The Woo.

It’s the morning after my first miracle and I feel like I should have a Christmas ornament that says “Baby’s First Miracle” or something, do they make those?

People are so excited for me. But I’m having trouble celebrating with them because my mind starts to wander into a neighborhood called doubt. I’m trying to understand everything that happened and soon rationalization kicks in.

What if that woman moved her leg in a way that it only looked like it grew but it really didn’t?

And I didn’t feel that woman’s backbone situation beforehand so I can’t verify if that really was straightened out and healed.

And that other lady with the knee with all the popping and stuff….maybe it’s like when I crack my knuckles and she was just being polite and it wasn’t healed.

And the gold dust …. it was the end of November, maybe somebody had come through with a Christmas tree or a box of ornaments and glitter shook out everywhere and we didn’t notice before. Only thing is, I couldn’t figure out how it was all over the piano and on people’s arms…THAT I couldn’t make sense of. And that worried me.

And then this thought came in "oh dear God what if I am with some kind of group of spiritual con-men and someone was going around sprinkling it everywhere?” That idea bummed me out and excited me at the same time. It would be soul crushing but also it would be a great story to tell if I busted them.

The point is. I’m definitely sticking around now. I need to figure this out.

I want it to be real because it would be the most incredible experience of my life. (little did I know that it actually wouldn’t be…because more was coming)

Now something that I had been realizing on this trip is that all the people at the churches and the people I was traveling with, they really LOVED Jesus. Like really loved Jesus BIG TIME. Talking best friends in love style. When for me, Jesus was just this person I felt like I was supposed to love. And honestly more of a "get out of jail" free card in case I got in trouble.

It was never really about love. Or a friendship. It was more of a mystery I was trying to solve.

If anything, he was this spiritual deity that I felt I was disappointing all the time.

And so I had this moment where I admitted to Jesus “Look I don’t really love you. I’m actually just not that into you. Can you help me out here? Can you help me fall in love with you?” I prayed this prayer the day before I saw that Lady’s leg grow.

The day after that, I went to Bangkok.

In the first 4 days of being in Bangkok people kept coming up to me and giving me gifts. They would say “God told me to give you this.”

Have you ever taken that test “The Five Love Languages” - if you haven’t, do it, it’s best thing for relationships ever.

I took mine years ago, I discovered that my love language was gifts and surprises. Which made sense. I LOVE TO GIVE GIFTS. If you are a close friend of mine I have given you some kind of thoughtful memento situation. From Golden Girls Hoodies (shout out to my college roommates) to magnets with a quote & picture of you on them (shout out to the manor) to bullet necklaces (shout out to the X Men.) It fills me with joy to give you a gift. I love to listen to you and watch you and figure it out a way to give you something that makes you feel seen and known.

BUT if you give me a gift. Like, you take the time to think of me and gift me something I AM YOURS. It makes my heart melt.

So here I am in Thailand and all these strangers are coming up to me and they are giving me gifts. And they aren’t just being sweet Thai people honoring me as a guest in their country (because they do that), they are saying specifically “God told me to give you this.”

And it all started with this young girl named Belle.

Belle was in high school and she had been coming to the worship nights we were doing all over Thailand. We didn’t know each other but she had seen me in the church.

Belle is a gorgeous girl, we’re talking like a real live Princes Jasmine except she was Thai instead of Middle Eastern.

She had been working hard all summer making and selling t-shirts. She had earned a tiny Thai fortune for a young girl and one day she came up to me and put a wad of bhat (Thai Cash) in my hand.

Me “What’s going on here?”

Her “God told me to give you this”

Me “Woah …no no no, I can’t take this.” (and I say this like she just tried to hand me an illegal weapon…because that’s what it feels like when someone in a country whose exchange rate is 29 cents to your one dollar. Not to mention she’s in high school and I’m a 34 year old woman who just finished working on a television show where the lunches cost more than your car payment. So "No I definitely cannot take your money.” Everything about this situation is wrong.

She responded with this “I was on the bus a couple days ago and God said to me that he was going to bless me and he told me that it was gonna start with me blessing someone else with the money I had earned from making T-shirts. I said OK God, who do you want me to give it to? And then he showed me a picture of your face.”

She admitted to me she was surprised by it.

She even challenged him “Why God, we aren’t even friends? I don’t even know her...But he told me that you were the one."

"So here, I want to bless you with this"

I am looking at her and I don’t know what to say.

I try to refuse and she keeps trying to give

Finally, Ninet, a woman that had been on the team that I was traveling with said “Lindsey, You have to take this”

And in that moment I suddenly understood that this is what grace is.

It’s a gift that you don’t deserve, something that doesn’t even make sense and yet is handed over to you freely with love.

And so with ugly face tears and snot, I an American brat who won’t eat at places that don’t have the right ambiance, a person who will gladly spend money to get the perfect eyebrow arch and refuses to go to outlet stores because “they don’t feel right" accepted this young girl’s hard earned money. A girl who lives in a country where if you don’t have enough money your family will sell you off into sex slavery.

It broke me.

It unraveled my heart.

It taught me something about the way the Lord works.

He moves in ways that don’t make sense on Earth.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Belle did end up being blessed in a MAJOR way, I can’t go into details but it’s good! FANTASTICALLY GOOD.

From that day on people kept giving me gifts.

It was a series of 5 gifts from different people.

The gift items were as follows Jewelry, Clothes and Accessories.

Which was interesting because "these are a few of my favorite things."

The last gift was actually a giant gift bag that was stuffed with dresses, tights, earrings, rings, bracelets, jewelry boxes, hats and scarves. This gift bag was like nothing I’ve ever received in my life. I mean it was STUFFED! Me and my friend Hanna just kept pulling things out of it, it was like a Mary Poppins bag that never ended. There was a jewelry box, the inside of it was stuffed with earrings, the hat had scarves inside of it, the purse had socks and tights in it, the socks had necklaces stuffed in it and so on.

It was like Christmas morning and I couldn’t believe it, we couldn’t stop laughing, it was the craziest gift bag ever.

And suddenly it hit me. OMG.

Is Jesus wooing me?

Is he speaking my love language?

I asked him a week ago in Phuket “Will you help me fall in love with you?”

It all came together in that moment, all these people handing me gifts. Suddenly I pictured him dress shopping for me and it killed me.

He knows me. He knows my love language. He was pursuing me the way a man would romance his future bride.

And I gotta tell you I had heard people talk about how Jesus was romantic before and honestly it would creep me out. I thought those people were weirdos.

But in this moment, I finally got it.

It was so sweet and cute that I could not handle it. The son of God didn’t come at me with thunder and lightning or even a mysterious word of wisdom, he came at me with earrings and necklaces and dresses. He was speaking my language.

Finally it dawned on me, I may not know him, but he seems to really know me.

There’s nothing quite like feeling seen and known by Jesus. It’s a magical feeling that I hope all of you experience one day.

The giant gift bag was the last physical gift he got me, the day after that he started giving me different kinds of gifts.

To many, these are known as spiritual gifts.

Next Up: SEEING THINGS THAT AREN’T THERE