Vivid Dream of Death... and Beyond
PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 8:19 pm
Every once in a while I have a very vivid dream that changes me a little. The other night I had such a dream.
It started off like the normal random crazy dream.... I'll abbreviate that part so as not to bore you overmuch, but please read to the end... it gets interesting.
I'm back at my parents' house for some kind of family reunion. It is very early morning and most of the family is still asleep when I hear a car pull up outside. I go out to find my uncle, with 2 very large horses in a horse trailer. We take them out and let them graze on the front lawn, and I decide to hop on the horse's back rather than leading it. Eventually I slide off again. (time passes, don't remember this part)
An officer of the law comes looking for me. Suddenly everyone is there on the front lawn. He explains that passersby have seen a girl riding a horse, and it's illegal to ride a horse in this county blah blah blah, and he asks for me by name. I make my way to the front of the crowd and present myself politely. He starts talking again, and as I'm listening, I see something in the sky. (It's either nighttime or very early morning, because I can see stars, but somehow it's not terribly dark.) I also see a very fast-moving light, as fast as a satellite or faster, but its movements are erratic. I'm trying to pay attention to the officer, but I can't take my eyes off the light. It's in the distance, but then it starts coming toward us very fast. I point to it and everyone looks, then gasps because it looks like it may hit us. It tumbles through the air overhead, and we see that it's some kind of vessle. (It doesn't look like an alien ship, more like the space shuttle, and it has writing on it.) It is obviously out of control, tumbling and spinning all over the place with no apparent destination. It passes over us again, and then returns toward us... and then we see just how immense it is as it hurtles straight for us.
Impact... shockwave... fiery white destruction.
In the last second before we are swept under, I can hear the screams of my family, and I have time to say one word... "Jesus." It is a prayer for forgiveness, mercy, salvation, a prayer of love, joy, and homecoming, all in one word.
After that... stillness, silence, and the fiery whiteness that consumed everything moments before. As I lay there in my bed, I knew it had been a dream, but part of me was waiting... waiting for it to be true. Waiting to go home. Waiting for that white light to intensify and become the glory of my God.
In the moment of impact, the blow was so intense and the destruction so complete and inevitable... I knew all would be annihilated, and there was only time to cry out to God. No time to say goodbye, no time to think... All my thoughts were suddenly one: Jesus. A single word that encompassed every prayer imaginable. Even as my body was surely being destroyed, my mind was alive... and I wonder if this is what it is like to die.
After I said the Name, and knew all else was destroyed, there was nothing but peace and silence. And a sense of waiting, but not as we normally wait, impatient or bored. Waiting and longing, but also peace.
And I thought... If this is what death is like, then I welcome it.
It started off like the normal random crazy dream.... I'll abbreviate that part so as not to bore you overmuch, but please read to the end... it gets interesting.
I'm back at my parents' house for some kind of family reunion. It is very early morning and most of the family is still asleep when I hear a car pull up outside. I go out to find my uncle, with 2 very large horses in a horse trailer. We take them out and let them graze on the front lawn, and I decide to hop on the horse's back rather than leading it. Eventually I slide off again. (time passes, don't remember this part)
An officer of the law comes looking for me. Suddenly everyone is there on the front lawn. He explains that passersby have seen a girl riding a horse, and it's illegal to ride a horse in this county blah blah blah, and he asks for me by name. I make my way to the front of the crowd and present myself politely. He starts talking again, and as I'm listening, I see something in the sky. (It's either nighttime or very early morning, because I can see stars, but somehow it's not terribly dark.) I also see a very fast-moving light, as fast as a satellite or faster, but its movements are erratic. I'm trying to pay attention to the officer, but I can't take my eyes off the light. It's in the distance, but then it starts coming toward us very fast. I point to it and everyone looks, then gasps because it looks like it may hit us. It tumbles through the air overhead, and we see that it's some kind of vessle. (It doesn't look like an alien ship, more like the space shuttle, and it has writing on it.) It is obviously out of control, tumbling and spinning all over the place with no apparent destination. It passes over us again, and then returns toward us... and then we see just how immense it is as it hurtles straight for us.
Impact... shockwave... fiery white destruction.
In the last second before we are swept under, I can hear the screams of my family, and I have time to say one word... "Jesus." It is a prayer for forgiveness, mercy, salvation, a prayer of love, joy, and homecoming, all in one word.
After that... stillness, silence, and the fiery whiteness that consumed everything moments before. As I lay there in my bed, I knew it had been a dream, but part of me was waiting... waiting for it to be true. Waiting to go home. Waiting for that white light to intensify and become the glory of my God.
In the moment of impact, the blow was so intense and the destruction so complete and inevitable... I knew all would be annihilated, and there was only time to cry out to God. No time to say goodbye, no time to think... All my thoughts were suddenly one: Jesus. A single word that encompassed every prayer imaginable. Even as my body was surely being destroyed, my mind was alive... and I wonder if this is what it is like to die.
After I said the Name, and knew all else was destroyed, there was nothing but peace and silence. And a sense of waiting, but not as we normally wait, impatient or bored. Waiting and longing, but also peace.
And I thought... If this is what death is like, then I welcome it.