Mindy and her Technicolor Dreamcoat

Alright kids... this is going to be a long one. Sorry. I thought I had blogged about some of this before, but apparently not. So I have to give you a bit of back story.  So grab a cup of coffee, or pull this blog post up while some boring TV show is on or while you're waiting in the doctors office... and enjoy!

I want to preface all this by saying.. I don't get it either. However, I've decided it's not for me to question God's ways.  And I should just revel in it!  So hopefully you will adopt that attitude and roll with me!

November 2011

I think most of you know I went to Houston in November to visit Tom. Most of my visit was centered around getting to experience a new church he had started attending and getting to see the Lord do some pretty amazing things. It was awesome! I saw the Lord work in ways that I had never seen before and had the opportunity for some great pillars of faith to speak some truth into my life. I left there very uplifted. One of the statements that was made was that someone was going to continue to pray for God to "dazzle" me. And boy oh boy has that come to fruition in so many ways!  My first example of being dazzled goes like this:

     Before leaving for Houston, I had taken to writing scripture up on my bathroom mirror so that I could meditate on them and work on memorizing them. A day or two before leaving, I had written a few new ones up there. Well, in praying with someone in Houston, she prayed one of these verses into her prayer over me. I hadn't told her about it... it was just worked into her prayer. I did stop her and tell her that was one of the verses I had on my mirror- and she said the Lord had given her that verse for me. OK.   That was pretty dazzling in and of itself. (Prov 13:12- Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is the tree of life.)   But what was even more dazzling was when I got home and was unpacking, I went to unpack some things in my bathroom. What I saw was pretty creepy- the other three verses looked as if someone had smeared them with their hands while Prov 13:12 was still in tack, in my handwriting. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.  I took a picture of it. :) Kind of hard to see the detail.. but the one in the upper right corner is the Prov 13:12 one.

 So.. after I got over the initial creepiness of this :).. I decided THIS was God's way of dazzling me.  Yeah.. it was cool to have the girl quote the scripture in a prayer.. but it was DAZZLING to have a physical manifestation like this. I don't know how it happened. No one was in my bathroom while I was gone.  So I just decided to give it over to God- and give him some props for getting right on that prayer request.  And thus the bedazzling began.

2x4 Method

So, I've often said that God uses the 2x4 method to get my attention. He hits me between the eyes with a 2x4 until I get it. :) After this trip to Houston, I felt like God was not only using a 2x4 to get my attention, but at some times he was throwing the whole logging truck at me!  So what do I mean by this? There would be repeated themes that showed up in my prayers, sermons, bible studies, etc. All at the same time- in the same week... and often even in the same day. That's the 2x4. Keeps hitting me between they eyes until I can't not get it!  So between November and now... God's been doing a lot of that to dazzle me. He's also shown me some people in my life who are more concerned about living by the Spirit than the newest Justin Timberlake movie. OH wait.. scratch that. They are the same people. :) LOL. All joking aside... I've found that there are others that have dazzling stories of the Spirit working in them or through them, and its all AMAZING!!  And we just don't share these stories enough. We think they are odd, weird, or just simply unbelievable.  BUT.. because I've found value in hearing others stories, I thought I'd share my stories as of recent.

I don't know what to call them either

So one thing I keep praying is that God and the Spirit would just reveal more of themselves to me.  Well. The prayer is being answered and the dazzling is back.  The best way to describe what's happened is that I've had visions or dreams that are different than my regular dreams.  I cannot describe it well- but its kind of the difference between watching a live play and watching a TV show.  They both tell a story, but one is much more real because it's right in front of you. So while I don't know what to call them... that doesn't matter. I want to share some of the stories that go along with them. Just call me Joseph and I'll get my technicolor dreamcoat ready to go.  What was odd was that I had three of these visions three days in a row. So here is the first one. 

The first vision I had actually incorporates the 2x4. :) LOL.  So in this vision, a 2x4 was rotating through the air and coming right at me. Well... it stopped just short of implanting itself in my eye and then poofed into sawdust.  Behind it was an image of a bride. Yeah. That's all there was to the vision.  Short and sweet. And odd. :) I've been praying about it and the best interpretation and application I have  for this is that the poofing 2x4 is meant to represent God's grace in that he was going to remove the plank before it even got to my eye and its a symbol of his mercy too.  I have trouble hanging onto those concepts of grace and mercy sometimes... and at the time when this happened, I was in need of both of them. So the visual is nice to represent that. OH.. the image of the bride?  Yeah.  Not sure about that. But I think its meant to represent that we are the bride of Christ and he's willing to take that plank away because of how much he loves us.  Yeah. let's go with that. :)  

Open Doors

Unfortunately, I do not feel like I can tell you the entire story about the second vision. Why? Well... it was for someone else. The basic premise was that this friend needs to make some decisions, and by closing the door on one choice, it opens up A LOT more doors. Why would I have a vision for someone else? Well.. God uses people to speak into our lives. And one of the open doors did involve me. And a call to a bigger global mission. And so while I know this vision was meant for someone else.. I do think God incorporated the part about the bigger global mission for me because it was while I was having lots of apprehension about the mission trip I was supposed to attend in December.  So it was a 2-for-1 deal! And a promise for me of other mission opportunities to come. In talking with the person who was the subject of the vision, it does sound like God is using this image to give words to a situation and confirmation of some choices to that person also. 

Profile Pictures

So the third vision is actually great imagery but also kind of funny. In this vision, I was on facebook. :)  If you are familiar with the new timeline version of the profile, this refers the small thumbnail picture that is put up.  So I was looking at my friend Tom's facebook page, and his picture was him  and he was dripping wet, in a white robe, as he had just come out of baptismal waters. And in the small image, all you could see is that someone was holding his (bearded- he doesn't have a beard) face in their hands. When I clicked to view the entire image, it was actually a picture of Jesus holding his face and him gazing upon His face.  I asked Tom about the picture because I was really confused as to if it was recent, or if he had been baptized again. I was so dumb and couldn't figure it out. I was so perplexed. :) But then he told me it was the best reflection of who he is and then he told me to look at my facebook page too. And there was the same image, except with me (and no beard ;) ) of Jesus holding my face and me looking to Him too.  Not sure I'm describing it well.. but it was pretty awesome.  :) I think it was a reminder to me that our best image should be one that reflects Jesus in our lives and that it can be seen through everything we do.

So there you go. Some of the 'dazzling' that's been going on in my life lately. Sure.. there are other examples- like when driving to Indy last week, I was praying about some stuff in the car, and praying to be filled with the Spirit. And I was starting to feel as if that was happening, so I asked God for confirmation of that.. and just as I asked that, I passed a truck that said "Spirit Trucking" on the side of it.  C'mon.. that's my God of comic irony coming through! That's great stuff. :) 

I hope y'all are uplifted by this. As mentioned early on... I don't really get it either. But I hope that it at least gets you to thinking about the way the Lord works in your life. And I'd love to hear some of those stories too! Here's to more 'dazzling' in the weeks to come!