Nightmare..

I probably hadn't awoken from such an experience in a very long time.  The grips of the images still laid upon my arms with force as my heart rate and mind raced.  Quickly acclimating to the truest reality that where I was was in my bedroom, in a house on a street in Blacksburg, VA and not within the images that left me as soon as I could open my eyes.


Heart pounding I rolled over onto my side and pulled the covers up close.  Deep breath after deep breath and whispered prayers began to settle all that was racing.

Then before another prayer could be prayed or breath taken a vision opened right up in front of me and I was standing upon a field that had a tree upon it and Him.  He was there.  I stared at Him and the unclosed distance between us and just stared at the space all around.


"I deliver you from evil."  And I stood there.  He repeated that which He had spoken, "I deliver you from evil."  I looked at Him.  And I paused.  I paused because I knew that if I walked forward or let Him walk forward, if the gap was closed then there would be something.


There would be something that at some point He would ask me to share.  And at some point even for the most disclosing of us... there comes a point where one to many times  that which is shared  comes around to bite you in the butt.  The temptation grows large to not close that distance.  The temptation becomes not only to not close that distance but to walk in the opposite direction. The temptation becomes put on the "face," put on the "act," and let everything be, "great," "fine," "ok."


Well... except that isn't at all who I am and that isn't at all what I can do... lived that way far too long to ever step back into that arena.  So then again emerging from probably one of the most horrific dreams/nightmares of my life, into a vision where there is far too much space between Jesus and I.. what do I do?


I stood there... frozen.


I stood there, frozen because the toll that living an open and authentic life and not shutting the heart down but living within the reality of the seen and unseen and walking it out is huge.  The toll is huge.  Come on.. that's why it isn't preached... who really wants to lay ones life down .. who really wants to experience death so that true life can come forward.

No rose colored words here people...  death is death and it is awful and hard and painful.  Anyone selling you anything else isn't selling you the truth.  It is never going to be easy to deny the flesh.  It is not within us to lay our lives down for each other.  Not in the way that the gospel screams forth.


So ... my dreams lately....  well, terrors....  I keep dying.  In all the places that were the most precious to me I keep dying.  Scene after scene I die.  A mixture of the current life and the childhood I was raised within converge and death arrives one way or the other.


But that's when, standing with too much space between me and the Lord, I hear Him once again say.. .either way you die just not either way do you live.  "I deliver you from evil."  Tears start streaming down my face as I remember Jesus' take on a friend's teaching.  The swivel chair.. choosing life .. choosing spirit.. not choosing the flesh or the world or the enemy... but choosing spirit.. choosing the Father.. choosing Jesus.


I'm standing on a field and on one side of me is a tree and on the other side is my Lord...  and then this piece that I have deleted all morning... closed down all morning.. refused to write all morning.. comes further home and my eyes are even open wider... I'm standing closer to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil then I am standing to Jesus.

I want to know .. I want to understand.. It is killing me at times to not know because of things of my past. Jesus is bringing me to deeper levels of trust than I have ever walked in and the fear and terror of  having to trust amidst so much uncertainty is killing me.  But that's not even the truth. What is killing me is I am standing closer to the wrong tree... and with that... with that I eye the space between us but truly  before I can.. before I can even look away from the tree and look towards Him.. He has closed the distance.  Crumbling into His arms and just sobbing.. once again, He speaks.. but this time in the softest whisper and I can feel His breath upon my cheek and moving my hair... "I deliver you from evil."


There is nothing more terrifying than the truest reality that one must lose ones life.. and we can never know what losing our life looks like.. we must lay all down for Him.  There is nothing more terrifying to realize that He could ask anything and is worthy to ask anything...  but there is nothing more liberating than His love.. and while there is not bravado in this next statement.. I do truly know that anything He asks for is certainly not worth holding onto in its current state... and when He hands it back or if He hands it back  it will be more full of life than one ever  thought possible and if He doesn't hand it back then there is always.. always His hand to hold and His eyes to gaze into...  My heart is learning trust in ways that I could not bring it to on my own....  It is not an easy journey and the task at hand at times seems impossible...


But bodies of water do part, and the walls of fortified cities come down, and water comes forth from a rock, and the sick do get healed, and the blind do see, and the deaf do hear, and the dead are raised....  so my heart struggling to learn what the depths of trust look like doesn't seem that impossible after all...  I might not understand... but He closes the gaps and that I can be most grateful for....