Tags

, , , ,

I write a lot about how perception is not reality, because God has pulled the rug out from under me on more than one occasion. Always gently, often humorously. I’m not sure if God has a sense of humor or if He even needs one, but there is no doubt in my mind that he uses the power of laughter to teach us things and to heal us. In fact, that is often how I recognize His presence, He makes me laugh, a bit like a delighted child witnessing a slight of hand. It’s awkward at funerals.

When we are told to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, I suspect it’s our laughter that he finds most pleasing, not the kind that that is full of ridicule and mockery, but the innocent kind that just catches you unaware. Like His presence sometimes does.

Last year I had a prophetic experience that was somewhat humorous. I was having dreams about the return of Christ, beautiful dreams, so real, but oddly, a bit medieval. There was no rapture, no lake of fire, no destruction or any sort, no plagues, no four horseman, no blood moons, none of that, just the most pleasant and delightful return of a King, like a wedding or a family reunion. There was much feasting, horses, laughter, and gifts.

God is aware of the fact that I love literal translations of music videos. That’s where you remove all the metaphors and take the lyrics literally, often running video in the background that reflects the literal translation. They can be quite funny. “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” is a famous literal translation of a music video.

Anyway, God took me through this literal translation of the Book of Revelations. It got very surreal and I only share a few highlights. I literally whacked my head on metal man, this creature made out of tin cans hanging on a porch. I went inside and stepped on a 7 headed plastic beast which impaled my foot. (If you’ve ever stepped on a plastic toy, there’s this new and improved pain scale doctors now use to measure pain, it goes from zero…to stepping on a lego.)

So, with a lump on my head and bleeding profusely from my foot, I went home to take a nap. A few hours later, my second daughter called from Philadelphia. She had literally left work and flown across the country to go to a BBQ. As soon as I hung up the phone I got another call, from a church in Philadelphia, with a sales pitch that began, ” I have a bone to pick with you…”

At this point I’m starting to recognize the story, metal man, a seven headed beast, and the church in Philadelphia, but I didn’t think much of it. I was just grateful my daughter wasn’t calling to tell me she had eloped. So I got up and went to the store for some milk and sure enough, while walking into the store, our resident schizophrenic guy screamed at me, “hello! it’s the end of the world!” So I screamed back, “I know, isn’t it awesome?” So he smiled and tipped his hat at me.

Inside the store, walking through the wine aisle, a shoe box slid off the shelf and fell on my head. This is the second time I’ve been whacked on the head that day. I kid you not it was full of small plastic angels, 7 of them, each with a little gold trumpet.

That night I went to bed and something shook me awake, saying, “I come like a thief in the night.” I took that literally, not prophetically, since I was hearing noises in the backyard. So, a bit irrationally, I didn’t wake my husband up, I prayed. I asked, “what do you want me to do, Lord?” He said, “call out the window that you are alone and unarmed.” We had a bit of a discussion about the wisdom of doing that, but God just waited patiently for me to obey like He always does. So, I called out the window, “I’m alone and unarmed, are you okay?”  “You,” fortunately turned out to be a girl, a very lost and confused girl, who collapsed on my pile of weeds and started to cry. She wasn’t high on a King, that’s for sure. God said, “preach,” so preach I did, out the bedroom window, everything I could think of, about how precious and worthy we are too Him, about how much love He has for us, about how it much it grieves Him when we don’t realize it. I preached about how there is nothing so big and so bad, that He won’t forgive and cover with His mercy and grace. So the girl calmed down, said she felt better, said thank you, and left.

About this time my husband wakes up and asks, “what are you doing?”
“Preaching out the bedroom window,” I told him.
To give you some idea of how graciously my husband has adapted to having a crazy wife, he said, “Oh, well alright then,” rolled over and went back to sleep.

The next morning, stuck in the pile of weeds I call a lawn, was a little wooden cross made out of two sticks tied together with a piece of yarn. I’m not sure if God left it for me or if the girl did, but it was the sweetest gift and it made me laugh.

I suspect that what God really wants us all to know more than anything else in the world, is how much we are loved.