A Look Back at Where it All Began

God’s Call To Make His Love Known

 

By Pastor Lori Chisholm

 

 

“Healing Rain” was birthed when God spoke this truth into my heart:

 

“My women do not know how precious they are to Me.”  

 

At the time God imparted this concept to me, I thought that if I just made women aware of what God had revealed to me, they’d  pick it right up.  I was surprised to discover, however, that most women don’t do that.  They don’t pick it right up. I began to see that this was something that was going to take a lot more than I thought it would.  

 

I knew that Jesus really wanted me to share this important truth, but I quickly realized that it would require perseverance, and probably some rejection as well.

 

The Lord began to nudge me to take a look back at my own life, to see how He had helped me to know and believe this life-changing truth for myself.

 

I grew up in a home with really great parents who were very encouraging. I didn’t have a bad upbringing, but during my teen and young adult years, I made a lot of really poor decisions. My choices were my own choices, and not out of rebellion of any kind.  I worked hard to hide what I was doing from my parents, because I didn’t want them to hurt, and I didn’t want them to be embarrassed by the things I was doing.  I was always trying to protect them.  

 

The decisions I made were simply out of pure stupidity.  I was believing the lies that the enemy was throwing at me, rather than the truth of God, and my choices reflected what I was listening to and believing.  Even though I knew the love of my mom and dad, I was still choosing to hear and believe lies that affected me greatly.  I praise God, that He never gave up speaking His truth into my heart, and never quit pursuing me with His love.

 

A big moment in my faith journey came one day when I was just 15 years old.  I was looking down the row of lockers at Loveland High, and  I saw a young man I had never met.  The Lord said:  “That’s your husband.”  I thought, Really?  Really?  I was very perplexed that God had said that, but I knew.  I knew that I knew that I knew….and the reason was:  I wasn’t in the habit of hearing God back then, and yet I knew instinctively within me, that it was God talking to me.  I then went on to make more foolish choices, however, but God still didn’t give up on me.  

 

Over time, I started to believe Him more, and began to develop a relationship with Him.  I came to know the redemption of God, and received forgiveness for my sins, but in my ignorance I started trying to make up for where I had messed up.  I didn’t understand God’s grace or His love, so I was trying to work to make God proud of me.  I was smart enough to know that I couldn’t hide from God, even though I had been successful in hiding things from my parents. And Jesus, in His great love, just kept after me.

 

I was walking as a Christian as best I knew how.  Mike and I were married by then, (yes, what the Lord spoke into me at age 15 did come to pass), but I still did not understand who I was in Christ.  

 

And then there came a day…...there came a moment…..when God’s love just overwhelmed me, and it overwhelmed me to the point that my life has never been the same.   

 

I was in my house, all by myself.  I had been going to church for years, and years, and years by this time.  I was walking out what I believed was my Christian walk, with all good intentions, but something changed that night. 

 

The only way I can explain it is that I “experienced” God’s love.   I fell on my knees, and I was so overwhelmed by the love of the Father….and  I knew…. I knew I had never experienced a love like this.  It didn’t come from a human being.  It came from the spirit of the Living God who overwhelmed me, and I knew in that moment:  

 

Oh, my gosh, everybody should know this love,

because this is a love like no other love!

This is amazing!

 

So then you fast forward to when God said: “My women don’t know how precious they are to Me, and I want them to know.”   By the grace of God I did know how precious I was to the Lord.  I knew His love in the depths of my being, and I knew that Jesus was calling me to share what I had discovered.

 

The Lord then took me directly to the book of John in the Bible, and He taught me about John.  As the Lord walked with me through the book of John, what He revealed to me was that John understood that love. He really “got it.”  He grasped it at a level that all the other disciples didn’t.  It wasn’t that it wasn’t available to the others, but John knew something before the rest of them did. They eventually got there….but John….John had something. He had a knowing.  He had a revelation of that love.

 

God never withheld from the first disciples, and He has never withheld from any of us. The revelation of that love which John discovered, and God overwhelmed me with so many years ago, is what He wants to get to all of His children.  God has given us the “call” and the privilege to speak forth and say:  “There’s another way to know The Lord, and it’s different… and it’s intimate.  It’s a love that will change your life!”

 

God said: “We’re going to have Healing Rain.”  

 

Therefore when Healing Rain was birthed, it was all based on: “My women don’t know how precious they are to Me, and I want them to know.”  There was a desperation, and an urgency that I kept getting from God.  He kept repeating:

 

“I want My women to know how precious they are to Me.”  

 

Healing Rain has been given the “mantle”, so to speak, of equipping and encouraging women to discover that love, to develop and walk in a relationship of true intimacy with the Lord, and to pass that revelation on to others.

 

There is a walk with God that each and every person was intended to have 

...the experience of God’s love.  

 

Whether it is completely new to someone, or something that they have walked in for a very long time, it is always an ongoing journey of growing ever deeper in that love.  We do this by keeping a teachable spirit, by constantly going to the Father,  and by disciplining ourselves to listen only His voice.  

 

It’s in discovering how precious we are to Him,  yielding to His guidance, receiving His love, pouring it out…..and going back for more, that we learn to walk in that love.  

 

The depth and intimacy of His love is limitless….

and living in that love, changes everything!