A Visitation, AKA, Necessary Encouragement for Anyone Who Is Struggling.

I’ve been going through some stuff lately. The worst has been the annual depression produced by a combination of the constant drop in barometric pressure, and the gloominess of experiencing several consecutive days of gray skies. Spring may be some people’s favorite season, but where I live, and for my Highly Sensitive Autistic self, the season is a struggle to get through.

Then there are a couple of chronic health challenges I’ve been dealing with (nothing life-threatening, just annoying at best and disconcerting at worst), one of which I recently exacerbated by making a wrong and non-reversible treatment decision about it.

[UPDATE August 2024 - That "wrong" decision, a tooth extraction to eliminate an otherwise untreatable gum infection, turned out to be the perfect decision.]

Anyone over the age of thirty, especially those over the age of forty who are beginning to see and feel the effects of aging, can relate. No one has the perfect Instagram life, and sometimes, perhaps much more often than we care to admit to anyone beyond our close circle, life is downright depressing. Instead of a light at the end of a tunnel, all we can see is a black hole. Every cloud we look at is lined with tar, any half-full glass we come across, we accidentally knock to the floor and break.

But no matter what you’re going through, there is hope. Last night, God reminded me of that in a dream, and if you’re starting to navigate away from this article because I said the “G” word, then I guess you haven’t hit rock bottom yet. You still have enough strength left in you to exercise your pride, enough strength to cling to an impossible belief, the belief that everything came from nothing. 

The words that follow are not meant to convince the illogical, deceived unbeliever, but believers who wrestle against thoughts that God must not love them, as well as unbelievers who want to believe, but can’t understand how a loving God can allow bad things to happen. If you don’t belong to one of those two groups, goodbye.

For the rest of you…

Last night, for the first time in all of my fifty-four years (that I am aware), Yeshua showed up in one of my dreams. The setting was some sort of dystopia, in which innocent citizens were being forced to help their evil conquerors to fight their war. I knew no specific details in the dream, but everyone around me was afraid, and there was a sense that we, the innocents, were eventually going to be killed, one way or the other.

Then, Yeshua walked onto the scene, from behind a large stone wall, I think, or perhaps He appeared from behind a group of people. I and two others, the only two other believers there besides me, recognized Him instantly. At the same time, we understood that we were not to reveal Who He was. We also understood that the enemy would not have the final say. We knew Yeshua had come to help us fight against them.

He looked nothing like any of the actors I’ve ever seen portray Yeshua, whether in movies or in music videos. He was not handsome. He was on the short side for a man, maybe a couple of inches taller than my five-foot-three height, had a fit physique, dark tan skin, and wavy, dark brown hair that fell to His shoulders. He had brown eyes, a large nose, and a round chin.

No, unlike the men I’ve seen throughout the years portraying Jesus, the Man of my dreams would never be invited to model for the cover of a romance novel.

Nevertheless, He was beautiful in a way I can’t explain. Love glimmered in His eyes, and He had a smile that communicated gentleness, kindness, compassion, and trustworthiness.

Though He came out to mingle with the innocents, He would occasionally duck away when certain of the enemy’s leaders appeared. They knew Him, and He did not want to alert them of His presence.

At one point, He stood right next to me, and I leaned against Him, both needing to feel His reality and trying to express my gratitude for His being there. 

Sometimes, in my vivid dreams people speak coherent words. Other times, the communication is telepathic, and it was so in this dream. Of course, in this case you might say that I was praying silently, and that the Holy Spirit gave me Yeshua’s answer as He thought it.

Anyway, of all the things I might have asked Him given our dire situation, I decided, for some crazy reason, to ask Him about gardening.

Or, maybe not so crazy. In real life, I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with gardening. I enjoy working outside, love nurturing plants and watching them grow. But gardening is a great challenge where we live.

First of all, springs and summers are so humid that many of the native plants, including trees, develop fungal disease. Most garden crops don’t have a chance at thriving for the entire season.

Second, the soil here is mostly broken-down sandstone. In order to grow anything, you either have to spend years amending the native soil, or build raised beds and fill them with potting mix (I’ve done a combination of both).

Finally, I have to water the garden by hand (too long of an explanation as to why), and when it’s ninety degrees with seventy percent humidity by ten o’clock in the morning, the chore takes all the romance out of growing your own food. Not to mention all of the energy from the rest of your day.

My point: for me, growing vegetables is a good representative of all the ongoing struggles in my life.

I don’t remember what I specifically asked about gardening. I think it was along the lines of, how can I produce more with less work? Or maybe it was, should I even bother trying to continue growing vegetables? Whatever the question, it was filled with frustration. A sense of, is all that work even worth it?

Neither do I remember His specific answer. It was, as is God’s voice in one’s waking hours, more of an impression, and the impression was this: enjoy the process. Flow with the process. Learn from the process.

In other words, relax and trust. The very two life issues I struggle with the most.

BUT. I can do both, if I would just remember that Yeshua is always with me.

As with most dreams, not long after I woke up, the dream’s images and details began to fade. I didn’t wake up with a profound sense of peace, or excitement over having been in my Savior’s presence. But what I did wake up with, the one impression that has not faded, is that no matter how I feel, no matter what I’m going through – especially when I feel trapped by all the negative aspects of life, like they and they alone are what dictate my path – Yeshua is right beside me.

There was another impression, too, one which religious people will fail to accept.

My sins are forgiven, so I can stop feeling guilty over every wrong thought, word, and action that emanates from my being. I can stop beating myself up over not being perfect. Yeshua is beside me, because He wants to be in my company. No matter what.

While this is far from the first time in my life that I’ve heard something similar, it was the first time that I felt it coming straight from the Throne Room itself. How many times have I told my husband, “If only Yeshua would just come down and tell me XYZ…”

He finally did.

You might think, “It was just a dream.” Well, God speaks through dreams. This happens to be the first –and probably only – time that He has spoken to me so directly, without making me wade through a sea of symbols to interpret.

This dream counts as a visitation from my Lord.

If you’re a believer and have been struggling with God’s love, that word is for you. Yeshua said that in this life we will have tribulations – including gardens that won’t work, including messes of our own making – but to be of good cheer, for He has overcome them.

If you are not yet a believer, because you see the evil around you and wonder how a loving God can allow it, what you need to know is that God has not allowed any of it.

We have.

We, the human beings whom He commanded to have dominion over the earth, have taken that dominion and abused it with our greed, selfishness, lust, fear, and pride.

God will one day set all things right. The question is, while you walk through all the not-right things, do you want to continue alone, or do you want a friend – a friend who has the power to heal, to grant wisdom, to protect, to comfort, to guide, to give strength – to walk with you?