Places in My Heart

Today I’m reminded of some of the imaginings from my past. Some would call them daydreams. More recently, I have come to understand that these were true spiritual experiences. Each have occurred and reoccurred over the years, depending on what was going on in my life and in my heart at the time.

The Tree and The Stream

One of my favorite places is beside a gurgling stream that runs through a beautiful, flower-filled meadow. The sun is always shining there, and the mix of fragrances in the air is both intoxicating and soothing. My favorite tree stands next to the stream. I love to sit down on the fine, light-filled green grass at its feet and lean back against its strong trunk. I notice that some of its roots dip into the stream through the side of the muddy bank. I sometimes dip my toes in the water as it sings past me. Resting under this tree is one of the most peaceful places I know.

Only more recently, after I was enabled to read the Bible and understand it, did I discover in John the disciple’s writing in Revelation 22:1-2…

Then he (an angel) showed me (John) a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

The Garden

Another place that I ran to in my mind, when I needed to escape the noise and frenzy of life, was a beautiful, walled garden. The wall itself is built of uncut stones, like you might see on an English countryside. As I enter through the gate, I first see the marble fountain in the center. I love the sound of the water as it tumbles and splashes down layered tiers similar to those on a wedding cake. To my right is our swing, which hangs under a trellis covered with fragrant, flowered vines. Hummingbirds, bees and butterflies flit and buzz busily all around.

Then I see Him, entering through the gate opposite mine. My heart races and I can barely breathe. I want to run to Him, but I’m frozen in place by His beauty and the waves of love that wash over me. I extend my hand; He walks to me and takes me in His arms. There is no place in heaven or on earth as wonderful as His embrace! I rest against His chest, hear His strong and steady heartbeat, feel the warmth of His presence all around me. He leads me to sit with Him on our swing. I snuggle into His side, no need to speak, although sometimes we do. It’s more than enough to be with Him in this place.

I found the address to my garden in the Song of Solomon, verses 4:12,15; 4:16; and 5:1. The Bridegroom is Jesus, and the Bride is any and every person who truly loves Him… In this garden, the Bride is me…

Bridegroom: A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a rock garden locked, a spring sealed up…You are a garden spring, a well of living water, and streams flowing from Lebanon…

Bride: May my Beloved come into His garden and eat its choice fruits!

Bridegroom: I have come into My garden, my sister, my bride…

These are only two of the places that I would visit, call them daydreams or visions, as you wish. I suspect that there are many people like me, maybe even multitudes, who have similar experiences. Religious voices will try to say that these are not real, only concoctions of weak and fanciful minds. False voices will try to convince that I am reaching too hard to find places in the Bible to support my claims. But I was not involved in Religion when I found these wonderful places of refuge. I was a child when these visits began. Simple and innocent, open to the heart of my Father and His Son.

Memorial Day

Yesterday, October 11, was a significant day in my life. Eleven years ago on that date, I had a tangible encounter with Jesus in my shower. Much has happened in my life since those brief-yet-eternal moments. I hardly recognize my inner self today, compared to the 39 years prior to that encounter. Likewise, my outward life is completely changed and unrecognizable in comparison to my past.

When I realized the date yesterday, I wondered what I should call it. Most Christians would say it was my spiritual birthday, which would suggest that I didn't know my Lord prior to that day. But that isn't true. I've known Him all of my life as my friend and father. I have spoken with Him every day about anything and everything. As a child, I couldn't understand why adults put so many rules and requirements on just knowing Him. They made it so difficult. From the age of 10 through age 40 I didn't go to church. But that didn't stop Jesus from staying close to me through every single day of my life. So I couldn't exactly refer to October 11 as my spiritual birthday in the way that most people view it.

Was it an anniversary? That felt like I was getting closer to describing the day's significance. An anniversary marks a day in remembrance of a person or event. In my case, the person was - and is! - the event. On that day, I can say that I entered into a much deeper and more intimate relationship with Jesus than I had known before. I didn't feel like a little girl any more. I felt chosen and accepted and cherished in ways that nobody had ever communicated to me before.

Jesus made these things clear to me without speaking a single word. The depth of the love that I saw in His eyes took my breath away. It was as if I was breathing love deep into my heart; I believe that I was doing exactly that. The strength and warmth of His embrace told me that I was completely safe and secure. His smile told me that He had waited my entire life for those moments in the shower. He knew the day would come when I would choose Him above all others. October 11, 1998, was like a betrothal or a wedding. On the day that He created me, He asked the question of me: Will you choose Me? In my shower, naked and wet and completely exposed to Him in every way, I said "Yes!" I knew that I was His and that He was mine. Our covenant was sealed on that day. So I could consider October 11 as Our anniversary date.

But during worship yesterday, I heard Him say into my spirit that it was Our Memorial Day. After pondering a bit, I notice that "memorial" is extremely important to God. His name, YAHWEH, was given to Moses as God's memorial name for all generations. God's translation of this name is, I AM that I AM. The true and living God simply - IS. No discussion or debate or philosophy is required for this truth to be so. In those incomparable moments in my shower, my heart was purged of every dark thing. All pain that others caused in my heart was released in forgiveness. All remorse and regret for the pain I had caused in others' hearts was washed away. As you forgive others, so will the Father forgive you. I received the forgiveness that was the bridal price Jesus paid for me on the Cross.

I was immediately made into a pure and spotless creation, far different from how I'd been before. The pure in heart will see God. I was transformed into His likeness and was, therefore, able to see and touch and smell and know Him tangibly. He seemed to me to be more real than I was to myself. I received His name, as a bride receives the name of her husband. I entered into His protection and provision, into His very household. October 11 was a new beginning for me in every possible sense of the words. Like Jacob and so many others. I set up an altar in my heart to the One who revealed Himself to me. It is a day of remembrance for me. It is Our Memorial Day!

Home at Last (Part Three)

….Life is but a Dream…

I was sitting at our dining room table, sipping my morning coffee and soaking up the beautiful forest view. Suddenly I remembered the dream about the two cars. As I looked at our winding driveway, the road that passes above our house and the mail box that sits just past the driveway as you go up the hill, I realized that I was sitting in the very house that I saw in the dream! Our red Ford Explorer was parked at that very moment on the concrete pad in front of our house. What I had taken as a carport in the dream was actually the roof over the covered portion of our deck at the front of the house. The deck then wraps around the side of the house next to the windowed dining room where I sat at that moment.

The reason I mention the dream in this account of coming home, is because I had no idea that this house even existed until six months before we moved into it. I had, however, met the owners two years before at the second dream interpretation class I took on this mountain. I was immediately drawn to Laura’s beauty and sweetness when I met her in a small group activity during the class. I had no idea that her husband was my teacher’s very good friend, Larry. When he and Doug joked about a scribe angel that helped them write their books and training materials, I welled up and wept from a deep place within me. I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to live in such a place. It never even occured to me that I would not only come to live in that very place, but that Laura’s and Larry’s house would become my long-awaited home.

I now realize that the seed was planted two years ago, before I learned from an email from Doug that Larry’s house was for sale. When Dave and I watched the slide presentation of their lovely home, we thought we’d found our cabin in the woods that we’d hoped for after Dave retired from his job. For six months we vacillated between buying the house and talking ourselves out of buying the house. If I hadn’t had that dream two years ago, and forgotten it until after we moved in, I would be much more concerned about our current state of affairs. I am encouraged to know that we didn’t come here because I had a dream. I am equally encouraged that we are right where we're supposed to be because I am now living the interpretation and the application of that dream!

In another article I’ll write about the series of events that lead to our decision to risk it all and make our move years earlier than we’d planned, to a bigger and more expensive house than we would have considered sensible.

Dream On ~ ©1973 by Aerosmith

Every time I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It goes by, like dusk to dawn
Isn't that the way
Everybody's got their dues in life to pay

Yeah, I know nobody knows
where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Half my life
is in books' written pages
Lived and learned from fools and
from sages
You know it's true
All the things come back to you

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears
Sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

Yeah, sing with me, sing for the year
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream until your dream comes through
Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream On Dream On
Dream On Dream On

Sing with me, sing for the year
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away
Sing with me, sing for the year
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away......

Home at Last (Part Two)

Dream on… Dream on… Dream until your dream comes true! (from Dream On,Copyright 1973 by Aerosmith)

I first visited this place as a student. Instead of taking courses in dream interpretation closer to home in Ohio, Dave and I both had a strange sense that I was to come to North Carolina. Financially, it would cost about the same for either trip, so we figured, “Why not?” A few weeks after my first trip and my first class, I had the dream:

Dave and I were riding in another man’s car. At first we thought it was a really cool car, but after a while we realized it wasn’t what we’d expected. We were on our way to drop off the car and pick up our own. It was night and very dark on the winding, unpaved road. Dave had to watch the road carefully as I watched for the house. Driving slowly uphill we passed a road, then a mailbox. The house number we were looking for was on the mailbox. Just past the mailbox I saw a light down below the road. “Dave! That’s the house! We have to back up. The driveway is back there, before the mailbox.” He didn’t believe me at first, until he backed up a bit and could see the dimly lit house.

The driveway was more like a short road that wound its way down to the house. Our red Ford Explorer was parked on a concrete pad to the left of the house under a carport of some type. To the right was a wrap-around porch; the far wall of the first floor of the house was more windows than walls, including the front door. Because there was only room for one car in the carport, we tried to park the car we’d been driving to the right side of the driveway to make room to back our car out. But the car itself kept trying to force its way into the space where our own car was parked. Dave tried a number of times, but the same thing kept happening.

An elderly, somewhat frail looking woman was in the back seat behind Dave. She offered to give it a try, so Dave stepped out to observe as she repeatedly tried to park the car with no success. From Dave’s viewpoint outside the car, he was able to see what the problem was and knew what to do. That’s where the dream ended.

At the time of the dream, Dave and I had been involved in a church project that looked and sounded to be everything we believed church should be about. At first we were very excited to be a part of it all, but over time we realized that all was not as it was presented to be. I had been praying that night about our role in the project and whether we should even be involved. If not, I was asking how we could graciously beg our leave without being accusatory or rejecting of the people involved.

For two years, my sole understanding of the dream was that we needed to exit the church project and “go pick up our own car.” In dream language, I’ve learned that a car often represents the dreamer’s work or life purpose. According to the dream, we had something of our own to do, and we needed to find where it was “parked” and go get it. Although we still didn’t know what “it” truly was, the dream looked pretty straight forward until about two months after we moved to North Carolina.

In Part Three, I'll tell you why this dream is so significant to us today. Thanks for reading...

Home at Last ( Part One)

After 35 years, I have finally come home.  Much like the place of my childhood, I am surrounded by more of God’s handiwork than man’s, but even more so.  We live in the forest of western North Carolina.  We have no grass to mow, except what tries to reclaim our graveled driveway.  Our “yard” is literally trees and undergrowth.  Our lawn equipment now consists of a push mower, a weed whacker, a chain saw and hatchets.  My childhood effort, to listen closely for the rare moments void of any man-made sounds, has become effortless.  Birdsong, crickets, the rushing of the stream below our property, and the occasional whir of hummingbird wings compose the music that continually meets my ears.  Home sweet home is easy on the senses.

We can’t see our neighbors’ houses until the leaves drop in late autumn.  If a dozen cars wind their way past our house in a day, we call it heavy traffic.  On Saturday mornings backup generators automatically fire up all over the mountain to keep the batteries charged.  With few exceptions, that’s about as much interaction as there is.  If not for Sunday services, we would seldom see most of these folks.  In that respect, it turns out to be like most every other place I’ve lived. 

Now What?

We wonder what we’re doing here, now that we’re here.  Our youngest son recently suggested that his dad and I are here to heal and to rest.  I agree.  But after six months of healing and resting, we can’t help but wonder what’s next for us.  In fact, we’ve lately begun to doubt whether we should have come here at all.  We’re financially strapped, socially isolated, and the only thing we have any sureness about is that I’m here to write. We have no idea where finances will come from to meet our obligations. If something doesn’t break loose before tax time next year, it looks like we’ll be in trouble.

We came down here pretty much on a whisper of insight.  Our original excitement about this house, this place, this neighborhood and this timing had waned to the point of practicality and spreadsheets. It simply didn’t make sense for us move here at this time, to buy this much house for this much money.   It would have made more sense for Dave to stay at his job, pay for yet one more mortgage, and wait to retire and move after our Ohio real estate was sold. And it certainly would have made more sense to have a job or a business or something in place before we moved.  Yet we decided to make this move in the midst of the U.S. banking fiasco and the worldwide economic meltdown of 2008.

Things had been happening in our lives, especially mine, over the past few years. Things had been building, one upon the other, and forming an image that ended up looking like we needed to make this move in spite of logic, reason or anything that looked remotely like sanity.  It’s only somewhat comforting to learn that most everybody else on this mountain has come here under similar circumstances. So, either we all have tremendous faith, or we’re all ridiculously insane.  If I hadn’t had the dream two years ago, I would lean toward an insanity plea.

Please come back to read Part Two.  I'll let you in on "the dream."