Scarlet was sick that morning, the kind that comes over the little ones with fevers in the early morning causing their little bodies to lie limp upon your chest and it takes dedication to keep them hydrated. She fell asleep at 10am (very unusual for her who does not take morning naps) and Audrey wanted I-time. I headed out into the garden to water the scorched land.
I found myself in one of those moods where I am coasting, comfortable and gliding along the familiar terrain of my mind. I am lingering in the morning shade of the western side of my old house with water pouring out at my fingertips and I see my neighbor, Rosa, backing out of her driveway in her glittery black car. She sees me and puts the car in park and rushes over to me in her high energy-Rosa fashion.
Out of her mouth she shares with me passionately, “Girl, I had a dream about you and your house last night! I dreamed that you were planning on ‘remodeling’ your home but instead the builders demolished your house. The whole thing was almost entirely gone. It was crazy because there were people coming and going throughout the house, in the back door and out the front door. The strangest part of my dream was that within your house were huge, (stretching her arms out wide) and I mean huge, trees growing, with massive tree trunks which no one could see from the outside when the house was intact. There wasn’t just one, but many of these large trees growing in your house. I remember sitting on a couch that was still present in your demolished home and talking with the wife of the builder who was in charge of the remodeling. She was in distress because she knew she had to leave him. I was listening, crying with her and trying to help her. I found it amazing that there were still places to sit and be comfortable in your home even though it had been flattened and there were trees everywhere. It was a crazy dream but amazing at the same time. I just couldn’t get over the trees that were growing and that we had never seen them there until now.”
I stood there stunned, water continuing to pour from my hose in my hand. Out of my mouth came this, “Rosa, do you believe God speaks to you in your dreams?” And as I say that, I begin to weep, shaking my head in amazement; this is so like God to speak to me in this way. She is looking up at me and I begin to share with her the thumbnail story of the devastation I have experienced with my family the past five years.
Friends, how many times have you heard me describe my great loss in the divorce of Ivan’s parents and the disintegration of the Martens’ family as if it were a very large and full tree, magnificent to sit under and gaze up into? And how long have I wept over what was found in the root structure of that tree as it fell to the ground and we all gazed into the deep, deep pit it left in my belly. And stretch your memory back even further, how many prophetic words have been spoken over Ivan and my home being a place of peace, restoration, rest and healing? Leap back in time to the days of InterVarsity at the University of Iowa, being called over and over again, an “oak of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor”. What’s more, how long have I lived from a place that we have been destroyed by the falling apart of Roy and LoAnn’s marriage?
I stand with full stature and declare that as of the day of the telling of this dream, I am no longer willing to live from a place of being destroyed. It may appear that my house has accidentally been destroyed, but fear not those who love me, THERE ARE HUGE TREES GROWING IN THE SPACE OF MY HOUSE! Immense and enormous; take your pick because there are more than one for you to gaze at. All through what we thought was a “remodel gone really bad” phase, God has been growing huge oaks of righteousness within the borders of our home (symbolic for our internal worlds of faith and life, our marriage, and our little family).
And through it all, we have been faithful to keep our doors open to those who have walked this hard and painful journey with us. Even amidst a house being entirely destroyed, we have successfully used what little we had to minister deeply and profoundly to many people.
God is with us, even though we have experienced tremendous darkness and could grope no sense of him anywhere. HE IS WITH US! He is growing trees within the border of our home and our family and they are splendid. Even though we appear to have been destroyed, we still have a place of shelter and hope within our home.
Friend, I cannot tell you how deeply this dream has exploded hope and opened up deep wells of encouragement that the Holy Spirit has had waiting for me and my household. This dream unearthed the beginning of a grand adventure over the next many days that has left me bubbling with joy, vibrating with power that’s causing my bones to hum, and greater vision for God’s Kingdom come in my family and my life.
I am telling you something new: I am no longer held with chains to the destruction of the Martens’ family. I have been set loose by a greater power that adores me and has magnificent plans for my life. I am on a new course of hope, life to the fullest and endless joy.
I am so thankful, so very thankful.