Sunday, August 17, 2014

Heaven is disturbed

Okay, I don't claim to be a prophet.  I am far from that.  I do always get amazed how sometimes God chooses to speak through/in my dreams. (this is not special to me; there are stories of God speaking to people in dreams in the Bible and other people I know who receive messages in dreams.)
I had a dream early last Tuesday morning, almost like I fell back to sleep after awakening, and I went immediately into REM sleep.  It was such an intense dream, and I was on the verge of tears all day, weeping on the inside.  Some might think it's because our daughter had just started Kindergarten.  No.  I could not shake the emotion, but I couldn't figure out why it affected me so deeply.  There's a certain feeling I get when I know the dream is more than just my crazy brain putting together a story.  I know there is a specific reason.
In the dream, my girls and I were in one room, and we could hear Muslim men talking in the next room and a lady with a baby.  The baby cried, then we heard the men say they were going to take the baby out back and cut off its head only because they believed the baby to be a nuisance.  The mom screamed out, and the three men rushed into the back yard, and even though we couldn't see what was happening, the girls and I knew it had just happened.  Even though we don't speak the language, the girls knew the baby was being killed, but I was trying hard to shield them.  I wanted to run after the men and speak to them, but I knew if I tried to intervene in the next room, my own daughters would be killed so I just sat there in the kitchen with them.  I wanted to do something, but I felt so helpless and torn between my own daughters' safety and the horrible injustice and disregard for life in the next room.
That was it.  I awoke.  I felt sad, horrified and upset all day long.
I was so puzzled by the dream all day, because this was before all of the news had come out about the killings of Christian children.  I googled Muslim men beheading babies.  Nothing came up.  I googled Muslim men killing babies.  The only thing that came up was a story from January 2014 and July 2011 about the rise in newborn babies being killed in Pakistan, usually girls, because they are not valued.  My heart went out to these moms.  The men in the family do the killings.  The moms have the baby and awaken one morning a day or two later to see the baby is gone and that is that.  The moms actually believe that God will forgive them for not abandoning the baby but going along with the plan for it to be killed.  It is understood that the men take care of this.  There are very few baby Pakistani girls being put up for adoption.  I could see why Heaven might be disturbed about the lives of these baby girls, but this didn't quite seem to be the answer so it still bothered me. 
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/14/infanticides-on-theriseinpakistan.html
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/07/20/pakistan.infanticide/index.html
That night I prayed to God, why did you give me this dream?  What am I supposed to do about it?  I was so puzzled.  Then my reading for that night in the One Year Bible.  Somewhere I read the verse "And all of heaven was disturbed." and it was in the context of a bad king who was doing injustice and killing a lot of innocent people.  I knew in an instant that was it.  Heaven was disturbed because innocent babies were being killed in Pakistan because they are girls, and daughters and wives are being killed by their fathers and husbands because they are too Western or other "misdemeanors" they've committed.  Friends, even fathers who abuse their daughters do not plot to kill them.  This is different than an "abusive" relationship.  http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/06/pakistan-honour-killing-201463153017889461.html
And I couldn't help but think about Gosnell's abortion clinic where he killed live babies and how there wasn't a whole lot of difference in the methods.  Of course Heaven is disturbed.  This is a deep problem; it made sense to me that the weight of what I was feeling was a global problem, not just something in my own life, and my heart kept thinking about these moms around the world who lose their babies and these precious, healthy girls who lose their lives, because they are girls.
3 days later.  I learn that Christian children are being beheaded.  I froze.  Of course all of Heaven is disturbed.  The heads of these children are being paraded on sticks, because their parents love Jesus.  Just imagine, if you can bear it, what grief and horror these parents are going through.
http://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=56481
“We need to be clear in calling out evil for what it is. When people will behead a child, and when people will leave people starving on top of a mountain without food or water – 40,000 of them – I don’t care what religion it is: It’s evil.” —Mike Huckabee 
If you do not believe in a God or a God who cares, know this.  I did not create this dream in my head.  It came out of nowhere--that's why I was so confused how my brain concocted it, and details I read later that day were the same in my dream, even though I have never read anything about it or been there.  I was about to cry all day long, and I could not shake it.  All of Heaven is disturbed, and the God of the Universe cares about all of it, so much that the supernatural is bleeding over into my dreams, and I am weeping 3 days before the news hits about events from around the world.  Heaven saw them and was and is disturbed.  God's love and mercy is so deep and overflowing right now.  I do believe there is a war in Heaven brewing--just read Revelation.  Who's side are you going to be on in the end?
**Sidenote:  I wrote this post a few days ago, but I have hesitated in publishing it.  I keep thinking, maybe it's just something I should write in my journal and leave it private.  Then I read Nicole's post. http://nicsrevelations.com/bold-faith/the-beheaders/  If Heaven is disturbed, we should be disturbed and getting our hearts purified and holy before God.  One day, every tribe and tongue, will bow before the King.
I read this prayer from Ann Voskamp, and I also found it confirming that she is thinking the same things.

"Lord, straight up, it feels like the world’s gone mad.
Genocide and wars; the middle of the world about gutting out the middle of our hearts.
The world needs peacemakers who let the broken bits of their heart fill in all the cracked pieces and places in the world.
The world needs prayer warriors who don’t see prayer as the least we can do but the *most* we can do — and then literally get down on their knees and pray us through this mess.
The world needs to hear a lot more good news — and maybe that starts with each of us beggars who've found bread sharing more of the sustenance of Good News. The news that there is a Wounded Healer who touches our scars with His scars and says, 'I know and I see and no matter how it seems, there’s more happening than you see, and *this isn’t over yet.*'
The news that these days that are dry and brittle, ready to snap — these days are perfect kindling for a burning bush. Watch for burning bushes on days like this. The secret of joy is to keep seeking You precisely where we don't expect to find You.
The news that now more than ever is when we all need to be kind to one another. No one ever killed anyone with kindness —- only demons are killed by kindness. The rest of us are resurrected by kindness.
Kindle us with kindness, keep us with kindness, kiss us with kindness. Please, resurrect us all with kindness…
In the name of Jesus, the only One who loved all of us to death and back to real and forever life again,
Amen."  Ann Voskamp

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love this. You are a prophet! Excellent message. Amen.