Excerpts from a couple letters to Terry today:

Robin says I am antsy! In fact I am driving her crazy because I can’t sit still. Bless her heart, I was talking to her and she was trying to tell me something and she stopped mid sentence--I was driving her crazy because my head was bobbing back and forth. I could not even sit still—she said she has never seen this way before! It was hysterical. She cannot believe I am like this--I think it is just release and freedom—a little touch of Holy Spirit drunkenness—I love it!!! My free spirit is my favorite part of my personality and it has been gone a long time!

Later... I am so high that I think I am truly a bit drunk in the Spirit--no joke. I was here at Robin’s and poor Robin has had to put up with me laughing all day. Like I cannot stop laughing—over and over I laugh and laugh. In fact for a person with bruised ribs, this is not good! So then we were home later and Robin was cleaning and turned some music on and the song was one that expressed my heart and I turned over on the couch—Robin probably thought I was resting and I was praying and praying and taking in the song. And then I thought OH MY GOSH! I was about to lose it in a good way right there—and while I suppose Robin would have understood if I started bellowing out my prayers and praying in the Spirit as I was feeling, I realized I needed to go to my prayer spot here in Quitman, where I have not been in AGES—possibly years. So I threw on shoes and told Robin I was having a God moment and had to get to my prayer spot. And Zoom! I was out the door. My car easily found its way to the old spot—down the winding back roads I had not been on in years. You know I told Robin yesterday, I am proud of myself that I can navigate LA freeways with ease after a few months there, but I would like to see most Angelinos drive down the pitch black back roads of East Texas and find their ways. That makes me feel a greater sense of accomplishment. Anyway, I found this spot I have been going to for TEN YEARS, almost! But back then it was a place I used to go read depressing poetry—a place I wanted to go kill myself—and God redeemed it and turned my “suicide spot” into my “prayer spot.” It sits in the midst of tall trees overlooking a lake and it is still always. It is so incredibly gorgeous in the night—you drive down a back road and then off the beaten path in front of a gate to nowhere. And I sit and pray. For years I have had talks with the Lord out there but tonight was the first in ages. I was completely lost in worship and prayer. I felt I really wanted to pray for my return back. Tomorrow as I embark on church again, it will be like a formal reemergence into East Texas society. I wanted to commit it to the Lord. And then I lay back in my seat, hands extended and worshipped and loved God and took in more of the Spirit—I could feel that all through me. I ended with a CD –the one with my deliverance song on it and remembered again the journey.

I am having wonderful experiences with God but they are for more. I really believe that now. With all my revelation has come serious epiphanies and it is real—I know it. Anyway, it was an awesome time with God—almost an hour in the woods and then back home where I promptly began giggling again when I talked to Robin! You know what it is though? I know EXACTLY:

It s the OIL OF JOY.

That is the term that comes to me. Before when I was miserable I thought once I got her I would crash and cry and just sort of cry it all out form the months of misery. But now it is like a crash but a revival of my spirit and this laugher that has been going on since Christmas ended—and thus the stress of planning and all that happened—is joy. I just looked up the verse. You know it well, I am sure—even though I did not relate that it was from Isaiah 61 when I thought of it:

Isaiah 61:3 -To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

I think that is my verse suddenly!