How a Prophetic Word During a Bethel Sermon Led to ‘Chewbacca Mom’s’ Viral Laughter
Candace Payne never would have imagined that her “Chewbacca” video of her laughing for several minutes straight with a mask on would go viral. Now, she reminisces on a moment in her life that she says God prophesied over her through a Bethel sermon in 2015, in which she heard the words, “Some of y’all are going to have an Esther year.” After her video got millions of views, she had friends messaging her, “You were made for such a time as this.”
Amid all of the traveling for interviews and such, the Holy Spirit brought to memory a time when Payne was 4 years old to remind her of the gift He gave her to share His joy with the world, she says on the “Exploring the Prophetic” podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. God showed her that He’s been preparing her almost her entire life for the platform she has now.
“I found myself with 10 minutes of just solitude … And I felt the Holy Spirit ask me, ‘Hey, what would you do if you had this handed to you at the age of 20?’ And I was like, ‘Well, it’d be in the toilet.’ And then I felt like the Holy Spirit just said, ‘I want to give you a memory of when you were 4.’ … And I just had this sweet memory of being a 4-year-old kid that would sit and draw pictures while the family TV was on. And I would go turn down the volume during commercials, and whatever was on my paper, I’d entertain my family.
“And it would either be a story or a song or it would be something to make them laugh and I felt like God said, ‘I’ve put in you from the lowest age that I could give you a memory, the actual anointing of joy to carry, so that you would break through whatever is depression, anxiety, fear, worry with laughter. It’s the weapon and it is not just laughing that you carry, but you carry a formidable weapon that you can impart to my people, because the thing is, we don’t know how to wield it. And I need somebody that knows what defiant joy is.”
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