Treadmill workout and a precious God moment

I have a true story to share with you. I was working out on my treadmill. I have Shaw digital TV and I am scanning the music channels for “high energy” music to keep me motivated. I stopped on the 80s channel. OK, so maybe I am showing my age here, but I am an 80s girl. Anyway, this song came on called, “Got my mind set on you” by George Harrison. Does anyone know the song I am talking about? If the lyrics will fit I will sometimes turn a song into a worship song and sing it as a form of worship to God. When I heard the main chorus of the song I felt like it was the perfect worship song so I began singing the lyrics to the chorus only and worshiping God while working out on my treadmill. The lyrics in the chorus are pretty simple. They are, “I got my mind set on you” repeated over and over. So there I was singing at the top of my lungs while working out on my treadmill singing, “I got my mind set on you” and pointing to the sky. I suppose it is a good thing I workout at home instead of at the gym…lol. Here is a link to the song if you want to hear it: http://youtu.be/jQM9rwt_MHc

Then the song ended and I can’t remember if it was the very next song or the song after that, but shortly after that song I heard God say to me in my heart, “Now I have a song for you that I want you to listen to. Pay close attention to the chorus lyrics because this explains how I feel about you.” Has anyone here ever been Rick Rolled? If you have you will know exactly what song I am talking about. The song is called, “Never gonna give you up” by Rick Astley, another 80s song of course. When I listened to the words in the chorus of this song and knew that God was telling me this is how He feels about me, I felt incredibly happy; it was an amazing God moment. I felt so loved. I know He feels the same way about you too. If you have ever struggled with feeling like God doesn’t want you or He doesn’t care about you or that you are not good enough, don’t believe it, those are lies coming from the enemy. I know God feels the exact same way about you as He does about me and this song applies to you just as much as it does to me. I know He loves the fact that I am sharing this with you now. Here is a link to the song: http://youtu.be/k7oVeqs-ve8 (Play the song) Go ahead and dance, sing or do both if you want to. J

Remember this only applies to the chorus lyrics of the song, not the verses. The chorus lyrics are posted below:

Never Gonna Give you up Lyrics

Rick Astley
CHORUS
Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

For those of you who have never been Rick Rolled and would like the pleasure of the experience so you know exactly what I am talking about click on this link: http://thekickback.com/rickroll/rickroll.php

I have to tell you that sharing a moment like that with God feels incredible. Just the fact that God would care about me so much that He would send me a song to tell me how much He loves me? Little ol’ me? It is an amazing feeling. Who am I that He should care so much for me? But He does care for me. He does love me. And He loves you just as much.

In Acts 10:34 the Bible says, “It's God's own truth, nothing could be plainer: God plays no favorites! It makes no difference who you are or where you're from—if you want God and are ready to do as he says, the door is open…”

What I am trying to say is there is nothing special about me. If God will communicate his love for me He will do it for you too, he does not play favorites as we read about in the previous verse. The fact is God is always trying to communicate with us. The problem is we become too preoccupied and too busy with the things in our life that we fail to hear him.
We fill our heads with text messages, work, video games, music, movies, sports, time with friends, etc. None of these things are bad if they are clean and moral. It is all about balance. So many people say they are just too busy to spend time with God, but the truth is, we always make time for what is important to us. If friends are important to you, you will always make time to hang out with them and enjoy your time with them. God is no different. He wants to be your best friend. If you will make time for Him every day like you do other things that are important to you, I PROMISE you, YOU WILL begin to feel His presence, YOU WILL begin to feel His love for you and YOU WILL hear from Him!

So many people say they don’t feel God or they think of Him as this being out there in the universe somewhere, but the truth is God is never far away. We are the ones who move ourselves further away from Him by crowding Him out of our lives with other things. The choice is always ours.

He communicates to each person in unique ways. He speaks to us in a way that He knows we will receive it. For example, when He Rick Rolled me He knew I was listening to the music to see if I could turn it into a form of worship as I was working out. I had just finished singing the chorus lyrics to Him as a form of worship. He knew I would hear Him at that moment. And I am here to tell you, when you hear from Him, the love you feel from Him, it is like no other, it is out of this world, literally, and cannot even be compared with the kind of love you will ever find on this earth. Just like the song lyrics say, He will never give up on you, He will never lie to you, He will never hurt you and He will NEVER leave you! Those are promises you can trust completely. We have all been hurt, lied to, given up on and left behind, etc., but there is One Who will never do that to you. I pray my treadmill God moment blesses you…

The Tornado

April 2, 2009

During my time with God in my sunny spot on the couch this morning, I was reading from 1 Samuel chapter eight to ten. Samuel was getting old so he appointed his sons as judges over Israel; however, his sons were perverting justice and the Israelites asked Samuel to appoint for them a king to rule over them. The Lord told Samuel that the Israelites were rejecting Him as their King and informed Samuel that he will give them a king who will rule over them. This king would be Saul. When Samuel informed Saul about the Lord’s plan Saul responded by saying he was from the smallest tribe of Israel and his family was the least of all families. He could not understand why Samuel would say such a thing.

Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on Saul’s head, anointed him and kissed him. He told Saul who he would meet as he went home and what would happen on his journey. When Saul reached the hill of God, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily and he showed himself a prophet. 1 Samuel 10:6 (AMP) actually says he was turned into another man and 1 Samuel 10:9 (AMP) says God gave him a new heart.

After I finished read this, I was sitting on the couch pondering how it must feel to have the Spirit of the Lord come upon you. The Holy Spirit brought to my mind a dream I had that I call “The Tornado.” (I just realized this now as I am typing this, but I had this dream on April 1, 2005 which is almost exactly four years to the day.)

The Lord was revealing to me a clearer understanding of that prophetic dream. In my dream I was taking shelter from a tornado inside a wooden hut. Inside the shelter are two friends of mine. Suddenly a man enters the shelter. I take one look at him and I instantly know that I love Him and He loves me and that He is sent to me from God. He yells that the tornado has touched down and is headed toward us. The tornado rips the door of the wooden hut off its hinges. It starts to pull the Man I love. He reaches out His hand and I place my right hand in His and He holds me tight. I turn around and ask my friends to grab my hand but they don’t move. They are too afraid; I can see it in their eyes. The forces of the winds are pulling me towards the open door. It is at this moment I realize that I have to decide if I am going to let go of this Man’s hand and save myself or not. I decide not to let go of His hand. The tornado is right over top of us now and it rips the roof off. The Man, whose hand I am holding, and I get sucked up into the middle of the tornado.

I have just explained to you the first part of my dream. Before today, I have always wondered if that tornado dream was, in fact, prophetic, but after today I am convinced it is. I just watched an interview this morning on It’s A New Day with author W. Paul Young who wrote the book “The Shack.” Paul was describing that the shack he refers to in his book is his heart. I have heard that this book is really good and it is on my summer reading list.

The Lord then reveals to me the meaning of the first part of my dream. The wooden hut that I hide inside for shelter is my heart. I never realized that before. Do you see the similarities from Paul’s book? I never would have thought of that if I had not just watched the program. It is amazing how God uses people to speak to us. The Man who enters my heart is Jesus. Before I realized the wooden hut represented my heart, I was not sure what the meaning was of the man in this dream but now it is crystal clear. I had this dream after I had asked Jesus into my heart. After Jesus enters my heart the door is ripped off its hinges and the roof it torn off. This symbolizes that Jesus had begun working in my heart. When He entered my heart, it was full of thick, tall walls all the way around it to shelter myself from the world and the people in it. Jesus was breaking down those walls, the very walls I had so carefully put up, brick by brick, after each wounding in my heart took place.

Philippians 1:6 (NIV)
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

The friends inside the wooden hut represent my old life, my old nonbelieving friends and the fleshly things of this world. Once I am holding Jesus’ hand I am given the choice of either letting His hand go or hanging on for dear life. Either I can hold on to the fleshly desires and things of this world, hold on to the bitterness, the resentment, the anger, the unforgiveness, etc., or I can choose to not let go of Him and let Him transform me into a new person.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

It is interesting to me that in my dream I had to decide if I was going to let go of this Man’s hand and save myself or not. The funny thing is, I chose not to let go of His hand and that is exactly what I needed to do in order to be saved. I thought that if I let go I would save myself but I was only fooling myself by believing that lie. Satan often tries to make the things of this world seem so appealing that we don’t want to or don’t think we can give them up. For example, after accepting Jesus into your heart He might start dealing with you about all of those little white lies you tell throughout your day, or he may start dealing with you about how you need to stop drinking alcohol and hanging with certain friends that are bad influences.

I will continue now with the next part of my tornado dream. The roof has just been ripped off the wooden hut and the Man and I have been sucked up into the midst of the tornado. Inside I am spinning around and around. Dust and debris are flying all around me. I am screaming at the top of my lungs, feeling as if I am going to die. I am terrified for my life. Suddenly, I am thrown from the tornado and I land on my knees in the mud. I am badly injured. I look beside me and the Man whose hand I was holding is also on His knees in the mud right by my side.

I believe the tornado symbolizes the tests and trials in my life. The tornado symbolizes my divorce and the years that led up to it. The tornado symbolizes the panic disorder with agoraphobia that hit me hard and stopped me dead in my tracks in 1995. The tornado symbolizes all of the other hardships I have endured throughout my life. Remember how I described feeling like I was going to die and being terrified for my life in the midst of the tornado? That is exactly how I feel in the midst of a panic attack. I also believe the tornado symbolizes how God deals with us about old baggage from our past that he needs us to deal with and face in order to bring healing and restoration in our lives. The amazing part that brings tears to my eyes is finding out that Jesus is going through it right beside me. Jesus is right by my side. Isn’t He amazing? He will never let go of your hand. God does not promise us we will never have to endure hardships but He does promise He will never leave us.

Hebrews 13:5 (NLT)
“I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”

Although I have had panic disorder with levels of agoraphobia for 13 years now, I truly believe that if the Lord had not allowed this to happen to me, I never would have turned to Him. Before the agoraphobia and panic I was so full of myself, so selfish and conceited. It was during the lowest part of my marriage and the lowest point of the panic disorder that I hit rock bottom. I had nowhere left to turn and I had no idea how I was going to survive anything else in my life. I finally stopped looking inside myself to try to save myself and I looked up. When I looked up I found a loving, caring Father with His arms stretched out towards me, waiting patiently for me to come to Him; for me to choose Him.

I will continue now with the next part of my dream. I am on my knees in the mud with the Man beside me. Some people gather us up and take us into a large school for shelter and safety. I am injured and limping yet I go right to work helping the volunteers by serving juice and snacks to the scared children inside. I stop once in awhile and tell them a funny story to make them laugh. Someone announces that the storm is heading towards the school. They warn everyone to stay away from the windows and doors or risk being sucked out. I look out a window and I see more kids outside running towards the school. All of the doors are locked from the outside. I look around and not one person is willing to risk their life to go and open the door for the children outside. I run over to the door and let the remaining children inside. The door is being pulled so hard by the strong winds, I cannot pull it shut. I leave it open and stand back, waiting for the storm to pass over.

The part in my dream where I am injured and limping symbolizes how my heart and soul have been injured in my past but I don’t let that stop me from serving God. I am then serving juice and snacks to the children inside and trying to make them laugh. I want to see joy on their faces. This is my desire now to serve the Lord with all of my heart and to share what God has done for me in my life. The children are, of course, all people (God’s children). Even though I still suffer with panic disorder and agoraphobia, I do not let that stop me from my desire to share God’s work in my life and what He has done for me. My desire is to see others find the same joy that I have found in Jesus. I have begun to do so by creating this blog. It is not always easy to share the intimate details of my life but I feel the Lord has asked me to do this in order to help others.

There are more parts to this tornado dream but I cannot share them with you at this time as I feel this dream is prophetic and the Lord has not yet revealed to me the remainder of the meaning of this dream. I hope that my story has brought you some comfort and hope.

Share your Burdens

Galatians 6:2 (NLT)

Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.

Do you ever feel like you are carrying burdens that are too heavy to bear? Perhaps you are feeling that way right now? Do you have someone in your life who will come alongside you during times of distress? Maybe you have co-worker friends, casual acquaintances or casual friends, but in times of distress no one seems to be there to support you. Do you feel like you are left all alone with your troubles? God did not create us to be solitary, He created us for fellowship. The dictionary defines fellowship as, "the companionship of individuals in a congenial (agreeable)atmosphere and on equal terms." God created us for fellowship. Fellowship with Him and fellowship with others.

God actually desires to have fellowship with us but He will never force us into a relationship with Him. Fellowship with God will not happen on its own, we have to want to have fellowship with Him. The New Living Translation of the Bible says it perfectly as follows:

Revelation 3:20 (NLT)

"Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends."

To elaborate a bit on the above scriture, what happens when you share a meal with a close friend? You talk about your life, you share personal experiences, trials, good news and bad news. You rejoice together and you cry together. That is what I feel is the meaning behind this piece of scripture. That is the kind of relationship God wants to have with us through His son Jesus. It is easy to begin to have a relationship with God. You don't have to wait until you are good enough because none of us will ever be good enough, He wants to be your best friend just as you are. He accepts you just as you are. To begin your journey into fellowship with God, all you have to do is believe that Jesus is the Messiah, that He came to earth, died on the cross for your sins and then rose again on the third day and is now seated at God's right side. If you would like to begin your journey into a relationship with God, just say the following prayer out loud right now:

Dear Heveanly Father, I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I repent, right now, for all of my sins and I am asking you to forgive me. You said in your Word, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:13). And so, I am calling on the name of your Son Jesus, to come into my heart and be my Savior right now. You also said in your Word, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9). I believe with my all of my heart that Jesus died for my sins and was raised from the dead so that I may have eternal life. I thank you Jesus, for taking my sins in order that I can be cleansed and transformed into a new creation. Thank you for welcoming me into your family. In Jesus' name, Amen!

If you just said that prayer out loud, congratulations, I am so happy for you because you have just begun a new chapter in your life, one filled with hope, healing and transformation. I would love to hear from you, please do not hesitate to share with me. Once you have received Jesus in your heart, it is always good to share the good news with someone and let them know about your decision. Confess it out loud.

Once you begin having fellowship with God by inviting Jesus into your heart and life, you begin a relationship with Him. The best way to cultivate your new relationship is by spending time with God by reading His Word, the Bible. If you don't have one you can buy one or even read it online. Many churches will give you a Bible as well. There are many translations, but I would recommend the New Living Translation for new believers, it is very easy to understand and written in easy to understand modern-day language. The scriptures I used for this devotion are all from the New Living Translation (NLT).

Your relationship with God is no different than any of your other relationshiops with regards to the level of closeness and intimacy the relationship has. For example, if you spend time every evening going out for coffee with your buddy Linda, your relationship with Linda will be closer than someone you hang out with once a week or month. You decide how close or how distant your relationship with God will be by how much time you spend with Him. Another example, if you only hang out with God at church, you won't know Him as well as if you hung out with Him everyday. He wants to hang out with you every day. To hang out with God, you can read His Word, talk to Him throughout your day just as you would a friend. Also, make sure you take time to listen for his voice talking back to you, if you spend enough time with God, He will talk to you. So you see, it isn't just a one-sided conversation. You can also hang out with God in prayer or by listening to christian music and/or singing praises to Him. There are many ways to hang out with God. There is no set formula. I enjoy having a conversation with God while I am walking my dogs. We have had some very good conversations that way.

I want to make sure I mention something else. When you accept Jesus into your heart, that does not guarantee a perfect life with no more problems, etc. God never said we would never have trouble, but He did say in Hebrews 13:5 (NLT):

For God has said,
“I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”

When we go through times of distress, God is there with you, walking you through it. Now you never have to go through anything alone again. There is more good news. If you just accepted Jesus into your heart or perhaps if you have but have never found a local church, I strongly encourage you to find a local church to attend regularly. Not only is church a place to go to be fed the Word of God and to worship Him among a community of fellow believers, but also, chruch is a place where you can meet other believers. Remember, when you invite Jesus into your heart you are given a new life, you are born-again into His family of believers (you now have christian brothers and sisters all over the place). Have you ever wished you had a sister or a brother? Or perhaps you have always wished you had a father or mother-type in your life because you either lost your mom or dad or they were not a good parent. Perhaps one or both were abusive in some way. When you enter into the new family of God, His family of believers, you again get to choose how close or distant those relationships will be. When you meet someone at your local church that you really enjoy being around, then cultivate that relationship. Through God's family of believers, He often provides for us the types of people we need in our lives that we never had in our biological family environment. Just remember, don't be too hard on your new brothers and sisters, they are also only human and are not perfect. None of use will be perfect until we get to Heaven.

This is all such wonderful news. Not only do you now have the Almighty God residing within you now, but you have free access to any local church that you feel comfortable in, where you can cultivate friendships with other believers. Just a word of warning though, when you are searching for a church, you need to make sure the church acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah, that He died for our sins and was raised on the third day. Some of the church denominations that I can think of off the top of my head are as follows: Pentecostal, Evangelical, Baptist, Evangelical-Free, Non-denominational and Alliance.

Now when you are going through tough times you, first of all, have God on your side now so you are NEVER alone, you also have a whole new family of believers at your local church who are willing to share your burdens and stand beside you.

Ecclesiastes 4:9 (NLT)
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.

Exodus 17:12 (NLT)
Moses’ arms soon became so tired he could no longer hold them up. So Aaron and Hur found a stone for him to sit on. Then they stood on each side of Moses, holding up his hands. So his hands held steady until sunset.

In the above scripture, Moses was holding a staff up in the air for a very long period of time in order to help the Israelites win the battle against the Amalekites. Moses was feeling overwhelmed with the staff he had to hold over his head for so long, but his son Aaron and his friend Hur stood alongside him and helped him through. When we are feeling overwhelmed by burdens or troubles, we can lean on God and He will carry us through. Also, our fellow christian brothers and sisters will stand alongside and share our burdens.

Discipline and Training bring Transformation

Our heavenly Father disciplines us for our own good, just as we as children were disciplined by our parents or we as parents discipline our children. Our parents did it and we do it as parents in order to teach our children. Every loving parent disciplines and corrects their children. God loves us more than we can ever imagine, it surpasses our understanding, our mere earthly human minds cannot understand the magnitude of God's complete and unconditional love for each and every one of us.

Before I go any further, I just need to clarify something. Unfortunately, some parents have taken discipline to a whole new level that is totally inappropriate called "child abuse." Whether it be verbal abuse, mental abuse or physical abuse, that type of punishment is not appropriate and not at all what God had in mind when He speaks of a father disciplining his child. This type of discipline is coming out of a heart full of anger, rage and frustration and the parent is taking it out on the child. Discipline involves training, teaching and correcting.

The definition of discipline is to bring to a state of order and obedience by training and control. When I was in competitive figure skating, I had to go through a lot of training and discipline in order to be ready for a competition. It wasn't always fun to train. Getting up at 5AM on a cold winter morning while it is still dark outside and skating at a cold rink for hours in the morning was not fun. That took discipline and training by my coach. If I hadn't gone through the training, I would not have been ready or prepared when it was time to compete. Just as we put our bodies through training for a sport, God puts our hearts through training and discipline in order to prepare us for the good plans that He has for us.

Jeremiah 29:11 (Amplified)

For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.

Hebrews 12:6-11 (Amplified)

For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes. You must submit to and endure correction for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not thus train and correct and discipline? Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all of God's children share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons at all. Moreover, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded to them and respected them for training us. Shall we not much more cheerfully submit to the Father of spirits and so truly live? For our earthly fathers disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them; but He disciplines us for our certain good, that we may become sharers in His own holiness. For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness -- conformity to God's will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God].

We are not automatically God's children. In order to become His child, we must choose Him.

Deuteronomy 30:19 (Amplified)

I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "Why should I choose Him if He is just going to beat the tar out of me?" That is not the kind of discipline He is talking about. He works on our hearts. We start out with hearts full of sin and selfishness. If we choose life, He begins to work the selfishness and sin out of our hearts and little by little our life is forever changed for the better. He begins transforming us into His image. The way to choose life is simple. We simply need to accept and believe that God sent His son Jesus to this earth to pay for our sins once and for all by sending His son to die on the cross and raising Him back to life on the third day and is now seated at God's right-hand side. We then receive Jesus who then dwells in our hearts.

God has given us all free will, He did not create nor want robots. When the bible says, "I set before you life . . ." it means when we choose to believe in and accept Jesus we receive the free gift of eternal life in heaven with Him. When the bible says, ". . . or death," it means, when we live to please our sinful selves and seek to satisfy our own selfish desires we are rejecting Him and we are not His children and we will not have a place in heaven. Hebrews 12:8 said, ". . . you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons at all." I like the way I have heard Joyce Meyer say it once, I am not sure if I am quoting this correctly but it went something like this: "I would rather live my life as if there is a God and find out I am right, than live my life as if there is no God and find out I am wrong." Basically what she is saying is that you have nothing to lose if you choose Him and everything to gain.

Some of the pain or trails we go through are brought on by ourselves; by our own foolish choices. Some people think that when something bad happens to them God is punishing them. That is not true. God does not punish like that. Remember, God only disciplines His children and you only become His child when you choose to believe in His son Jesus. Then the discipline begins, but it is a discipline of the heart as He works to remove the sin and selfishness out of us. We become a work in progress.

Let me give you a real-life example of how God works sin and selfishness out of our hearts. Before I accepted Jesus and He came to live in my heart, I used to spit or throw my gum out the car window as I was driving. I never thought twice about it. One day, after I had received Jesus, I was driving down the road and I had spit my gum into my hand and was about to throw it out the window. I heard a voice in my mind say, "No, that is littering." I proceeded to roll the gum around in my fingers while I drove as I was figured out what to do with it. I ended up rolling it into my grocery receipt and sticking it back in with my groceries. It is the little things like that, that He begins to work on and bring change in your heart and in your life.

I will give you another real-life example. Before I received Jesus, I used to walk my dogs in the park and not bother to clean up after them. I knew it was against the law to leave it there but I didn't care. One afternoon as I was walking the dogs, one of my dogs was going to the bathroom. I let her do her thing and began to walk away when I suddenly heard a voice in my head say, "Pick that up!" I was not prepared. I never carried those "pooper" bags for scooping up the poop. I suddenly felt a strong urge to do the right thing. I ended up using an empty cup that someone had littered and a stick to flick the doggy doo doo into the cup. I then proceeded to walk, rather quickly I might add, to the nearest garbage can.

Those, my friends, are some real-life examples of how God disciplines. If you want to read another example of how God deals with more serious issues, read my post titled, "Heart Issues." Hebrews 12:11 says, "For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit. . ." If you have read my post titled, "Heart Issues" you will know that discipline was painful and grievous for me to go through but it was something that had to be done and now that I have I am so much better off and I have so much peace.

God is not sitting in heaven thinking up ways to torture us as some people would believe. He loves all of us. He wants all of us to be His children, but it is our choice.

And The Healing Begins....

The Horse Is Led To Freedom

(This dream occurred during my first year as a single mom. If you have read my other posts in my blog then you already know how I feel about dreams. If you have not yet read my March post titled, "Dreams and the Scripture," then it would be best if you read that post before continuing to read this one.)

(In this dream, I am still married)

It is late fall and my husband is gone away on a hunting trip. He returns home with his hunting buddies. They are unloading the weeks' kill off their trucks and hanging the skinned, gutted corpses from the hind feet in our cold garage to dry. I notice they have also brought back with them a live horse. I ask them why and they tell me the farmer was going to put it down because it is too skittish so they asked if they could have it. They unload the horse and tie her up in the driveway beside our house. She is a beautiful horse, chocolate brown with the only white on her being a stripe down her nose. I get as close to the horse as she will allow which is not too close. I start to sing to her and she seems to be calmed and soothed by my presence and my singing.

My husband's hunting buddies untie the horse and take her to the back alley. My husband tells them, "No, you can't kill the horse yet, remember the farmer said she has to have a good morning run before we shoot her, otherwise her meat won't be any good to eat." His buddies say, "Oh, that's right, then we will leave the horse in your back yard for the night and let her loose in the morning for a good run before we shoot her."

I am completely distraught upon hearing this news. I start to cry and I scream, "You can't kill this horse!" My husband and his hunting buddies just look at me and laugh. I am running in and out of the house trying to figure out how to save this poor horse from her unfortunate circumstances. My son is in the house and he asks, "why are you crying mom?" I explain it to him.

At this point I wake up from my dream to find that not only was I crying in my dream, but I was also crying out loud for real in my sleep which is what woke me from my dream. It was one of those gut-wrenching type of cries where your entire stomach feels like it is in one huge tight knot. I sat up in bed and my stomach was so tense it felt like I had just finished doing about 100 sit-ups.

THE END

(Translation of this dream)

This was one of those dreams that I woke up from, knowing it meant something. The intense emotions I felt during that dream remained with me for weeks. I often pray and ask God if the dream had any significance and to please help me translate the dream so I could understand what it meant. The following is my interpretation of the above dream.

Dreams are often very symbolic and I know in this dream the horse repesents me. That is no big surprise since I love animals so much and horses have always been one of my favorites. The horse is skittish, afraid of people. That would describe me in a lot of ways. That is most likely why, I believe, I developed the panic disorder I now have called "Agoraphobia." I have been hurt by many people in my lifetime and I learned from a young age that people could not be trusted. While growing up, I always liked animals better than people. I knew I could trust animals, it was people I had a problem trusting. I was also an extremely shy young girl and I still am to a point.

When my husband and his hunting buddies are laughing at me, that would represent how I thought they felt about me. I felt like they, mainly meaning my husband, see me as disposable and useless. This would explain my feelings about my husband leaving me. The horse being tied up and in an unfortunate situation symbolizes how I felt in my relationship with my husband. In my marriage I had felt trapped, isolated and alone.

I knew this dream had meaning but I did not know this was a dream from God until later that same day when I was checking my email. A christian friend of mine from across the globe had sent me an ecard. I opened the card and I could not believe my eyes. On the card was a picture of a horse, a chocolate brown horse with a white stripe down the nose. It was exactly the same as the horse in my dream. There was one huge difference between the horse in my dream and the horse in the card. The horse in my dream was trapped. The horse in the card is at peace, running "free" through a lush green field, beside a sparkling stream with flowers budding on the trees. I had not told my friend about my dream.

When I saw the horse running free in the ecard, the emotions I had felt in my dream came flooding back with tremendous intensity. I could not help but cry. I reached out and touched the horse on my computer monitor and whispered, "You are free now."

I feel that God used my friend from across the globe to send a message to me regarding my dream. I feel He was telling me that "I am free now, free from the toxic marriage" and He is filling me with his perfect peace. Think about it, my friend from across the globe sends me an ecard the very same day I have this terribly sad dream. The horse in the card looks exactly like the one in my dream only it is running free and at total peace. This is not a coincidence! This is a message from the Lord and I receive it loud and clear. He is taking such good care of me.

I am attaching a link to the ecard I had received for you to enjoy. If you click on the "read" sign at the bottom of the card and read the words, then at the end you will notice a sparkling effect above the stream.

http://www.riversongs.com/Fla/ways.html

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters.

Psalm 23:2