there all along, I just finally relinquished my control over them and let Him do something about them! FREEDOM!!!

The God I had experienced had power...the power to eradicate and heal years of woundedness and scars. The God I had experienced loved me...and I was beginning to understand that love. The God I had experienced healed people. I had never experienced God like that back home. I was changed...never to be the same again.

Beckie Bagby

Changing... (Part 2)

Changing... (Part 1)