By
Raina verhey
I awoke suddenly, as if from a dream of vibrant colors. The visions of the night flooded my mind as I recounted the many faces and words that were spoken. Oh, what troubles grounded me there, in that world of dreams. It was sudden, the change from darkness to light, as if cleansing had fallen over my heart and given me clear eyes to see.
See what? With a hastening mind, I looked around. The land in which I lay was hardly known to me, as if it were the first time I had ever come to it. Yet, if I slept here, I must have visited at least once before now. With a shake of my head, I stood and turned to the sight around me.
The sky was unsheltered, and riddled with many stars of great light. Streaks of purple and blue created a deep magenta in which the stars shone and quivered in my eyes. It seemed to me that they were vessels, carrying something other than light, and the sky was something other than sky. Almost as if the strange sky was in itself an ocean that was only reflecting something great in its depths.
In awe, I turned and let my eyes wander around my feet. Lush green grass grew soft for as far as I could see, unnaturally fresh against the purple and blue skies. This place seemed to echo with mystery, and the very air felt crisper and sweeter than any air I had ever housed within my lungs. And yet, all of this escaped me, for as my body seemed to shake itself from sleep, it began to burn with a strange sense of fullness. To me it seemed that a great laugh was swelling in my chest, but was not ready to be released.
Breathlessly happy, I stumbled forward in search of something to grasp and feel, so as to know this strange place. As I did, the ground quaked beneath me, and the grasses trembled with light. It was then that I realized that this place was an island, balanced strangely in the middle of space. Somehow, in ways that were not known to me or possibly to any man on earth, the air was full and sound, even though there was no atmosphere. It seemed this argument was invalid for there was little to no chance that I actually stood on earth’s ground.
Again, I took a step to find that as I did, the ground expanded before me, creating a possibly endless path for my feet. With a strange flutter of the heart, I looked around once more. It seemed to me that I was not alone, and stood in the presence of some mighty Being.
“Hello?” my voice came strangely strong, unlike it had been in the dreams; it was almost like a song.
“Hello there,” said a voice, and yet I saw nothing.
Whirling, I found all to be the same. The grass was blown only by a soft breeze that had just then picked up. In the breeze, however, I felt a distinct song. No, I did not hear it, I felt it. The song ran through my very soul and pulsed in my veins. Sweet and full it sounded, unlike anything I had ever heard, nor have I ever heard it since. And still, there was no creature to match the voice to.
“Where are you?” I asked, calling out to the empty fields.
“Here,” said a voice, and with a start, I found that it came from my own heart.
Staring down at my chest I laughed, “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” and this time the voice fell from the stars above me.
“Who are you? Where are you?” I begged.
“I am myself, and I am where I am,” said the voice, and now it came from the ground.
Looking around vaguely, I sank to the ground in an attempt to find the speaker. Of course, he had to be there. There was no way that he could have called from my chest. It was a mind game, with mirrors and optical illusions. This, no doubt, was some tomfoolery to amuse a bunch of half-grown men. And yet, there was the strange sense of awe that was still to be explained.
“I am very confused, and I want answers,” I said to the sky, hoping to see a video camera appear from over a mirror. “Take me home!”
“Listen,” said the voice, and as it whispered into my ear, I felt the rushing of the wind suddenly become incredibly firm, as if it were in itself a great hand that pushed me towards an unseen destination. “I am in the wind.”
“Stop!” I cried. “I can’t be pushed around so!”
A soft laugh echoed in my ears, and I stopped shouting. This was no trick, I had been pushed far out into the field, and yet no mirror had appeared! Where on earth could I be standing, and who, with the great power to hide himself so well, could be speaking to me at this very moment?
“I am who I am,” said the voice again, and this time something very odd happened. Right before my eyes, the great wind whirled together and became a swirl of living colors. The winds died down, and there stood a great tiger, colored with white and deep purple. And his paws! Monstrous they were! The size of a dinner plate all around! Never in all my years-
“Do you know my name?” asked the great beast, stooping down and staring into my eyes.
At this sudden development, I found myself in fearful shock. Had I, or had I not just witnessed the morphing of the wind into a tiger? Even more! Was I standing before a strange mutant of a cat? What indeed was-
“I am what I am,” said the tiger, purring softly as he grew nearer to me. He paused and again asked his question. “Do you know my name?’
I paused back, suddenly realizing that all of this was something greater than I had ever experienced. Putting it all together, I found myself quite sure that I stood in the presence of the one and only-
“God,” I stumbled. “You are God. That is why I feel so happy.”
The great cat purred happily and fell back into the grass. “Come, feel my happiness.”
There was no hesitation in my heart, no strange sense of foreboding that held me back, nor any fear. The fear had passed, and I finally felt at home. Truly, this was far from what I had expected God to be, rather I had thought of him as the towered Father who sat in a gold chair all day. Never in a lifetime could I have thought him to be one of a joyful heart.
With a laugh, I dived forward, prepared for anything and everything that I would meet. Soft, beautiful fur met my skin. Through my shut eyes, I felt an overpowering sense of joy, rising and pulsing through my entire existence. It was as if I had been stuck into a jar full of light. There was no escaping this life that raged through my being.
It was a barely noticeable change, and it came on a little and then suddenly all at once. Like the rising and falling of the waves, the soft fur and beating chest of the tiger transformed into a strange liquid that swamped me entirely. My eyes shot open and I clamped my mouth shut, attempting to save my breath.
No stinging water touched my eyes, but instead soft starlight that rang with peace smoothly kissed my skin. Hesitantly, I let loose my breath and watched as it pushed the light into small swirls.
“It’s safe to breathe,” said the light softly around me. “You may both drink and breathe this light. Do you know what it is?”
“Is it you?” I asked, pulling in a deep breath.
“It is my presence. It is all that I am, sewn into light, a light that may fall in the darkest places and send away evil. Drink me in, breathe me in. I am light.”
With a nod, I opened my mouth and brought cupped hands to my lips, expecting a sweet flavor. Nothing touched my tongue, nothing at all. Confused, I looked around. “How do I drink your light?”
“Let me,” said the voice.
“Let you?” I begged, unsure what his words meant.
“Fall back and let go. I will wash you, and I will quench your thirst. You can’t do it on your own,” pulsed the voice.
“I can’t let go!” I shouted out, panicked by the idea. “I don’t know what will catch me!”
“I will catch you,” said the voice calmly. “Let go.”
And as he said those words, I knew that it was safe. Slowly, as sand slipping from an hourglass, I felt my heart slip away and my feet leave the ground. I was falling. Falling quickly down through the stars. For that is what the light had turned into, the stars. Small pinpoints of light whirled all around me, some larger than others, and some strangely colored in ways I didn’t know existed. As if suddenly jolted into understanding, I realized that the stars were whirling from my own chest, flying in spirals away from my chest and mouth. As each exited, I felt softer and greener, happier and lighter. Was this cleansing? Or the exhale after a great breathe?
My back softly fell into the grass, and the stars were suddenly back in their place. I was again flat against the ground, feeling the soft blades of grass brush against my neck. My heart felt clean. My skin felt light. My limbs were strong.
There was a stirring in the grass beside me, and a small lamb came and lay on my chest. I smiled. The lamb was familiar to me, not because of its soft white fur, nor its perked ears, but because of the expanse in his eyes. My heart swelled in my chest, and I suddenly realized I loved this lamb. I wanted to hold it tight into my arms, and cry into its chest with joy. I wanted to love this lamb more, I wanted to love who he was.
“Teach me how to love,” I said softly. “Teach me how to love like a lamb.”
The small white creature rolled onto its back, throwing it’s small hooved paws above him, and then rolled to my other side. Creeping up beside me, the lamb pushed his nose against my neck and breathed softly. “The lamb loves softly,” said a voice within me. “Like a flowing stream.”
“Did I love you before?” I asked aloud.
“How could you have loved me before, when you never opened yourself to let me teach you how to love?” said the same voice. “You learn to love by being loved.”
Understanding is a strange thing, and is often overlooked as knowing everything. It is not. To understand is to see that the more you will learn, the less you will know. The more I learn about God, the less I know about him. He has proven himself to be infinitely greater than my knowledge.
It was strange to me to feel such greatness within my chest. A greatness that was not my own, but of the Holy One who lives within me. A single solitary question seemed to call from my past dreams, as if I had begged it many times over before coming here. Here where life was the very air I breathed.
“Why didn’t you make your love louder before?” I searched.
The lamb once again breathed against my neck, and once again the voice rang through my being. “I gave you, and every human on earth, the gift of free will. That means I let you do what you think is best until you come to me to ask what is actually best. You didn’t want to open to my love, because you believed in rules, and my love is free. You do not have to do, or not do, anything to earn it. My love for you is now and forever. Rules defied this. They left you shut to my love, and I didn’t force it on you.
My heart burst into a hundred waves, and my mind turned to the vastness of the stars.
“Who are you?” I asked after a while, looking down at the lamb that had curled up against me.
“I am,” said the lamb softly. “Peace.”
I looked down at him curiously. “Is that all?”
“I am,” he continued. “Is the beginning, and the end is eternal.”
“So that means that there is no end to you?”
“What do you think?” asked the lamb, and suddenly the lamb became a man, tall in the starlight. His eyes were the same as the lambs, eternal and fresh with life. His brown hair fell around his neck, and he wore a silvery garment of moonlight and starlight. Although, with a suddenness that hit me with surprise, I realized that his garments were plain and ordinary. The light came from his presence, and it was the same light I had seen earlier.
With a burst of joy, I turned to him and grinned. “It’s you!” I cried, a great awe and joy falling over me.
A great smile fell over his face, and he threw open his arms. “It’s me!” With a swooping motion, he pulled my body close to his and whirled me around, laughing heartily. As he spun, I realized that I too was laughing, finally laughing. Joy had steeped over me fully, and I felt free as the wind.
He put me down and smiled at me. “I love you,” he said. “And you are worthy, for you are my child.”
I stared at him, unsure of what to say. Possibly, I was more unsure of what I had heard.
“Only you can carry worth,” I said, remembering the books that I read, and the teachings I had heard in the dreams.
“I carry worth, and my worth is within you. You are worthy of my love, and you have it, and you have it,” his eyes smiled and he gently took both of my shoulders in his hands. Looking directly into my eyes, he said quietly, “Be free, my friend. Be free to rest in my presence, for that is all you need. There is no rulebook, there is no problem that you need to focus on. Rest in my presence and know that I am with you all the days of your life.”
With tears in my eyes, I pushed myself forward and fell into his receiving arms. My fingers clutched at his shoulders, trying to pull myself closer to him. That is all I wanted. To be closer to him, to know all is well. Rest fell over me, and as it did I felt all become fresh and new under His life.
The One who is infinitely greater than I kissed my head and stroked my hair, and yet, as I faded away from consciousness, I knew only one thing: all I wanted was to lie before his feet and bask in his presence. The power he carried would never leave me, and the awe I felt when he stood beside me rocked my very existence.
……………………
I sit here, with eighty years tightly beneath my feet and a pen tucked between my fingers. Forty years have passed since the night of my visions, and I have never been the same. I woke up that morning crying, crying so hard that I couldn’t see through the tears. I wasn’t sure why I was crying, at least not at the time.
Since then I have done a lot of thinking, and a lot of praying. Firstly, I found a new way of prayer. Since that night, my prayer has been nothing but resting in the presence of God, and allowing him to take me where he will. It is much simpler that way, and the way that my heart feels at peace about. I have, in summary, redefined prayer from orating my sins, to receiving the peace of God into my heart.
Furthermore, I have decided one thing: after a life of trying, I have found it impossible to box God. I can try and try to put him into my box of expectations, but he is too free. In fact, he is eternal. I can put out as many boxes as I want, as many expectations and definitions as I can dish, but I will only be putting myself in chains. It is better just to understand that I will never fully understand him, and just trust that he knows what he is doing. That being said, I have found with great pleasure that he enjoys talking to me. From all the things he has told me, I know one thing: he is good. If I die knowing one thing, I pray that it is that.
One more thing, and that is this. I believe that the place I was taken was a part of God’s heart. Possibly, and this is just an idea, it was Eternity. Meaning that Eternity is a part of God. If this is true, then when we die and pass on to Heaven, we are passing on to live within Him. We will live in Eternity, resting in His infinite greatness.
In the end then, I have been blessed with many years of life. I look forward to the day that I may fall before the feet of my Father, and be in his presence. My heart craves his words, and his touch. I remember now the words of the lamb, speaking to me of the infinite nature of God, how his qualities never end. My life craves to find life in Him, and to spend it loving more and more about him.
I do feel that my time is nigh, and I welcome it gladly. My heart wearies of this earth, and strives to be free once more. Free from the limits of this body, and free from the limits of my earthly mind. My hopes are that in heaven, I will be free of my limits, but the chances are I will still be growing even there. Yet still I anticipate it, for it isn’t the growing of my mind but the seeking of my heart that begs for substance.
Onward to victory, and blessings to all.