Prayer and Prophetic dreaming...the next installment

Quotes that have caught my eye:
What is life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
W. H. Davies
(and the first thing that pops into my mind is that if someone is caught standing and staring, that person will be diagnosed with some ailment. But I hardly believe my time spent standing and staring lately is a sign of mental illness nor an indication of long unrecognized birth defects.)

But more significant lately is this quote:
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus

Leave it to a real writer to say in 16 words what I needed volumes of words and days of blogging to express.

So what images are dancing in my head when I stare, when I contemplate that invincible summer? Ones like this picture:

A child on a horse, a child whose eyes are as deep as the cosmos and whose skin appears as a silver mist floating around his skull, this almost-man yet to be born looks at his mother and says, "Don't be afraid, Mother," then rides away. And the King looks at the mother and asks, "Will you give him to me?" Upon her acceptance of this offer, He says, "Then it is time for our relationship to become public." Taking her hand, they begin to walk.

Evidently, "public relationship" translates to be prophetic unction, a sign of heart-intimacy with God, on the plane of human expression. It rises like a rain storm, with small droplets striking and indeed proving wet as they strike places formerly bone dry. One here, one there, nothing that impressive. But in time larger ones come. And eventually a steady rain, with the promise of a coming deluge.

Things yet to be make visitation in dreamscapes, given in riddles and visual parables. And then those riddles define themselves as events unfurl that prove these prophecies grounded in truth. The steady rain continues such that rain no longer seems a change of weather.

But, now one large thundercloud looms on the horizon--one given in dreams to multiple recipients. For my part, a dream spoke of a terrible crash, a fall of one Powerful and not so very human. It was a series of dreams that seemed to reveal key figures in my little world, some figures evident, some not so much yet. They spoke of key times, this month being particularly featured. Finally, they begged themselves to be shared. So I shared them. One in particular, back when I had it in November. And in that sharing, I learned the commonality of my dream with revelations given to others. But then a dry spell. Many months of strain and no particular vision, prayer and waiting, then days of barely hanging on through times so fraught with hardship that the dream seemed quite distant. There was the corporate wondering, what sort of faith walk is this? None of us are of such a background as to be "spooky" types in our spirituality. The idea comes: why not just let it go. These dreams, maybe the ones that prove true may just be coincidence. And as the month progresses, the letting go seems easier every day.

But last night much came rushing back as I had a flashback to a time in the deep of winter, a time when one student faltered and was suspended for the remainder of the school year. After a month, this boy and his father begged that the boy be allowed to return early, professing that the boy's only hope of retaining his faith hung on his being given this second change.

At the time, the image that came into my mind was one used by ancient prophets: drink the cup of judgment until the very last dregs are drunk. At the time, the verse that popped into my mind was a prophetic one stating that in latter days, a dark Power would try to change laws and times in his power play against the Law of God. This boy's request seemed to mimic that prophecy, changing the law and the timing. To be honest, such a harsh response is unusual for me, as I am often a "softie" about disciplining kids. Just ask my husband. At first, the principle was inclined to refuse to change his position about the boy's return to school, but after much prayer, he decided that God wanted him to offer the boy that second chance. And to support him is the proverb that goes, "As the churning of milk produces butter, so the forcing of wrath produces strife." Who knows what strife was avoided by permitting this second chance?

The morning meeting in which the principle was to announce his decision, he was late to school due to car trouble. He handed the message off to be delivered by another, and that one asked me to read the scripture passage that motivated the principle to such extravagant grace. I wonder if any of them know how very much that series of events revealed a larger story, a larger and divine plan? We say--often without appropriate fervor--that all is going according to God's sovereign will, but do we really understand how minutely He can work circumstances to speak His wisdom to the powers and principalities of the heavens? In any case, the boy returned. But is he part of the April crisis I "saw" in my dream? I still don't know.

But this I do know. Something happened this weekend, and now my original dream and its telling are back on the front burner of my mind again. Last night, I dreamed I drank a cup of liquid laced with a strange metallic grit, like tiny beads, the size of pin-heads. And as I lifted the cup to take the last of it, the concentration of those beads grew so thick, I scrunched up my face and wondered if I could swallow the stuff. But because I knew I must drink, I did drink. And something in me knew it was a sign. Events were transpiring that would trigger the inevitable drinking to the dregs of that cup of judgment. And though it was not for any of us to command that judgment, judgment would come nonetheless. It would come by the hand of God Himself.

As for a prophetess being established in all these things. It may be a while before she is known by more than a handful of people. The next school year starts August 16. I think it will be then that a larger group of people called to recognize her may say that a prophet has been among them.

But when I consider all the dreams, and how their imagery is supposed to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, I feel so very small and inadequate. To have a Mind so beautiful, so poetic, so rich fashion images for you, images by which you are to share His nature with the world, it is daunting almost to the point of paralysis. How does one share such a thing of beauty?

How does one give a deaf man the concept of a symphony? Particularly if that deaf man doubts the existence of sound. How does one keep from ruining his witness by laughing at doubters; for to hear the doubter say he questions the existence of sound, how ridiculous it seems to one who has heard a lion's roar?

Oh, God, between You and me, I'd say that I know important things are happening in Your world, and I know You are elated to share the goodness of them with every hearing ear. Plant hearing ears, O God. And along with them, plant minds bright to interpret those Words when they are heard!