Charisma Staff

Are you hurting? If you are, you know that physical, emotional or mental pain can make life very unpleasant. I learned this fact firsthand: I was sexually, physically, verbally and emotionally abused from the time I can remember until I left home at the age of 18. Shortly after, I was married—and during the next five years I experienced further rejection, abandonment, betrayal, and finally, divorce.

I know what it is to be a victim. But I have learned from experience and the Word of God that we can have victory over pain instead of being the victims of it. I also know that we can increase or decrease the intensity of our pain by the way we handle it.

The medical field offers "pain management" classes for people who have chronic pain that medication cannot alleviate. "Stress management" seminars are available to people who suffer from stress, which can cause emotional or mental pain as well as physical illness.

In 1925, the Lord told Bishop Charles Harrison Mason to send Elder O.T. Jones to pastor a large mission in Philadelphia. Elder Jones asked if my husband, Elder E.H. Dabney, and I could assist him. Bishop Mason said yes, and told me my job was to pray and write for the church.

One afternoon the Lord called my attention to [a bad] situation in the neighborhood. I asked God if He would give us the victory if I made a covenant with Him to pray. He said He would. God told me to meet Him the next morning at the Schuylkill River at 7:30.

I went home and asked my husband to take me to Riverside Drive the next morning. ... I was so afraid I would miss the appointment with the Lord that I sat up all night and crocheted. I dared not put my trust or confidence in an alarm clock. We arrived at a place where a tree was bent over the road, and the Lord said: "This is the place."

We must understand some basic things concerning the nature of the prophetic. Few, in fact very few, prophetic words are ever sovereign declarations that will come to pass without any conditions being met. Most prophetic words are invitations into a process of becoming. Often, the Lord is more interested in our becoming a word and not just getting, releasing or receiving a word.

The prophetic at its best is partial, progressive and conditional. That is not the fault of the prophetic person—it is the way it works biblically, historically and how it works today.