the night i got told to run at a revival barn
summer 2018, felt “sent,” drove past the river to a saturday-night revival service, & got yelled at by a visiting prophet with an eye patch.
it was the summer of 2018 and i was staying for free in the house next to this little ministry. single mattress on the floor, journals everywhere, tower out my window. my only actual job was to empty the dehumidifier twice a day.
one saturday i listened to this charismatic guy teach for hours until i was all floaty and sure god wanted to send me somewhere. so i got in my car like, okay. you can tell me where to turn.
i drove past this really pretty river and saw cars pulling into a big worship barn just outside town. i knew it was there but i’d never gone. i panicked and kept driving. then i got annoyed at myself because i’d literally left the house to be brave, so i turned around.
inside, the service had already started. fixed chairs, flags, dancers, old blue-book-type songs. saturday-night charisma. i slid around the back and did the polite smile/sway so no one would come talk to me.
the guest was an older guy with a southern drawl and an eye patch, and he prophesied in rhyme. he said it was biblical.
and the teaching was intense in a specific way. tongues had four purposes. prophets were seers and dreamers and, apparently, palm readers. if the holy ghost wants you off donuts, you’ll wake up one day and just not like donuts anymore. this was the vibe.
then he talked for a long time about tongues and gifts and healing and called people up who wanted that. i relaxed because i already spoke in tongues and nothing hurt. i thought i was safe.
the guy who led the place spotted me from the front and came straight over. he told me i should go up. i told him i didn’t really need prayer. he told me again, more adamant. so i went and stood in the first gap i could find.
he was moving down the line and people were going down. when he got to me he put his hand on my forehead and started pushing and telling me to lift my hands. he pushed again, and again, and again. by this point we were like ten feet back from where we’d started, and i could feel him running out of options.
ready to move on to someone who’d fall, the visiting prophet got on the mic and yelled, “RUN.”
i froze.
he yelled again, louder, with the drawl. so i did the only thing i could think of: i turned and started jogging back toward my seat.
the room was big, so after a few steps i slowed down. i assumed he’d moved on. then i caught the whole room staring at me, and i heard him shout into the mic, “I SAID RUUUN.” so i ran the rest of the way.
like 300 people watching the random girl do prophet-mandated cardio.
after that the music just kept going. people kept getting prayed for. the leader told me on the way out that the building could seat thousands and revival was coming. i drove back to the house next door and wrote, “lots of questions about today. dang.”
