A Strange Dream
A Strange Dream: Was it a Message from God??
I had a strange, puzzling dream. It left me a bit confused. I woke up and
wondered what the dream meant.
In the dream, there was no warning. The cloudless, clear blue sky sent darts of
electricity through lightning bolts that turned into blazing flames, but there was no
thunder. The sunshiny world as I knew it was obliterated. By a sudden stroke of lighting
sent down from above, with no thunder to warn, lightning just seemed to spill forth from
the sky in a fiery flash of flames.
Horrified, I couldn’t believe what my eyes beheld as I watched people screaming
and running in flames. They were burning alive and there was no escape. I felt myself
pulled to the side of the road, into the ditch, by a pair of strong arms.
When I phoned my sister to talk it over with her, I didn’t get far. She was scared.
When I told her about how the lightning just came down from the sky, she said, “I have to
go now. We have rain and lightning here. The weather is really bad, and I don’t want to
get struck by lightning while I’m talking to you on the phone. You know you are not
supposed to talk on the phone during a lightning storm. I’d better hurry up and hang up,
because your dream might have been meant to warn you about me.”
The phone clicked and the line went dead. She hung up, and I had no time to
explain that there had been no thunderstorm in my dream. It wasn’t a thunderstorm that
set all those living, breathing people on fire right before my very eyes.
Horrorstruck, I wasn’t burned, and I safely watched from the sidelines. I wanted
to reach out and save those burning people, but it was too late for them. I watched in
terror as a lovely young woman clung to her mother as the fire devoured them both.
Hardest of all was watching people I knew, friends and relatives, and not being able to do
one, single thing to help them.
What did it all mean? How could I safely stand on the sidelines and watch this
horror show take place? How could I literally be untouched by those angry flames? Yet,
I had never been so touched in all my life.
Dear God, I prayed, what did that dream mean? Questions flew through my mind.
Was it God’s way of letting me know I was saved, a born-again Christian? Was it some
kind of message to me from God? Was it to tell me that if I wanted to make a difference,
if I really wanted to help those people and keep them from burning alive, I had to
somehow help them before it was too late? I thought of the agony and pain being
suffered by those poor people --- poor wretched, lost, and lonely souls.
If watching those few burn was such a horror, how hard hell would be, burning in
an eternal flame instead of burning with an eternal life! Jesus died to save us from our
sins. If we didn’t listen to God’s message, He died in vain.
I couldn’t pull those people from their fiery hell on earth, and I wouldn’t be able
to pull them from their fiery hell in death. Only Jesus could save them now. I could do
nothing but stand by and helplessly watch them die a horrible death, being buried alive,
all their hopes and dreams gone up in flames.
The worse part of all was not being able to do a thing to help them, or to save
them; for, now it was too late. I couldn’t put out that fire. I couldn’t hose them down.
After she read one of the Left Behind books, one lady made the comment, “I
don’t have to worry. I won’t be left behind. I have too many friends and relatives.
Somebody will pull me in.” Didn’t she realize that no one would have that power.
Suddenly, God’s message came through loud and clear: If you want to help save
people from that fiery hell, you must do something now, before it is too late. Speak up
and tell them about my precious gift of life. Be a witness for me.
All of my life my inspiration had come from a source much greater than I. I was
God-inspired, and I thought of how important it was to cling to religious faith against all
odds. I could just feel the miracle of God working in my own life. Through God’s grace
and our faith, we are saved, saved by a miracle!
It took a dream of lightning to make me wake up and realize time to help others
--- friends, and loved ones --- in building a personal relationship with the Lord is
running out. Will you get to heaven and see your loved ones again? Will they be there
waiting for you, or come to meet you later? If you’re not sure, now is the time to do
something about it, before it is too late!
Bio
Barbara J. Robinson is the author of Magnolia: A Wilting Flower, The Lord had
Something Better in Mind, “My Special Mother” in Mothers of Writers Vol. II, and
“Mother’s Glimpse of Heaven,” in Fate Magazine. Her testimonial appears in Chicken
Soup for the Teacher’s Soul. Magnolia: A Wilting Flower by Barbara J. Robinson
took home a trophy from the Florida Writers Association (FWA) Convention last October
when the creative nonfiction Southern memoir won a Royal Palm Award. Her short story
“The Lord had Something Better in Mind” took first place in Southeastern Louisiana
University’s fiction-writing competition, and she developed her award-winning short
story into the novel THE LORD HAD SOMETHING BETTER IN MIND soon to be
released. “Mom used to always say, “The good Lord has something better in mind,”
when I was disappointed about life, and I got the title from the line I often heard as I grew
up and Mom comforted me whenever I was disappointed about the way things were
going.” Her new paperback, The Lord had Something Better in Mind, will soon be
available. Robinson penned the short story with that same title sitting on the banks of the
old Tangipahoa, and it won first prize in Southeastern Louisiana University’s (SLU)
fiction-writing competition and was published in their literary magazine, Gambit. That
was the beginning of the paperback you will soon be able to hold in your hand. She
wrote it while taking a creative-writing class at SLU. Magnolia is now available as an
e-book at www.publishamerica.com for only $5.95, but if you want the real thing, the
paperback is available at your favorite online bookstore or phoning the publisher at
1-877-3337422! Check her site for poetry and free prologue to Magnolia,
http://pages.prodigy.net/bud25.
