Much of my story – my dysfunctional story – and the story of Carl and I, is chronicled in my book, THE DREAM. So in this story, I will tell another part, which I did not record in THE DREAM.
I was 40 years old at the time of this incident. I was attending a church, and on one particular Sunday, I was given a prophetic word by the pastor’s wife. God said through her, “I will take you beyond what you can imagine, you will look back and be amazed. I will prove it to you.”
I wondered and wondered, for years, what that could possibly mean. I would often say to God in protest, “I am not amazed yet. What is it?! Where is it?! Where will you take me?!”
But HE never responded to my complaints. I would have to wait.
Just a few months after that prophetic word, at that same church, and through that same pastor’s wife, I got another prophetic word. This one was: “The freedom I am working in you, you will pass on that freedom to others.”
I certainly did not feel free! I felt trapped and dysfunctional, and always wondering how to move past it. But then the prophetic dream came – and God, Himself, moved me – little by little.
Just one year after I had received the prophetic dream, a significant change occurred at the job I had held for the previous 22 years. My employers decided to sell their small business to a large corporation. Upon hearing the unexpected news, I knew immediately that my days there, at that job I had held for so many years, were coming to an end. I did not want to work for that corporation, and I knew that it was time for me to move on.
I immediately began to look for another job. I looked, and I looked, and I looked. And I found that the criteria I had set for my next job was not easily met. I prayed, and I looked some more. And then came covid. I worked in healthcare, and so my job was very secure – I felt really stuck.
After so many years of enjoying my job, and enjoying the people that I worked for, I just hated my altered job duties in my new position for this bureaucratic corporation. Every day felt tortuous.
At some point, I went to my pastors, Pastor J and Pastor T (familiar to those who have read my book), and I asked that they pray with me about a new job that I was certain was out there somewhere for me. At the end of their prayer, Pastor J said that he had this word from the Lord: “It’s unexpected.”
What on earth did that mean?! I wondered for a couple more years, as I languished at that job. But HIS meaning was becoming clearer and clearer, as HE continued moving me closer to it.
Fast forward to today – HE has turned me into an author, and it has been most definitely, “unexpected!” Never, in my wildest dreams, did I expect to write a book. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I expect HE would give me the story of the prophetic dream. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I imagine Carl.
I no longer tell HIM, “I am not amazed yet.” These days, I live in a perpetual state of amazement. And that is where our God will take every one of us, if we will follow HIM.