So I have been married to the man of my dreams for 5 years, as of last Friday. It’s amazing to think that I’ve only known my best friend for 6 years total. What did I do before that? Chris is an amazing man of God. He has tons of wisdom and he’s someone I can trust completely. Plus we like the same things, have most of the same opinions, laugh a lot, and make cute babies together… what more could you ask for?!
So for our anniversary we went to Kansas City for a couple days, just the two of us. We haven’t had a trip alone since our second anniversary (and even then, I was pregnant), so this was a HUGE treat! Kansas City normally wouldn’t be our city of choice, but neither of us has ever been to IHOP (International House of Prayer), so we wanted to see what that was like.
The city itself was actually nice in a different way from Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is old and rough and you can almost feel the generations that have lived there and made it historic. That’s what gives it its cool factor as a city. Kasas City (the downtown/shopping area) was more like a shiny new penny. It was pretty and well groomed, which almost made it feel a little steril, but still enjoyable. The drivers, however, were not enjoyable. Kansas City drivers seem to be rude, aggressive and stupid all at once, which is pretty dangerous.
As for IHOP, we LOVED it! I honestly had no idea what to expect. We keep the live feed from the prayer room playing 24/7 in our house, and we have some of their worship CD’s, especially Misty Edwards. But I’ve never read any of Mike Bickle’s books and have only heard him speak once at BRSM. I didn’t really know much about how they run things, or who’s-who, or what their philosophies are. So I didn’t have a lot of presuppositions.
When we walked into the main prayer room for the first time, the presence of God was so thick it was crazy! The people in the seats were just quietly praying or worshiping. The band was doing “Worship with the Word,” where they take a passage of Scripture and sing it spontaneously, and let the revelation of what the Lord is saying build through their song. Super cool stuff. I would definitely want to go back!
I find what IHOP is doing very exciting, because it is the kind of move of God that can last. It’s not based on crowds coming, or people getting “blessed,” or a special speaker. It’s all about prayer, worship and the Word, and as long as those things continue, the heavens will stay open!
We definitely enjoyed our trip and being away from the kids for a couple days (they stayed with Pastor and Clara). Clara told me after we picked them up that she and Pastor didn’t know what to do with themselves. She said When the kids were at their house they were always thinking what they needed to do next and saying, “you do this for this one, while I do this for the other one.” Yep, that pretty much sounds like my life!
