Ruth Heflin tells of her prophecy in the church in Jerusalem after hearing that 2 jumbo jets had collided in Tenerife, killing 583 people. She spoke that out of the tragedy God would raise up one who had been reluctant and that he would preach and bless many people, due to his mother’s prayers. Some months later, a couple in her ministry team were in California when Norman Williams, survivor of the 747 crash, was preaching. They told him of the prophecy. He told them that he’d trained as an AOG pastor but only lasted a year before going in to business, eventually setting up his own business school. At the time of the crash he was no longer active in the Holy Spirit and was no longer speaking in other tongues. He said that when the crash occurred he was supernaturally lifted out of the plane and on to the wing. “Although it was a long way to the ground, he jumped, and, when he landed, he was not only quoting scriptures, he was speaking in tongues.” His broken ankle healed quickly and he was the only person to survive the crash emotionally and physically well. Norman went to Jerusalem later with his praying mother.
Melissa believes that God sometimes uses her prayer in tongues to ‘stand in the gap’ for people. Occasionally, on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, she has cried out in tongues and just known she is expressing a bottled-in hurt/emotion/rage/shame or trauma on behalf of someone else. These are emotions that don’t belong to her but come through the tongues. She believes God in His mercy allows us to give voice to another person’s burden and give it to Him in intercession. Melissa sometimes finds herself crying, screaming, shouting or sobbing and almost unable to catch her breath – but all the time she will ALSO feel the joy, mercy and love of the Lord for that person. Sometimes she knows who the person is and sometimes not. It can be someone she has seen on TV, heard about, knows or just someone the Lord knows about. She believes this is a part of what’s meant by ‘the communion of the saints’. Melissa feels that whenever God shows her some pain there is ALWAYS His overwhelming love for the person in even greater measure.
Sally and Mya were praying for Theresa, who felt she only ever prayed the same 3 or so sentences in tongues and wanted to feel more fluent. During the course of the prayer, (in tongues) Theresa felt an unusual pain in her leg; Mya saw red poppies and heard the name Jack; Sally had a split-second vision of being a young man on a smoky, noisy battlefield with both his legs blown off – presumably Jack in World War 1. What struck Sally was the surge of Jesus’s love for this young boy in his trauma as he saw what had happened. Sally counts this as one of the most humbling, vivid experiences of her whole life even though they had no idea how the prayer turned out like this or who Jack was. Then Mya knew the interpretation of Sally’s 2 or 3 sentences to be Mary’s song of joy called The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) which made Theresa very happy as it is her favourite scripture. It’s interesting to note that, in The Message, part of Mary’s song is ‘He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud.’
In the 1980s Lesley Francis conducted a survey amongst Anglican clergymen who spoke in tongues. The expectation at that time was that those who prayed in tongues would be mostly extroverts but this was not the case. They were found to be consistently happy and well-adjusted men though.