Living The Dream Part 2

Click here for Part 1

When I woke up from the school bus dream it was early and dark out, still a few hours before I needed to be awake. I fell asleep again and had a few sporadic dreams until I re-awoke to my alarm. The school bus and children running along telephone wires were as fresh in my mind as if I’d lived the experience rather than dreamed it. 

It is madness to wear ladies' straw' hats
and velvet hats to church..."

As I pulled my clothes on for the day and tidied my dreads, I asked Dad to interpret the dream for me. As quiet as I could commit my mind to be, I waited for a response. I waited and waited as I drifted through the menial tasks of the morning, until my mind wandered and I forgot I was listening. 

Instead, I started thinking about a conversation I had with my sister, Brittany. One of her teammates was sick with tonsillitis. “Go out and heal the sick,” Jesus says. And I wanted to heal this teammate. But she’d been left at the hotel the day before, in too much pain to watch her team play. I’d yet to see her. 

As I walked downstairs to meet my family, I was determined to find this girl and lay hands. With plenty of time to kill before the day’s games started, we ate slowly and played a story game until Brittany had to join her team for study hall. 

It wasn’t until my parents and I were about to leave the hotel that I recalled my determination to heal Brittany’s teammate. I marched quickly back to the lobby where Brittany was knee deep in Facebook while her gathered teammates worked on homework. “Hey!” I said, loudly enough to prompt Brittany to take off her headphones. “Where’s that girl with tonsillitis? Carmen, right?” I’d go to the room she’d been quarantined in, if I had to. 

“She’s right there,” Brittany replied with a gesture over her shoulder. Carmen sat on a giant beanbag with a blanket and a text book. Though she looked miserable, both she and my sister seemed amused by the interruption of their study session. 

“Do you want healed?” I asked Carmen as I walked toward her. 

“Yes!” She said, completely sick of being sick. Several girls glanced up, curious. But if they continued to watch, I didn’t notice.

“Great.” I sat down next to her, double checked that her throat was the location of her pain, then placed my hand on the right side of her neck. On a scale of 1-10, she said the pain was a 6. After a few minutes of prayer I asked if she felt any change in her pain level, but it remained a stubborn 6. 

I prayed again. “What do you feel?” I asked this time. 

“I feel really calm.”

 Calm. That could only be the Holy Spirit at work, so I prayed one more time. Once again, I asked what she felt and if the pain had changed. “Still a 6,” she said. “But I feel super calm.”

“Are you coming to the gym today?” She was. Certain that she was experiencing the peace of Dad’s presence, I decided to let Dad continue to love on her and leave more prayer for later in the day. Dad is a far better minister than I am. “Let yourself soak in that calm as long as possible,” I suggested. “I’ll check in with you and see how you’re feeling.”

Our team’s first game of the day was at noon. Again, I found myself in the bleachers surrounded by parents. Just as frustrated as yesterday by attitudes and conduct, I wanted to rant. I used to play volleyball until I hurt my knee, I imagined my rant beginning. They do not need your negative energy. The moment this thought crossed my mind, Dad took my back to my dream. 

I used to do this until I hurt my knee, my dream self had claimed. Instantly, Dad interpreted the dream for my spirit. I couldn’t rationally understand all I suddenly knew, but two solid details were sure. First, the school bus dream was portraying this moment. I’m in my dream, I kept thinking. Second, I couldn’t rant at anyone. I’d already seen the results, and they were no good. 

Living The Dream Part 1

One of my younger sisters, Brittany, played in a volleyball tournament over the weekend. She plays for Spokane Falls Community College. By the community college level, skills are honed and the game is fast paced. Though not necessarily more competitive than high school matches, certainly less painful to watch. 

"...The moment a mistake is made, it must be forgotten.
It’s an exercise of constant forgiveness and repentance."

Less painful, but not entirely painless. I’m a volleyball player as well. After playing through three years of college, two knee injuries, a few ankle injuries, and all the drama that comes along with a group of 12 women in close confines for any length of time, I still love the game. 

Watching others play is like a cat scratch on a sunburn for me. As a player, watching from the bench can be excruciating. However, watching from the bleachers surrounded by parents is a new torture I’m hoping I don’t have to experience enough to get used to. 

On the bench, I’d watch my teammates successes and feel they were mine. I’d watch their failures, and take personal responsibility to resolve them. If my outside hitter is getting blocked, I’d look at what the other team was doing and how my teammate (or myself, should I get subbed in) could hit around them. If the other team’s middle has three kills in a row, I’d look at my defense and plot ways for them to work in unity with my blockers to shut her down. 

As a player, the moment a mistake is made, it must be forgotten. It’s an exercise of constant forgiveness and repentance. When a mistake latches on to a player’s memory, it will begin chipping away at their confidence until they’re too crippled to play. Regardless of physical skill, volleyball is a mental game. The most successful players are those capable remaining focused and present; of forgiving their teammates and themselves instantly, and changing their mind’s desire to dwell on past and future mistakes. 

From Corpse to Bride Part 2

The Rise 

I don't want to encourage a bunch of daydreamers to avoid living and hide in fantasy worlds. That's not the point of this pair of posts.

I want to release new identity over you. If you are reading this, it is because you are a prophet, a healer, an artist, and, if you'll receive the Kingdom that is your inheritance, a king/queen.

I want to see our imaginations restored and healed. I want to stop seeing our imaginations brushed aside  as fanciful merriment by our teachers and leaders, and start seeing it taught as a vital skill.

I want to tell you a story. It's a fun story about a dear friend. It's packed full of prophetic imagery. I tried to interpret it for those reading and for myself, but I'm not satisfied with my attempt (although I pretty much left it down there if you want to read it). So, I'm hoping if there's imagery to interpret, we can do it together. Otherwise, we can simply experience the power of testimony that demonstrates the force of imagination made reality.

---

Kendal is one of my dearest friends. He is an Olympian, through and through. Raised in the wild and beautiful Capitol Forest, he relishes our drab, ever-rainy environment. When the rainy season begins and the heat of summer fades, his burden lightens and a smile is never far from his face. Grey skies and the heady smell of damp earth have much the same affect on him that sun and pina coladas on a Hawaiian beach would have on most. 

Few can match Kendal’s meticulous, diligent approach to his work and his art. It’s not perfection he seeks with his methods. And though rarely disappointed with the outcome of his efforts, be they cocktails or knit caps, the finished products are not his greatest joy. 

His grandmother passed on great wisdom to him early in life when, as the oldest child of nine, he was tasked with maintaining the dinner dishes every day. “You can worship God anywhere, doing anything,” she told him. “Even while doing dishes.” Taking the wisdom to the depths of his heart, he learned to savor labor with the passion of King David stripped to skivvies and dancing in the streets before God. 

He’s quite weird. When we first began working together, I found my patience tested. I hadn’t heard his grandmother’s wisdom yet, and wouldn’t likely have brought it anywhere near my heart if I had. It’s a finished product I like: a mopped floor, opposed to mopping. A cooked meal, opposed to cooking. Nearly four years in Kendal’s presence has rubbed off on me though. While his patience is that of a giant redwood, mine has at least increased from squirrel to some sort of large bird. 

Kendal’s green Volkswagen is a testament to his redwood nature. He’s had the little beast since he was sixteen, and after five years of loving labor he finally took it to a mechanic. Even at the mechanic’s experienced hand, it took several months to get the car running reliably. 

Kendal has driven joyfully and mischievously ever since. He’s learned the car inside and out - how to smoothly shift into first, which parallel spaces he can crank into, and exactly how far off asphalt he can venture. 

It was dark, in the earliest part of a late August morning. His vision was limited just enough that he didn't see the little yearling dear heaped pitifully in the middle of the road until it was suddenly directly in front of him. Knowing his car, though, he didn't flinch.

After driving directly over the deer, well clear of causing further harm, he eased to a stop and turned around. Dying or dead he couldn’t tell. Concerned and curious, he walked up to the dear and checked for vitals. It was breathing still, but the breaths were shallow and labored. Carefully, he eased the creature to the side of the road and sat next to it. Cradling its head in his lap, he stoked its neck until it was calm. Together, they waited.