Accounts across history document sacred experiences between man
and the Divine; moments when the soul connects with deity and clarity is
achieved. These communications vary in their form; some involve visitations
from angels, while others bear record of physically seeing the Lord Himself.
Many accounts document sacred dreams where the recipient receives a message he
or she believes to have come from a divine source.
Lehi, a man living in Jerusalem during King Zedekiah’s reign, received
such a dream from God. He was instructed to assemble his family and to leave their
material possessions behind to undertake a journey to the Promised Land. Two of
Lehi’s children doubted their father and his dream, calling him a foolish and
visionary man. God warned Lehi that he and his family would be destroyed if
they remained on their current path in Jerusalem, so they pressed forward in
faith into the unknown.
This dream was life changing for Lehi and all of his posterity.
It prompted a move across the planet and set their lives on completely
different paths. The dream brought about difficult circumstances; turning
brother against brother, subjecting the family to hunger and strife throughout
their journey, and ultimately causing wars in the family’s new homeland. But it
also brought immeasurable good because it spread knowledge of Christ and His
gospel to countless people, both in the past and today.
These life-changing dreams still happen. God continues to speak
to His children, and sometimes that happens through dreams of warning like Lehi
experienced. After a year and a half in a very unhealthy relationship, God sent me a dream like that.
It came on an August afternoon after I’d gotten home from work.
I don’t take naps, but I felt a strong pull to lie down on the couch. Sleep
took me immediately.
I realized I was throwing a party in my apartment. My mom was
there, which was strange because she lives in Illinois. I started to walk over to her, but there
was a knock at the door and then the man I was seeing walked in.
Suddenly the party was at an outdoor pool where he and I liked
to go at night. We were in the hot tub and I was grazing my fingers across
his collarbone like I always did. It seemed intimate to touch him here, on this
bone that felt vulnerable because it was so close to his heart. I was running
the pad of my fingertip along the top ridge when I noticed something was coming
out of it.
Saliva pooled in my mouth and my cheeks rippled with revulsion
as I watched my tender place distort. Hundreds of tiny bones began to rip through
his skin, slowly unfurling like a hand. They were thin and grew four inches
long, taking form as the clicking, jointed legs of a tarantula. They were waving
at me.
I tasted metallic and pulled away in the water, repulsed by the
squirming bones that continued to pulse back and forth underneath his chin. I
pinched my eyelids to escape the grotesque scene, but I couldn’t wake up.
“Mandy, we need to talk,” he said.
I couldn’t stop staring at the bones.
“I’ll go grab my stuff,” he said as he climbed out of the water.
My mother came to me then. Her green eyes were so aware; they
had the same vivid intensity my deceased grandpa or grandma’s eyes had when I’d
seen them in previous dreams. This distinction made me realize that while my
body was asleep, my soul was very much awake and there was a message for
me.
“Why don’t you see him for what he is?” she asked. “All of us,”
she said pointing to the rest of the people at the party, “see him. But you
don’t.”
Then he was back. He went to shake my mother’s hand but he
couldn’t; their hands wouldn’t connect. An invisible obstacle blocked the
contact, so he walked away from her and motioned for me to follow.
“Don’t go with him,” she said.
But I did.
We were walking to his car when I realized there was another
woman with us. She was on his other side, an ethereal blonde like Galadriel in
Lord of the Rings.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s with me,” he said as he kept walking.
I stopped. “I thought you wanted to talk?”
“I do, aren’t you coming?” he asked, turning around.
The woman looked back at me. She seemed to sense my confusion,
then she said:
“I’ll always be with him.”
The dream slowed down.
Her words confirmed a truth I had suspected but ignored for over a year. I knew
there were other girls. But I had always believed he would choose me in the
end.
I was wrong.
I ran from them until I reached the parking lot. I saw my mom
and her car so I jumped in the driver’s side and locked the doors.
Then I screamed. A raw, carnal upheaval exploded out of my mouth
and reverberated around the car with spectacular force. I couldn’t stop it, and
I felt my jaw crack from the strain of the sound.
When it finally ended, my mom turned to me with her knowing
green eyes and she smiled.
I woke shaking on the couch in the night.
I had never feared God or His power until that moment. There was no doubt in
my mind that this dream was from Him, and His message to get out of my
relationship was clear. But I didn’t want to acknowledge it. This was partly because
I loved that man, despite the emotional pain I was in throughout our
relationship. But more than that I was frightened to join the league of people
who receive dreams from God because that meant I was on a really bad path if He
felt the need to intervene.
It took me two weeks to accept the dream and act, and that meant not only ending my
relationship but also my commitments that involved him. I’d revolved my life
around him for so long that I didn’t recognize myself or my daily routine once
he was gone. Not only had our relationship died, but it also felt like part of
me had too.
I ached for him and felt my heart rip each time he’d post a
picture with a new girl. I ended the relationship but I still cared and it
killed me to realize he didn’t. His absence from my life tore me apart once he
was gone and the scars are still pink.
But I never doubt the dream or the actions it inspired. I still hurt. Mr. Right hasn't suddenly appeared. Yet my life is changing and I am starting to be okay.
Lehi's dream saved his family and millions of souls that came after him. My dream probably won't have such an incredible effect, but it saved me. And that is more than enough.
