Conversations in the Kitchen...look where they lead....

Okay... I started this blog last Friday.  I got side tracked and just found my way back.... it is worth posting so here goes....

Well, today marks the end of a great week.  We have been at VBS at a friend's church.  My youngest participated in the VBS and I helped serve in the Kitchen and in games.  I loved it for many reasons.  First of all, it is the first time I have served in that realm.  It was kind of nice doing something besides the teaching or drama side of things.  I love that, but it is always fun to switch up the flavor here and there.  I had the best of both worlds... playing with kids and enjoying them, but also I feel like I just spent the whole week laughing and talking... while serving Christ.  It wasn't "my" church and yet, just as it should be, in some real way, it was my church.  We drew the lines and made the boundaries.  God must just smile and think, "you are all MY children.  We are ONE family."  I met people I would never have known otherwise.  I got to know some I already knew even better.  It was just God's people being God's people.  I love VBS... everywhere!

Today was really cool though.  We had snow cones today and it was a busier time, but in the mix of all of that, we had some really special conversations.  We got to talking about an experience a friend had at her Walk To Emmaus.  It was one of those goose bump, hair raising experiences that just to hear it makes you get chills, much less having been there.  And that brought memories flooding back to me of some things I hadn't thought of in a while.  They are vivid memories, but I just hadn't pulled them up.  Today gave me a reason to remember and I loved sharing the moments with them.

I decided I wanted to write them down to share with you as well...

One of the things I immediately began to pray after Eathan passed away was to dream of him.  I asked the Lord many times every day to give me a small glimpse into heaven.  I felt it would ease the pain a little here if I could just see him there.  The Lord had me wait quite a while to actually have Eathan come to me... and it wasn't in the form I expected.  He was fully healed, but he showed up at a friend's house.  I have blogged about a couple of my precious dreams.  But in the beginning, I couldn't dream... at all... about anything.  It was like my sleep was as heavy as my awake time... like I was in a dark, hurting hole just trying to breath.

But, just a couple of months after Eathan passed away, though I didn't see Eathan, God gave me a miraculous dream, that not only comforted me so much, it also comforted a hurting friend.  I had become close, through email support with a friend named Jenny.  Her husband was very ill and we sort of lived the medical journey at the same time.  Her husband had a different issue than Eathan, and of course it was her husband and not her child, but grief is grief.  Sometimes, we just understood each other's pain without even saying a word.  She lost her husband and I lost Eathan about 3 weeks apart.  I had never met her husband, nor had she met my son.  We were only acquaintances prior to our journeys.  But when her husband died I deeply felt her pain, as I know she did when Eathan died as well.  Matter of fact, she told me when Eathan died, it was really hard for her, because somehow she knew Daniel would be following him home soon.  She said their patterns of good and bad had been so similar along the way.

Anyway, I began to pray so hard to see my Tuffy and night after night, nothing.  Until THAT night.  I can remember it so clearly.  I had pulled up to a quick stop.  It looked very normal on the outside, much like any quick stop store you would expect to see.  I got out of my car and when I opened the door and stepped inside, everything changed.  It was so beautiful.  It shimmered in a golden color every where I looked.  It was rich and beautiful and nothing I had ever seen on this earth.  I was breath taken standing right in the door way.

Suddenly, a very healthy brown-eyed guy with shoulder length dark hair came around the corner, with a smile that was just captivating.  He said, "You are Robin aren't you?" as he reached out to shake my hand.  I said, "Yes, I am." with an obvious questioning tone.  He smiled and said, "Eathan has told me all about you.  I'm Daniel!"  I started crying really hard and just looked Daniel up and down.  He was so perfectly healthy and he just sort of glowed with a radiant joy.  I said, "Daniel?  Jenny's Daniel?"  He laughed and said, "Yes, Jenny's Daniel!"  He proceeded to tell me some of the things Eathan had been doing and how happy he was.  He told me he was perfect now... no more hurting and no more tears.  He said he LOVED being with Jesus so much and spent most of his time playing with Jesus and the others.  But the part I needed most of all, was Daniel told me that he also spent time every day talking about me.  He said he loved me so much and was so joyful when he talked about how much his Mama loved him!  I cried and I cried and I cried. 

Most of my dreams don't have a real beginning or an end.  This one did.  It is the first dream I have ever had that felt complete when I awoke.  And of course I know it is because it was more than a dream.  It was God's direct touch on my hurting heart, straight out of heaven.  After Daniel shared of Eathan, he looked at me very intently in the eyes and said, "Please tell Jenny you saw me.  Tell her I am well and I love her.  Tell her she is going to be okay."  I nodded my head and the next thing I knew I was awake and crying.  I had never met Daniel, had no idea what he looked like before he died, but I knew, that was him!  And I knew that dream was an answer from God for me.  It my darkest hours, God WAS still listening... just as I knew!

I could hardly stand to wait until the next morning to call Jenny.  I did however, knowing, like me, grief makes sleep a hard, hard thing and if she were sleeping, I didn't want to awaken her.  She needed her rest for healing just as my body needed rest for healing.  And we had to take it when it came because it was rare for a while for both of us... another similarity we shared.  I didn't sleep the rest of the night.  I laid and cried and thought of my sweet Eathan up there...talking about ME... with JESUS!  First time I felt a little joy about his death. 

The next morning I called Jenny and I asked, "Jenny, did Daniel have shoulder length hair?"  She said "Yes!"  I said, "Did he have chocolate brown eyes and tan skin?"  "Yes, why?"  I went on to describe the outfit I had seen him wearing.  Jenny cried and said that yes, that was the last outfit he had worn.  I then shared of the dream and told her what I had experienced.  I am not sure who cried more, me or her.  I told her I needed to see a picture of Daniel.  We got together shortly after and sure enough, to the very last detail, that was the guy in my dream!  Fully healed and full of joy... I had met Daniel in my dreams. 

I wondered for a time, why God didn't allow Eathan to come and let Daniel go to Jenny.  But then the day came when I finally dreamed about Eathan... well over a year and a half later... and then I knew.  When I finally met up with Eathan in my dreams and I awoke and realized he was gone all over again... it was an anguish I would not have had the strength to endure, had it happened in the beginning.  God knew I needed a touch of heaven.  He knew I needed some tangible assurance that Tuffy remembered me somehow.  But He knew I could not have handled what felt like losing him all over again, that soon.... nor could Jenny.  Therefore, being GOD, He gave us each a taste of His splendor in seeing His ULTIMATE healing, through a dream visit from her husband to me, so that each of us could be amazed and filled with hope all over again.

I haven't shared that story with very many... and yet it is so worth sharing.  Jenny and I stayed close and helped each other on our grief journey.  Some of our journey was similar, some of it vastly different.  But we just understood without words, what it meant to have faith and grief all balled into one long painful road. She was barely an acquaintance before our loved ones fell ill and met Jesus, but she was placed strategically in my life and I in hers, "For such a time as this" as we read of in Ecclesiastes. 

I will never forget that dream.  And I know Daniel now... though we have never met on Earth.  And best of all, days like the conversations of VBS that Friday can trigger the remembrance of that sweet night where God met my needs through my friend's husband gone to Heaven proving in yet another overwhelmingly miraculous way, He listens, He cares, and He answers.


NOW... get this.... I began writing this last Friday.  Got all the way to the part where I was ready to describe the dream that God blessed me with and had to stop.  Guess what happened tonight that drew me back to completing this blog?  I had a message show up in my inbox from one of my best childhood friends.  She said, "I dreamed about you and your family all night. I feel like I actually got to spend time with you and meet your husband and kids. You were the sweetest Mom to your kids! Anyway just wanted to let u know God let me spend time with you last night! I love you and miss you! "  Here I have been remembering the sweet dreams God has given me, and He gave my longtime, sweet friend a dream of me.  Our families have not been able to share life together.  We share pictures and utilize facebook a lot.  But God let us meet in her dream!

It wasn't that long ago, I wrote of my latest dream of Eathan.  They are more than dreams.  They are gifts.  I have others I would like to share, some I have already shared.... but this is enough to dwell on for now.  I don't know what you are yearning for... but if you just keep running to God with it, over and over and over, He is listening and in a way you least expect but find to be the perfect way, He will answer... without fail... in His perfect time.

I am off to go see if tonight it is again my turn for a God Gift in my dreams!!!!  Hope He visits us all!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ,

Robin