On prophetic stuff and a little looking ahead

(I'm going to just leap into a story here.)
So, for a few weeks now, I've been wanting to get prophetic ministry at church  (for the non-New Dayers who may be reading this, that's where a team of people speak over you what they hear God saying for you and your life.  it's pretty much amazing).  I haven't done it yet because I haven't had the chance, basically, what with having my own duties at church after service.  Last week at Dwell, Seth and Sarah Gerber spoke about prophetic ministry (the history of the prophetic, giving prophetic words yourself, and also a lot about receiving and "stewarding" prophetic words).  One thing Sarah said stuck out to me—she told about this point in her life where she literally had a basket full of tapes of prophetic words she'd gotten over the last several years, and she hadn't done anything with them—hadn't pursued them, hadn't prayed about them, or anything, and she felt like she couldn't go looking for any new prophetic words of the like before she worked to "steward" the ones she had already gotten.

That got me kind of thinking—I've gotten a number of prophetic words over the last three years, almost all of which I have in some recorded form.  I've listened to them all several times, and prayed about them a little bit, but I haven't really made an effort to find out what God means by them and what he wants me to do in regards to them.  So this morning in church, as I was considering whether to go up for ministry, I decided to hold off and really think about pursuing the words I already have.  The weird thing was, I kind of expected to feel reluctant or disappointed about it, but I actually felt pretty good about this choice.

Then, tonight (or, rather, last night [Sunday], since this will post on Monday) was the Dwell Christmas party.  We did some crazy worship, had a fantastic prayer time, and opened gifts; were having yummy munchies and I was just kind of standing around when Jo Leitz (awesome lady who has definitely got a heavy-duty prophetic gift) came up to me and just said, "God's really going to start moving in you with the new year.  I really feel like He's saying you're going to experience a new outpouring of creativity, especially in your writing, and it's going to be really anointed.  God is basically going to be writing through you."

…Whoa.

Aside from that very last bit (verbatim, anyway), and without the specific time frame, this is basically the same prophetic word I have gotten at least six times from various people in the last seventeen months.  (I even got it twice in the same session, by two different people who weren't there to hear each other give the word, and they said almost verbatim the same thing.)  You would think I'd pay attention to this, as God is practically throwing it in my face, but every time I got it I was like, "Wow, that's really cool!" and then didn't really pursue it at all.  (Actually, I proceeded to pout excessively about writer's block.  In fact, in hindsight, I might have actually used it as an excuse to complain about my writer's block.  *cringe*).  But when Jo said this one today, I was kind of like, "OH!  Man!  I am totally going to take this home and tell somebody about it and pray over it and journal and by golly, it's not my responsibility to make it happen, but, by golly, am not going to just shelve this again."  So that is what I am doing.  And I am massively excited, and, yes, also kind of terrified.

Jo also told me that my poetry is especially important, and I need to not give up on that.  (This is especially interesting, because poetry is something  have been writing only very occasionally lately—I used to write several dozen poems a year, and in all of 2011 I have written exactly nine.  Most of which were depressed backlashes at the sudden falling-apart of a major part of my life.)  I wouldn't say I've given up, exactly—I can't imagine I'd ever stop writing it totally—but I think I have gotten somewhat hypercritical of my poetry, which is why I've given up on songwriting ten times over in my teen years.  I don't know what direction God will take it in, but I can't say I'd much object to His influence!

…I sort of feel like my mind ought to be blown, but it isn't quite.  I'm just like.  "WOW.  Yes, that has 'God who loves you a whole darn lot' written all over it."

Oh boy.  I am definitely going over all my recent prophetic words again.  Time for an ongoing tête-à-tête with God?  Yes.