prophecy

I’m probably a cessationist, but I’ve taken the online quizzes; I always get the same results. My spiritual gift, according to the algorithm, is prophecy. It makes sense as long as I’m not considering it predictive or, even, as an actual word from the Lord.

I rarely find myself in a situation where I don’t know what to say. This does not mean I always say the right things. Mainly that I rarely feel like I said the wrong things. (Except in marriage and motherhood, where the wrong things spray out unbidden and unconsidered). 

Must be prophecy, right?

It is the thing that I am good at. It’s my spiritual gift. 

That means the things I say must be true. Especially the things I say to myself.

Tonight, the panic comes. I understand why we talk about it rising. I don’t feel anxious in my toes, not in my knees. Nor my hips. It starts in my belly. It slithers up to my chest, squeezing my heart and shaking it. It jabs a straw into my lungs and sucks out all my air. It clenches my throat. Numbs my tongue; I have to think about swallowing, why can I not swallow? It goes to my head. It’s always in my head. 

Another night, maybe I would open a bottle of wine. Not tonight; there’s a baby in my belly and the only drink that sounds palatable is a Liquid IV. But the good news is that my old stalwart friend Google is never very far. Google offers all I need: validation, confirmation, and solution. I don’t need to go anywhere else. 

I know what to say to myself. I say it, and then I turn to Google. Yes, yes, I’m speaking the truth. Here it is. Proof. I’m no false prophet; my spiritual gift is hard at work. There is no need to think of a word for anyone else. They’re all for me. 

And what are those words?

This is going to get worse. This is a sign of a bigger problem. Jesus promises suffering, and you haven’t suffered enough, so this is the onset. This is dangerous. This demands your time, attention, and emotion. The children with unclipped nails and unwashed hands are alive but dirty; they don’t need you to fuss over their fingertips. The husband with the tired eyes enjoys his job; he doesn’t need a cheery wife to make him happy when his work provides so much satisfaction. They don’t need you. I need you. 

I eat a meal and break out in a single hive. I have a developed a new allergy, and it is probably life-threatening.

A rash flares. I have chronic inflammation that is going to damage the strawberry-sized baby in my womb.

I’m itching. My liver enzymes have probably shot back up; I can’t flush any of the toxins out, and they’re creeping out of my pores and popping up as tiny itchy bumps. I’m going to be ugly and uncomfortable and back on a restricted diet where I fear eating anything other than meat.

Oh, I have a gift. I’m not afraid of conversation. I know how to ask a question. I can engage with a stranger. 

But if I’m right when the words I speak fall on someone else, why not when I turn inward? How can the things I say to another sprout from some internet-confirmed spiritual gift, and the words that I say to myself spew from a doomsday prophecy?

The answer is not that I am not gifted. That would require me to give up the answers. The knowledge. If the answer is that I am really and truly a cessationist, internet quizzes be damned, then the things that I say to myself, conceived in anxiety’s self-serving pit, are all lies. They have no power. Those predictions will never come to pass.

They are not glimpses of the future, but fears given too much weight. 

But there is a voice, not my own. It is not audible. It is just…there, tucked away, after a life of reading the same Words over and over. Some of them have taken residence. They do have weight. They are not predictions. They are promises. 

I have made you, and I will carry you; I will bear and save you.

The Words for me to hear are not my own. But if I listen long enough, maybe I will learn to speak them to myself.