L
Layman_F
Guest
Hello all. Forgive me if this falls as “personal revelation”, because I may have a misunderstanding as to what the term means. I took these things I’ll share as proofs of God in my life, not the revealing of any mystery. I feel the need to point out I am not Catholic, though I am “investigating”, and frankly may join an RCIA soon. That being said, I was an atheist until about 10 years ago. I am one of those people that needs evidence to make a decision on beliefs. As a child I lost my grandmother to cancer, and rebelled against God. I asked for proof in the form of a shooting star, and when it happened on cue I asked for a second to confirm it wasn’t coincidence. Of course I didn’t get #2. I don’t feel comfortable spelling out every detail of my experience just yet, but when it all “clicked”, the shooting star was thrust back to the forefront of my mind. My conversion to belief that Jesus was the true Way happened in July of 2001, after a series of events that I couldn’t explain by ordinary means. Before reading the NT I had a rash of dreams that were, in hindsight, apparently [divinely] constructed to give me more evidence to support the conclusion that the God of the bible was real, and active. The significance of the imagery in three of the dreams is now undeniable to me. Remember, I had little to no knowledge of the allegories used in the gospels, acts, or letters. Each morning I would wake and tell my wife about what I had dreamed because I wanted “record” of these things. I generally am not a dreamer, which made the dreams seem to be significant in, and of themselves. (I had physical and spiritual experiences that led me to a conclusion that God -HAD- to be real, so I was paying special attention to everything that was abnormal by this point) One dream, I was being chased by what I can only describe as evil. Not something bad, but something truly E-Vil. “It” chased me through a rustic village, and was almost on me when I came to an old style, hand pump, well like you see in movies, where you lift the handle, and push it back down to pump water. Once at this well a sense of peace came over me. (John 4:13-14 and John 7:37-38) Another night I dreamed I was in a gas station at night, and a thief came when I was alone. (Matthew 24:43 and 1 Thessalonians 5:2) The last dream of significance was maybe the oddest to me. In short a girl was using a lighter and raising it over our (I don’t know who “we” were) heads. As she lit it, a flame would come out that got bigger and came to rest on our head, like we were human candles. (Acts 2:3) Maybe a week later I was talking to a friend and told him about one, and then the others because he recognized the similarities. The morning of September 11th 2001 I had woken up and, of course, saw everything go down on TV. I randomly flipped through my bible and let my eyes drop onto the page where I read Revelation 18:14-20. Though I don’t think New York is the Babylon of the Revelation, it caught my attention in a big way. All of the destruction and damage to buildings around Ground Zero, but one building didn’t even have a window broken. The Catholic church across the street sustained no damage.
