Monday, February 21, 2011

Reading Rainbow and War.

Unfortunately I can't remember the exact date of this dream, but I know that it was in 9th or 10th grade. It had a great impact on me that I did not understand at the time. God has told me that I'm to share it here along with the story that follows it.
The dream begins at the end of a school year at the Christian private school I had attended for a couple years in middle school. It is the end of the year and the students are having to clean the school. I am scrubbing the toilets and not very happy about it.
I leave the bathroom, still holding a toilet brush, and enter the lobby. I have a question for the principal and am going to find him, but as I walk across the lobby I am suddenly distracted by what I see through the door windows. The host of Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton, is walking towards the doors carrying a large cardboard box. He enters and I am completely in awe since I used to watch his show all the time growing up.
The principal enters the lobby at the same time. LeVar Burton sets the box down and says, "I would like to donate these books to the school." I smile and think how that is just like LeVar.
The principal is not smiling, and coldly says, "We do not want your books." He immediately leaves the lobby. I am shocked and angered by the lack of respect the principal is showing. I think, "How dare he treat someone so nice like that!"
LeVar Burton turns and exits through the doors. After looking in the direction the principal went I thought, "Screw this place! I'm going with LeVar Burton!" I dropped the toilet brush and I ran out the doors and caught up with LeVar Burton in the parking lot. I said, "Hey! Wait up!" He turned and slowed down till I was walking beside him. We ended up sitting in a patch of grass in the parking lot, talking and laughing for hours (a childhood dream come true, right?). I don't remember any of our conversation, but we had a lot of fun.
I then looked over his shoulder and saw a flag being raised on the flag pole in front of the school. It had a lion on it standing on it's hind legs, roaring with paws in the air. I also remember two swords above the lion, but can't recall any of the other pictures on the flag clearly. I was confused because I didn't know what the flag was supposed to mean or why it had just been raised. I pointed to it and asked LeVar Burton, "What is that?"
He twisted around to look at it, then turned back to look at me and said, "The war is coming."
The air was suddenly very serious and I felt he meant that the war was literally just around the corner of the street.
I woke up.
"Whoa! What the heck was that?"
I know that the principal of the Christian private school represented a person who practices legalistic, religious, and hypocritical actions, because that is unfortunately what he was at the time I went to school there, and still was when I last heard news of him. The fact that he refused a free gift of books that would have benefited the students, and refused it from someone who is highly respected in the area of literary education, speaks a lot of the pride of the person (or persons) he is supposed to represent in the dream. But...I still had no clarity on what the dream was supposed to tell me. I wasn't even sure if LeVar Burton was supposed to be himself in the dream or represent someone else, like the principal does.
I started watching the show again as soon as I got access to it, which was several years later, but that did not give me any clues.
Then one day I saw an add on the internet for LeVar Burton stuff. One of the things was a book written by him titled Aftermath! I went to the local library. They did not have it, but said that they would have it shipped from a library in Texas or something ridiculous like that, and it would take several months.
Several months passed and I had pretty much forgotten about the book. Then one day, after running around all of creation doing something, I went to my room to take a nap. Someone knocking on my door woke me up. I didn't move, hoping I had just imagined it. The knock came again though. Reluctantly (oh, how I look back now and roll my eyes at myself) I said, "Yes?"
A man's voice said, "Jenny, your book came." I heard whoever was on the other side of the door (I was assuming it was Dad. He patronizes our library) set the book down and slide it under the door. I heard it stop by the side of my bed. Still reluctant to get up, I was still for a few more minutes. Then I got up and went into the kitchen. Dad had just gotten home, and I started to wonder....
"Dad, did you just come from the library?"
"No."
"But...didn't you just knock on my door and slide a book under it?"
"No...."
I ran around the house asking everyone if they had knocked on my door. No one had. I went to my room and looked beside my bed. No book.
I told my parents what had just happened to me, and Mom said, "You should probably go to teh library." I was out the door.
My book was not at the library. Disappointed, but not wanting to leave empty-handed, I browsed until I found something interesting. Heading back to the front desk to check-out, the nice lady behind it said, "Oh good! You're still here! Your book just arrived!" I stared blankly, confused. She continued, "The van, you probably saw it before you came in...well, it just came and dropped a bunch of books off." I remembered seeing the van when I pulled into the library parking lot, and suddenly realized what had just happened. God had sent an angel, or someone, to my door to wake me up and get my butt over here! This book really WAS the key to understanding what God was trying to show me. I took it home and read it.
The book is titled Afthermath>. Published in 1997, it is a sci fi novel set in a future America that has been torn apart by a war that came after the election of the first African American president.
Yep. That's right.
I'm going to stop here because you'll just have to read the book and ask the Holy Spirit what the significance of it is. ;-)
If you want to that is.

Friday, February 18, 2011

"effortlessly"

The star shone in and out of focus, twinkling. God waited for her to notice it as she spun around, dancing in the private of her room.

"She's dancing for Me, but she doesn't see Me!"

She hummed and held her breath as she sunk her body into the beat of the song. Then she spun around one more time and stopped.

I absentmindedly stared at the flashing star after my dance came to a halt. I effortlessly touched Love again as I thought "I was the point of everything You ever did! You wanted me!"

My mind shouted as I thought back to a time when Our relationship was based on other things besides just loving each other. "I didn't understand!"

Then the star suddenly held my full attention and I tilted my head. It seemed to shine brighter as its flickering drew me. Then I heard it.

"NOTICE ME!"

I saw understanding explode from the center of her mind as she came into an even greater understanding of My love for her. I saw her look at the stars in the sky and know that I made them for her to enjoy and remember Me.

I smiled as my mind opened and saw everything as it was. "You're just a big show-off!" He laughed with me and then we both smiled. We knew what We had to do.

"Remember Us. You know who you are. You know you have stepped into eternity, into Me. Remember this. Remember Me. Remember Us."

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

America the Beautiful

It's time for another blog!

This is just an in-between-blogs blog though, but know that I have been given instructions on what my next blog is.

I'm investing a lot of time in the quiet and in the stillness. It's amazing how much passion is suddenly being birthed through this time with Jesus. I'm reminded of my blog about the recent blizzard that hit Georgia and how God showed me that it was a sign that it was time to be still and let Him do things within that I wouldn't even be aware He was doing until they began to take root and bloom.

One thing that He is giving me a passion for is America and her history. My mom read something recently about how Americans do not sing classic patriotic songs like "America the Beautiful" and My Country, Tis of Thee" anymore. When Americans did sing these songs in years past, especially the children in schools, they were prophesying over the country and speaking over her.

America began as a place for Protestant Christians to worship freely, and was pronounced as "one nation under God". What America is supposed to be is quickly disappearing beneath false concepts of what freedom is. We need to remember Who Freedom is.

I'm going to begin memorizing these songs slowly and remember to sing them regularly. I believe it is so important to speak over one's self the truth of who one is, and it is also important to speak over a nation the truth of who she is. The songs are prayers and prophecies, and I find the story behind the writing of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" especially interesting, since it ends up have several Biblical references. Here is the link to read more (I don't know how to set up links yet, but it's on wikipedia if this doesn't work).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_Hymn_of_the_Republic

Here are the songs I have found so far. If any of you know of others, please let me know.

America the Beautiful
My Country, Tis of Thee
You're a Grand Old Flag
The Star Spangled Banner
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Stars and Stripes Forever
God Bless America
God of Our Fathers
Eternal Father, Strong to Save
Battle Cry of Freedom

and a new one that I just thought of, written in the 80s, is "God Bless the U.S.A.".

Anyways, I leave you all to think on that and believe with me that there is hope for this country yet.

Even if things do keep changing drastically and quickly, we can still remember that we are INDEED free. No one can take that away.

Love to you all!

In the stillness

And I've got stay true to myself and post the most recent song that God is ministering to me through. He's giving me freedom to spend lots of time with Him even when there are outside pullings and distractions trying to get in the way. I'm fighting to stay in the quiet and stillness jealously...although this doesn't cause for much fighting, just abiding.


Somedays aren't yours at all,
They come and go
As if they're someone else's days
They come and leave you behind someone else's face
And it's harsher than yours
And colder than yours

They come in all quiet
Sweep up and then they leave
And you don't hear a single floor board creak
They're so much stronger
Than the friends you try to keep
By your side

Downtown, Downtown
I'm not here, not anymore
I've gone away
Don't call me, don't write

I'm in love with your daughter
I wanna have her baby
I'm in love with your daughter
So can I please

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Our friends, the terrorists.

Today I got a full update on what is going on in Egypt and that side of the world right now. It's scary stuff, and we need to be praying for our friends. You may wonder why I say "friends", but read this dream that I had a few years ago and you will wonder no more.

In the dream, I was in a hospital room because I was very sick. I was in bed with machines hooked up to me and tubes coming out of my arms. I was under a heavy dosage of drugs, so everything was very hazy.

Being sick made me sad and my spirit would become uneasy. A little boy from the Middle East would come visit me frequently. He believed strongly in Jesus, was always smiling, and had a very pure spirit. He would stand by my bed and sing to me in a beautiful, pure voice because it would bring peace to me. When he sang to me, my spirit would leave the hospital room and I would be in fields of green with trees and rivers.

Because of the drugs, I would be in and out of sleep, and the boy would come and go as the days went by. One day, I woke up and his dad had come to see me. He was a very handsome middle-aged man from the Middle East, with a thick, neatly trimmed, and heavily peppered beard. I knew right away that he was a Muslim terrorist who was part of a radical Islamic group. I got out of bed and ate lunch with him at small table in my room.

Our conversation was serious and intimate, for he was very kind, and this is the part that I remember. He said, "Please be praying for us! I am a Christian and there are many others in my group who are also Christians. We have to keep pretending we are terrorists, and we hate what we are doing. We want to leave, but are afraid if they catch us they will hurt our families. We have to protect our families."

The man turned to look at his son with love and fear in his eyes and then looked back at me. He continued, "We are in Lebanon. Please be praying that we find a way to escape safely!"

The man also told me during our conversation that he and the other Christians in the terrorist group wanted to serve Jesus, but it was hard to do because of what they were being forced to do. He greatly feared God and wanted to do the right thing. I had great compassion for this man. I saw his beautiful son as a testimony of how close this man walked with Jesus. Despite where he and his family lived, his son was the most loving, pure, and free-spirited child I had met.


At the time of the dream, I did not know a thing about Lebanon and I'm not even sure if I knew that it existed. When I woke up, I looked Lebanon up and saw that it is right beside Israel. It is my belief that I met and talked to real people in my dream. I have been trying to remember this man, his family, and his friends in my prayers ever since.

I was freshly reminded of this dream today, and wanted to ask you to join me in praying for our brothers and sisters who live in the Middle East; especially those who live in radical Islamic groups. It is also encouraging to know that Jesus is invading the terrorist groups, and we can pray that he continues to do so.

It is sad that it took a tragedy like this for me to share this with you.