CHAPTER TWO

WHAT IS THIS DREAM?

Joel 2:30-31 And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth; blood and fire and pillars of fire. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.

I need to cover a time span here, of 10 years, so stay with me on this journey. 

After I made the decision that I wanted no part of God or church, I began to have a reoccurring dream until I was 27 years. In this God given dream, I never grew older than 9 years old, even when I dreamed of it as an adult. Now here is the dream and I will mention parts of this in a forthcoming chapter.

I was in downtown Knoxville, on Gay Street, alone and hiding in a doorway of a well known department store. I was hiding because something very frightening was happening in front of me. People, both the dead and the living, were walking up Gay Street. How did I know the dead and the living, because I saw my daddy and he was dead and my mother and sisters and they were living. All these people and I didn't want to get in the line, it was dark outside and the moon was the color of blood. But I couldn't stop myself, I found myself in line, I had to walk up a hill and I was both crying and crawling, I knew at the top of the hill was Jesus and I was terrified. When I reached His feet, He had on these blue fuzzy house shoes and immediately I would wake up. I would say "It's just a dream, Jesus doesn't wear house shoes." Periodically this dream would continue exactly the same each time. We will be coming back to this very soon.

After daddy died we were able to buy a small, nice home in a nice neighborhood from his insurance money. I would live there until my early twenties.

Now I am 12 years old and still haven't been back to church. But my cousin invited me to come to her church revival, reluctantly I agreed to go. At the end of service, an invitation went out to the congregation for any who wanted to come up and share some testimony could do so. So this 12 year old, unchurched girl, got in line to go to the pulpit. Before I tell what I said, remember I said in the previous chapter; that not understanding death, at 9, I came up with my own conclusion. Now I stand at a Pastor's pulpit, looking out at all the people there and these words came out of my mouth, "I hate God, He killed my daddy and I am afraid He is going to kill me". Then I walked off, fairly certain they thought I was demon possessed, but in reality I was a child crying out for help. Afterwards they talked to me but all I remember was, they told me not to be afraid. And I walked out as lost as I went in.

My mom remarried, but it only lasted about a year and he had a son about a year younger than me. At this time I began to see demonic spirits, I remember at least twice. I had begun to lock my bedroom door and even prop my croquet set under the door knob, for my safety. One night I woke up with what looked like my step brother kneeling by my bed, but my door was still locked, I remember saying "What do you want?" No answer, so I got out of bed turned on my dresser light and looked at this person smiling at me with a colored pin stripe shirt on. Then as quickly as I saw him he was gone. And for my safety, from that night forward I kept my small light on along with my door locked and my croquet set propped under the door knob. I would only stop that routine after their divorce. Mom would keep the bathroom light on at night, and one night our little dog, Candy, would not stop barking she positioned herself right in front of mother's door and just kept barking at the hall wall. As I looked at the wall I saw a man's silhouette walking up and down the whole length of the hall wall. He had on a hat that touched the ceiling and the bottom of his shadow would touch the floor, and then it just suddenly disappeared.

As a preteen I did begin to go back to church some but mainly to the youth programs to hang out with the boys. But never dated any.

At 15 years old I began to date a young man 7 years older than me and I was in love. We planned on marriage when I graduated at 18, but a few months before graduation, I became pregnant we secretly married as my mother took us to a justice of the peace, and I graduated as planned. We had a son, and by the time he was two, we divorced and he was sent to Vietnam. Why did we divorce? Several reasons, 1. He had issues about keeping a job and we lived with my mother. 2. Remember what I thought marriage was to be like? I would cuss him attempt to rile him up and he would look at me and say, "Now precious, you don't mean that". He never said one harsh word to me, while we were dating and after we got married. And because he didn't meet my expectation of how a husband was suppose to treat his wife, I didn't respect him as a man. Thus the marriage ended. Remember the lies Satan whispered in my ear as a child about what marriage was to be like. 

Go back and read the scripture above. There is absolutely no way a 9 year child would know of this prophecy. But that dream will be brought up again very soon. These early years are just chapters in my life to give you a look into things that affected my life, you will see now and in the next chapter how the words whispered in a five year olds ear affected my relationships with two men I married. Yet God was watching over me and pursuing me. We do not always recognize God working in our lives; before or after we are saved, as a song says "God is always working even if we do not see it"! It is after He brings us through it that we see how much He was with us, watching over us, loving us and pursuing after us. 

Just because my marriage failed doesn't mean God stopped loving me, and He sure didn't stop pursuing me. He is the reason I am alive today, SPOILERS, that comes a little later in my story.