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He Was My Champagne; Now He Is My Bread. My Changing Experience of the Holy Spirit

By Anita Mathias

bridal veil fallsMy first conscious experience with the Holy Spirit was also my most dramatic.

I strayed into a Charismatic meeting at my ancestral hometown, Mangalore, India, when I was 17. My father was patronising and mildly amused, and flatly refused to take me again. And so I went to the visiting Spanish priest preaching the retreat, Father Marcellino Iragui, and asked him to pray with me for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (about which I had just heard) and which he was to pray for on the last day.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Is she hungry?” he asked my friend with me. Upon deciding that I was, he prayed.

And I felt nothing.

And woke that night, about 3 a.m. with overwhelming joy, worshipping and praising God in childlike and incoherent English, and then in a spirit-language which has never left me. It was the gift of tongues, glossolalia.

* * *

And for many years, decades even, when I prayed “Come, Holy Spirit,” that was what I was praying for: joy, champagne, an experience.

Gradually, I changed, experimenting more with Oswald Chambers’ life-verse inscribed on his tomb, Luke 11:13: If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

“I am sad, I am depressed. I feel lifeless. My spirit feels dead. Come, Holy Spirit.”

The first time I prayed this, with faith, I was amazed to find that my mood had changed. Almost like magic.

Now that I pray that more expectantly. “I am sad and empty. Come Holy Spirit.”

“I know the core of following Jesus is love, but I feel no love. Come Holy Spirit.”

“I am supposed to love my husband, but at this moment, I feel anger, not love. And murder is totally illegal. Come Holy Spirit.”

“The temperature of family life is hotting up, and I cannot change it. Come Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Come and change the atmosphere.”

“I have a call to blog and to write, and my piece is not developing. It’s slow, and I don’t know how to write. You are the fountain of ideas and beauty. Come Holy Spirit.”

“I know I need to pick up this room before the cleaner comes, but I am so bored, finding it so hard to focus on it. Come Holy Spirit, fill my spirit with new wine while I do so.”

“Chocolate will change my mood, oh yes, but is there an alternative? Come, Holy Spirit.”

It’s bread, it’s bread, the bread of the Holy Spirit, given to help me in my weakness, in my low moods, when I am angry, when I need inspiration.

The Holy Spirit is no longer just champagne. He is bread, he is fish and eggs and vegetables. If I went through my day without him, that day would be sad; that day would be stressful and empty. I would live that day weak, and without God’s power to help me.

Come, Holy Spirit.

 

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Filed Under: In which I chase the wild goose of the Holy Spirit Tagged With: Charismatic experience, glossolalia, Marcelino Iragui, On experiencing the power of Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit as bread; the Holy Spirit helping us is our weakness, Oswald Chambers, the gift of tongues

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Comments

  1. [email protected] says

    November 27, 2015 at 3:14 pm

    A beautiful retelling of your growing relationship with Jesus. I too pray that He would have a bigger role in my everyday.

    • Anita Mathias says

      December 14, 2015 at 12:12 am

      Thanks Tracie!

  2. Sarah Bessey says

    November 26, 2015 at 9:18 pm

    What a beautiful and true metaphor, Anita! You are such a good writer. Loved this – thank you!

    • Anita Mathias says

      December 14, 2015 at 12:13 am

      Thanks for reading, Sarah!

  3. Jeena says

    November 19, 2015 at 6:44 am

    Very encouraged. Can’t tell you how much. Thank you, Anita.

    • Anita Mathias says

      November 21, 2015 at 11:55 am

      Thank you, Jeena!

  4. Lynda Alsford says

    November 11, 2015 at 7:42 am

    Love this post. A great reminder of the power of the Holy Spirit, whom we have living within us.

    So often we struggle on alone completely forgetting that we can stop and ask for the Holy Spirit to come and fill us and give us what we need.

    Bless you Anita

    • Anita Mathias says

      November 11, 2015 at 8:36 am

      “So often we struggle on alone completely forgetting that we can stop and ask for the Holy Spirit to come and fill us and give us what we need.”
      I know, it’s amazing, it’s it?
      Thanks Lynda!

  5. Leah Slawson says

    November 11, 2015 at 3:45 am

    Love the metaphor of champagne. Thank you for encouraging me to ask for the Holy Spirit’s help, Anita. Blessing to you and yours.

    • Anita Mathias says

      November 11, 2015 at 8:36 am

      Thanks so much for reading, Leah, and welcome to my blog!

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Anita Mathias: About Me

Anita Mathias
Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
Runner Up Christian Media Awards 2014 - Tweeter of the year

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