Monday, January 30, 2012

The River to Heaven

Before bed my daughter showed us a YouTube testimony of the man who spoke at the event she was at last night. He shared of his near death/actual death experience in which he was in a "river" on the way to hell. When he came back to life he was a changed man and has been prechin' about it ever since.
With that in my mind, and with various other people from my morning at church swirling around in my head, this is the dream I had:

I was in a kitchen with several people from church, and my mom. Jada (a little girl at my church)was running around the kitchen island and I was brushing the crumbs from the party onto the floor so that I could sweep them up. After I swept the kitchen (around people's feet) I took Jada and her brothers down stairs where the laundry room was. Through a window we could see a huge tidal wave coming. I told the kids that we should get back up stairs to their mommy quick! We all ran up the stairs and just as we were coming through the door at the top of the stairs, the wave hit. Instantly we were all gone, no pain, no turmoil of the wave, nothing, just all of a sudden floating down this vast river. There was water as far as I could see on either side of me. I couldn't see anyone else and I wondered if I was dead, or just in the sea after the wave. Then a light came over the horizon in front of me and flooded my vision with it's reflection on the water's surface. I was overcome with the biggest smile of my life. Then I saw a rope stretched across the expanse of the sea with square flags every few feet that had pictures of Disney princesses on them. I saw Belle on a flag that also had my name written on it. It said "Ms. Mikie Spencer" right above the bust of Belle in her yellow ball gown. (Belle is "my" princess. She is the one I look most like, and was a nickname that my ex had for me.) I passed directly under the flag of Belle and on down the river/sea. Then there was another rope with the same flags across it... and in the distance, another, and another. I had no control over the pattern that I was floating in and I was going faster and faster down the river, but I always passed directly under the Belle flag with my name on it. I got all giddy thinking about how perfect the aim of my floating was. I knew that God was guiding me. I also knew that this was the river to Heaven and that each princess picture represented another person. I could never see the end of the water to either side, and the flags were every couple of feet all the way across the water.
I woke up briefly and rolled over.
When I fell back asleep my dream had changed and I was going around asking people I knew who their favorite princess was. I was looking back in my memory to remember if I saw that princess on the rope or not.

I know there are not as many Disney princesses as there are girls going to Heaven, (in my second dream two people answered "Hermione" when I asked them who their princess was,) but this is dream language, not reality. It's obvious to me that my mind needed to think of princesses and that's all it had to pull from. They needed to be personal, and I can't think of one woman I know who doesn't have a "personal" princess. I know my daughter's princess is Sleeping Beauty. I have two friends who claim Snow White. Who do you claim?

The dream was very satisfying. The happiness (both with my smile and my giddiness) was overwhelming, but peaceful at the same time. I love dreams like that!