And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18
Unveiled. When Moses came away from speaking with the LORD, his face was radiant, literally glowing. After he told the Israelites what the LORD had commanded, he would put the veil over his face to keep the Israelites from seeing the radiance fade away. But we are not like Moses. We come into the presence of the LORD, and we leave glowing. We do not cover our faces, instead we let the people around us see this radiance and attribute it to the LORD. This veil doesn’t cover our hearts, or our faces. But we are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory.
Last night, a few students here at school put together a small prayer night suitably called “Unveiled.” The point was to not have a big production of prayer and worship, but to get together as the body of Christ and pray for the our campus, pray for ourselves, and pray for the world around us.
Last night, God moved. The Spirit moved. I’m going to be a little bit more specific in little while, but for now, here is an excerpt from my journal that I was constantly writing in throughout the night…
God, we are your people. We are yours, and God you are ours. God, you do so much for us. You love us, and you provide for us, and you protect us. God, do one more thing for us: break our hearts tonight, LORD. Break our hearts so that we would not have hearts of stone. Give us new hearts… hearts of flesh. LORD, break us, mend us back up again, and overflow our cups. Pour your love and mercy down on us. Rain down your fire. Bring your glory. Let us leave here with our faces glowing and our hearts set ablaze with passion. Do not let us leave here unchanged. Move in us, and through us. Heal us, save us, and guide us. Don’t let us leave here not having seen your face.
If I may be so bold, I do believe that God has answered every part of that prayer. I was speaking with my friend Tyler last night when everything was winding down, and this is what he had to say… (mind you, this is from memory)
I feel like I’ve gone through every emotion that CIY [Christ in Youth] ever brought. All that week’s emotions in one night. At first it was like my heart wasn’t really there and I wasn’t so sure about everything. Then it was that feeling of needing God more than ever. Then it was that feeling of being overwhelmed by the love and glory of God. Then it was me being so pumped up about God and ready to do stuff for him. Now it’s just me being so incredibly happy, thinking how awesome He is, and still ready to do His work. Now I really want a 30 Hour Famine.
Well, Tyler. You want your Famine? Do it. Kaylyn just got this little spark of idea, and she followed through with it with the assurance of the Lord and the help of a few of the students around her. And, if I do say so myself, last night was a complete success. It would have been a complete success had only a small handful of people showed up… but the Lord was good, and the people faithful, and we had about twenty or thirty people show. The night was wonderful, and it lasted for about six hours. There were some people crying, there were a few girls struck with divine laughter (which in turn made me want to laugh), and throughout the night people pulled each other aside just to pray for one another. To bring unity to the campus, which is part of what we were praying to happen with the campus. Yay for unity. Yay for community. Yay for Christ!
Confession time.
At the beginning of the night, I wasn’t really too sure about how this was all going to go. I was stressed out from a long first week of classes, and my heart had been pulled in many different directions in only a few days, and I just felt like my life was disorganized and because of that I saw the whole night as disorganized. I knew I couldn’t be so negative when thinking about a night so amazing, so I instantly decided to put all that aside and just give God the glory for the night. I figured, I had volunteered to be a part of this night – to help set up, to help during the six hours where needed, and to help break down (which, I wasn’t feeling that last one). So I put that aside, and I quit being selfish for a while. And I was amazed at how God was moving. At different prayer stations there were different opportunities and guides on what to pray for. One station was for intercession, when you would write a personal prayer to the Lord, put it in a basket, and then pick out a different letter and intercede for that person and pray for them and whatever was troubling them. Another was writing a letter to the people of Haiti, encouraging and just loving on them through that letter. The letters are being sent to Haiti soon. My favorite prayer table, which I spent a majority of my time praying over, was on feeling alone in the desert.
Immediately after being baptized, Jesus was led into the desert. There he was tempted by the devil, and yet held strong and was faithful to the Lord. The verse that prompted this particular prayer station was Psalm 13:1 which reads, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” This particular station was the one that hit me the hardest. For the last few years, I’ve had this constant feeling of God forgetting me. Forgetting to write something meaningful into my life, forgetting to remind me of who I am, forgetting to make me someone important to someone, forgetting to just love me. And I’ve pushed those feelings aside because I knew, and know, that the Lord isn’t like that. He hasn’t forgotten me, and he hasn’t forgotten to write someone spectacular into my story, and he hasn’t ever forgotten to love me. And the Lord has really been working on my heart about how selfish I am, and about how conceited I am. But yet, at the same time, I realized that I was in this desert. I can’t even describe my desert because it doesn’t make sense. On one hand, I am full of Christ. I love, and know that I am loved. I care, and know that I am cared for. On the other hand, I feel completely empty. Void of… everything. I felt numb, and that’s really the only word to explain it. I felt like, to steal the words Peters, if God had any sense to him at all, He would take my life because I obviously wasn’t doing anything important, and I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to take my life — that’s more selfish than even I can do. But the thought of God being all-powerful, that he could do such a thing and no one would question it, that was good enough for me.
In just the past twenty-four hours, God has restored my heart. Trust me, I knew I wasn’t alone, and I knew that God loved me, and I knew that people cared about me. I just felt like God wasn’t going to use me to do anything for His Kingdom, so there wasn’t any point to me taking up space. But the Lord is good, and He works through all people. I’m not sure what my place in the Kingdom is, or what my place in the world is, for that matter. But I know that God is going to use me… somehow. Even if it’s just me sitting down and listening to people talk about what’s going on in their lives. I’m a good listener, and that is a God-given gift. Duh. The Lord is good, and in the end He makes everything okay.
My heart is full, and it isn’t nearly as heavy as it was at the beginning of last night. Unveiled was just a tool for God to use to get to everyone’s heart last night, and even if I was the only one who was touched (which I know I’m not after talking to a few people), the night would have been a success.
“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’ They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.”
Ezekiel 11:18-20
The LORD is good, and He is just, and merciful, and full of grace, and love, and peace, and He knows what is best for his children.
Love in Him,
Megan
refinement 
I like hearing what you have to say. (: