Fragrant Lilac Teardrop Blossoms 1

I took a picture some time back while passing through Hot Springs, South Dakota on our way to visit the Wind Caves attraction that was about 15 minutes away from there. It happened, as we were driving along, that I was pulled toward all of the lovely light purply and mauvy-like lilac bushes that were in mid-bloom along the sides of the roads, sharing their lush fragrance and vibrancy selflessly with all who happened to pass by. My husband very kindly pulled up for me alongside this particular blossoming lilac bush (which lined the front of a quaint old home that decorated one of the main streets in Hot Springs that held this little beauty) so I could take a picture of it. The wind was blowing some, so I wasn't sure if any of the close-ups I shot were going to turn out since the new buds were only a couple of millimeters wide, teenincy at best. To my great delight, and hopefully to the viewers' delight as displayed on my Flickr site, they did.

 

I was so struck by this scene that I thought about how it is such a great joy to be blessed with the senses to take in what I consider to be one of God's most gracious creations, the flower. Part of my reasoning behind it is that the flower gives us a glimpse into the Kingdom of God/Eternity/spiritual realm/heavenly realms, in all of its ethereal beauty. When looking at this blossoming branch from the main vine, I am reminded that Jeremiah and Isaiah said the Messiah would be called "The Branch" though, among Christians, there has been much confusion about what being a branch of the Lord's is. Later Jesus further clarified that He is The True Vine (The Branch), represented also by Aaron’s budding/blossoming Staff, as we each branch out from Him (or rather are grafted into Him and/or He into us). It is important to point out now that, when Jesus was explaining this concept of The Vine to His disciples, He was referring to what was going to occur during the 40 day period of time that He was going to spend with them after He was resurrected. He was preparing them for the mind-blowing effect it would have on them even before they received the Wind and Fire of the Holy Spirit.

 

Though I realize many a pulpit has preached on this topic and would disagree with me and my first hand experience in this matter and would even unwisely downplay firsthand experience over knowledge learned from a book or a teacher, let me ask the readers which they would rather: If they had a child, who was blind but could possibly soon see, would they rather a blind person, who went to school for years to learn about the color blue, explain to the child what blue is like or would they rather a person who had been blind but now somewhat sees explain what it's like? I think the answer is rather obvious. This type of situation can also be likened to the proverbial child asking for the time: Instead of simply being told what time it is, she is told how the watch was built because the person she asked was blind, unbeknownst to her, and thus couldn't see to tell her the time. Keeping that reasoning in mind while also keeping in mind that we must not go beyond what Scripture tells us about God and our relationship with Him, this is my account of how His grafting came about in my life without all of the hooplah of blind theologians yet backed with the Word.

 

When I was 37 and a half, I'd been ill for a little over seven years with something that could not be treated though is not considered contagious; and I had lost most, if not all, of my friends and many of my friendships with family members, mainly as a result of it. Many were of the "blab it and grab it" (Word of Faith) “belief system” in forcing God’s Hand in situations (plain and simple, witchcraft) and couldn't understand how I could be sick if I had faith to pray for others to be healed and for them to have actually been healed. Instead of sticking by me to see me through my problem, they felt it "damaging" to their “faith”…really self-inflicted brainwashing system.

 

During this trialsome time, instead of pulling away from the Lord as many would have done under the same treatment, I seemed to cling to Him more and relied heavily on our devotional times together, knowing Him to be good though the people who supposedly represented Him weren’t. I didn't know what God's purpose in this ordeal was, but I knew that it was His will for me at this particular time to be ill. (Now I could go on about how Elisha died of illness here though God used him to do mighty miracles and to heal others and to raise the dead, but I'll let those who actually know the Bible make the conclusion here that should be made according to 2 Kings chps. 2-8 and 13:14-21). If I remember correctly, the Lord had been sharing with me during those times that something wonderful was going to happen to me at the end of about seven years of being sick.

 

For about six months that preceded this event, I kept getting passages during my devotions that stuck out in my spirit about "40 days." For example, I was given the passage about the 40 days and nights regarding Moses’ mountaintop experience and then how that happened again with him. Then I’d get the passage about the Temptation of Jesus for 40 days or about how Jesus resurrected and walked on the earth for 40 days among His disciples or how the earth flooded for 40 days etc, etc.

 

At the same time, I kept having dreams about the Lord. Over the years, the Lord has very graciously blessed me with many visits in my dreams. But during this time, it seemed almost as if His visits were on a nightly basis. It seemed as though I were being prepared for something about which I hadn't had a clue. One example of a dream I'd had was that I'd been called to fill a position that others had refused. Jesus read to me the requirements of said position; a misunderstanding ensued, and I was falsely accused though somehow was afterward exonerated because Jesus gave me the job/position anyway. As a result, I was invited to eat as one of His children at His Table with Him pointedly telling me in the midst of it that "All of His children may eat at His Table." Jesus then showed me the family business of harvesting, and Jesus consulted the Heavenly Father for final approval.

 

Another dream I had was that "The Master" was brought to me to put a strange looking contraption, which vaguely resembled a crown, on my head because the person and I, who were trying to put it on, kept fumbling with it. "The Master" did so successfully by fazing me in and out of this physical reality though I had a hard time "relaxing" to allow the process to finish. In the meantime, I was taken to something like a palace and landed on a sandstone-type floor with the "crown" firmly embedded “in” my skull, never again accidentally to fall off.

 

About that time in this physical reality, I started to taste a sweet yummy substance in my mouth anytime I would spend time praying/worshiping or reading the Word. It would start out at the back of my tongue and in my throat area and rise up with a kind of power or substance feeling behind it, making it feel as though my tongue were swelling a bit, though it wasn't at all, and ever so slightly tingling like how it feels when someone eats a kiwi. This went on for about a week to 10 days (if I'm not mistaken, I think it was more like eight days to be exact). I thought that, perhaps, this was the food I was to eat at His Table He was speaking of in the dream. However, this was only the beginning of it.

 

Then I had an accident: I was getting up in the middle of the night, because I couldn't sleep which was typical of this illness, when I accidentally rammed my knee into the bedroom door as I was opening it. The door ricocheted; and the edge of the door slammed into my eye, leaving it black and blue and purple. (Yes, I am a klutz. If anyone knows me, s/he would know this is not unusual for me as many have watched me do such things frequently. Ter her her her.) It looked really bad for a few days when suddenly one of my kidneys began to hurt. I thought I couldn't believe I was starting to have kidney trouble again right when I acquired this black eye. It's so my life...*rolling my eyes*. I couldn't go to the doctor because, where I lived at the time, there were no questions asked about possible spousal abuse. They just assumed it and arrested the husband. Thus in order to protect my husband, because I truly was just accident prone, I prayed about it and asked for healing. Instantly I felt I was healed since the kidney pain went away, and the next day I woke up to my eye being hardly at all colored from bruising. It was odd because my bruises normally last for weeks and weeks. That this bruising went away so quickly was truly miraculous.

 

Afterward, I received some passages about Him being the God who heals me. That He healed me of these problems but not the main illness, which had been attacking me for seven years and still does, I'll probably never understand until I go to be with Him forever. Nonetheless, the passages felt very pointed and alive. Next during that same devotional time, I perceived that He challenged me in a passage in Acts about resisting the Holy Spirit. Again it felt very pointed and alive. I struggled in will over this criticism because I thought I had received the Holy Spirit during the first few months when I received Jesus back when I was 16. However, I knew the passage was for me. So I surrendered and prayed that, as I did many other times before like the first time I felt His Spirit when I was 16, He would just bless me with all He'd had in store for me. Though that was very scary for me at the time and required tremendous faith from the Lord, now I understand that I received only part of the whole baptism when I was 16. This was just another part of it, the many parts of the baptism being one like Father, Son, Holy Spirit are One. A way to understand it is that a rainbow encircles His throne and envelops us as we enter into His Presence while the colors or parts change from time to time. Which part we receive depends on what color it is at the time.

 

At this time that I was enveloped in it, His Presence brought about my being grafted into Him as The Vine/Branch right then because, at that moment, I physically and very palpably felt movement going on in my lower abdomen; but I wasn't moving. Then I felt something pulled off me there while my belly jiggled like gelatin in response to this movement as though my inner being/soul were being circumcised somehow by Jesus, the High Priest, being perhaps the eighth day and all as the ancient Jewish tradition of circumcision foreshadowed. Then I felt a large umbilical-like cord (or something like Aaron’s Budding Staff) enter me in that place that was circumcised but did not leave me. Next, I perceived the Lord speaking to my soul about my future with Him but didn't understand exactly what was being said though it seemed very loving, holy, righteous, pure, and good somehow much like how He spoke to Abraham in Genesis 17...though I am no Abraham. That was just the sense of blessing I perceived is all. Then I went to sleep, a VERY deep and restful sleep, to dream about the rapture and learned a very pointed lesson from it. (I won’t go into detail about it because everyone’s lesson from the Lord at this point is different, and I don’t wish to create a distraction from the main subject matter.)

 

Right afterward, I woke up to the most wonderful waves of love in my belly where the umbilical cord had been attached to me--though I didn’t feel it anymore yet knew it was still there. The waves started precisely where the umbilical cord or vine had been placed and radiated out like waves from the ocean shore, over and over and over again without stopping. The waves of love can be likened to how it feels to a person when she is sitting in the passenger seat of a car as it speeds over a hump in the road, caused by an intersection, but the physical feeling being multiplied by at least 100 times. It was the single most absolutely mind-blowing experience that I have ever encountered in my entire life and was most certainly and definitely NOT an emotional experience. It all felt quite physical, just as driving over that hump in the road feels physical. At the same time as a wave of love would wash through me, I would flush a bit from it because of His Breath being breathed on me, which I have explained before happened to me in the waiting room of a hospital seven years prior to this love experience in the midst of all my grief because my dad was dying. It was probably a good thing that I was unable to work while having the Lord’s Love like this because of the illness since it would have kept me from performing well at all, and I wouldn't have been able just to enjoy this loving time alone with the Lord.

 

On about the third day, the sensation began not to be so constant or as intense. As a result, I started to feel desperate for Him and began to cry out to Him about it. It was like finding the love of a lifetime just to have him snatched away by death or disaster suddenly. Right about then on that day, I began to feel a kind of bubbling sensation in my lower abdomen--kind of like how it feels when one puts his/her own hand under a bathtub faucet with the water turned on full blast...like the "Living Waters" Jesus spoke of that were to come from our bellies, according to John 7:37-39 in the KJV translation of the Bible. As I spent time with the Lord that day, I sensed He was speaking to me that, when I began to feel lonely for Him and His Love, this Living Waters would comfort me with the sense that He was right there with me/in me when the waves of love weren’t immersing me in Him during the next nearly 40 days.

 

To Be Continued in "Lilac Fragrant Teardrop Blossoms 2"

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