Sacred Visions

I’m not a Bible scholar, but I did grow up in church. However, it wasn’t until I was an adult that I got to know Jesus for myself and comprehend the miracles, parables, and teachings that He did while He was on Earth.

A story from Genesis that I really love is about Joseph and his coat of many colors. Joseph was a dreamer. I felt an instant connection to him when I learned about his life during our Wednesday night Bible study because I'm a dreamer too. Jesus speaks to me through dreams and visions, just like he did with Joseph. When Joseph told his brothers about his dream, their jealousy led him into a tough life before he finally lived out the dream God had given him.

Just like Joseph, I have spiritual dreams. I guess that's why I'm more of a visual learner. Some dreams are like warnings—like the one I kept having where everything around me was blowing up. I never got burned, but there was fire all around. I also had dreams that told me to watch out for my work environment. Long story short, I ended up losing my job that year.

I've had affirming foreshadowing dreams—like when I told my sister she was gonna have a baby boy. She didn't even know she was pregnant when I called her and said she should take a test...she was reluctant but a few days later, she called and said she was pregnant. I once dreamed about fixing a coworker's broken furniture and later got the chance to offer her a role when others wouldn't even allow her to interview. I also dreamed about helping a friend move to Arkansas, and now he's running a successful consulting business there.

Lately, God's been giving me dreams and guidance about what's next for me. Even though it didn't really make sense at first, I obeyed what He commanded me to do. After attending Woman Evolve, I've been praying to let go of things that aren't serving me and trust God with my future. So, you can guess that after doing what I was commanded, I was expecting to be immediately rewarded. But nope, that wasn't the case.

Just like Joseph went through tough times because of his brothers, I haven't seen my own dreams come true or God's promises fulfilled in my life yet. Although my siblings didn't sell me into slavery, and I haven't been wrongly accused of a crime, I can relate to Joseph being stuck in a pit while still believing in the dream God showed him.

The word that God gave me for this year was Reset. I’ve have been seeking clarity as to what is being reset and so far, from what I see, my whole world is being reset. Reset to factory default, restarting a new career (that's not a typo), learning new skills, and most recently learning that I have to complete more rounds of physical therapy due to the increased fluid built up in my breast due to radiation that I completed almost three years ago. None of this was a part of the vision that God showed me.

To give you a more vivid picture of what has happened in this season of obedience, think of the movie "Life", with Eddie Murphy (Ray) and Martin Lawrence (Claude). There is a scene where the mail comes and no one knows how to read, so Ray reads a letter to one of the inmates where two cousins, both sisters, and his parent have died, the frost killed the crops, and the dog has worms. And after that nobody wants their mail read.

I joke, but I really feel like since following God's instructions, I'm losing.

It has been hard to count it all joy while waiting on God’s promises to be fulfilled in my life. I am feeling discouraged and impatient and wondering what I could have done differently. So, I can only imagine how Joseph must have felt all those years he was waiting on his promise to be fulfilled.

I feel like when I pray for others, those prayers get answered, but when it comes to my own prayers, they seem to be on pause. Still, I'm going to keep trusting God even when I can't trace Him.

I know that when His promises are fulfilled in my life, the only reasonable response will be "Look at God."