Johnny and I watched that movie last night---scared the crap out of me!  It was probably the only movie I've ever watched where I was on the edge of my seat the WHOLE TIME.  AND, I didn't expect the ending.   This is probably one of my new favorite scary movies.  Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Trisha's leaving today for a road trip--she will be gone for a week.  It's good timing because I'm going to be very busy this week--lots of vacation stuff planned.  PLUS Natalie's coming into town today!!!  I'm only working two days this week, today and tomorrow and the rest of the week is going to be so awesome.

This is the break I've been waiting for. lol

In other news--we went to White Water yesterday in Atlanta.  We were wiped out on the way home...

Two nights ago I had a dream...

I can often recall my dreams, but only every-so-often do I feel so impacted by them.  Two nights ago, I experienced something.  Not sure what it was exactly, but it was something!  I had a dream that once said aloud doesn't sound so magnificent, but if you could see it through my eyes, from inside my mind, you would probably be as awed as I am. 

I was traveling with a crowd, people I knew but could not tell you their names.  We had a destination and we could all feel the burden and desire to reach it.   There was a sense of desperation in the crowd, an anxiety.  I found myself to be a leader, along with another: a young man my age, a friend.  We seemed to understand the tremendous task ahead of us (much like the feeling Frodo has in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy).  I never thought I would be relating my feelings to that of a hobbit.   For what it's worth, there was an understanding that this would be a dangerous journey; there could be pain, there could be loss, there would be blood.  No one spoke of the cost, but we all knew the possibilities.  We just knew. 
We found ourselves in a world of white.  There were wintry, snowy gusts of air and ice all around, but never cold.  It looked like the artic, but I cannot recall ever feeling the chill.  As we traveled we crossed mountains and valleys, scaling large walls of rock and jumping deep crevices.  There was never any fear, never a thought of fright.  We only felt commitment.  There was no other option but to go forward; it must be done.   We were not responding as robots, pre-programmed to behave a certain way: “resistance in futile.”  But instead we felt the inner pull to something.  We had been asked to go, we had been commissioned.  At that time I didn’t know why, but this is only the beginning. 
I almost feel as if this pack of people I was traveling with were orphans.  We felt as though we were all that was left and maybe our destination held the answers to our emptiness.  Perhaps that was our drive.  At this point we had approached an obstacle.  We had come upon a giant pyramid type structure.  There were thousands and thousands of individual blocks making up this titanic monument, each with a symbol on it.  I couldn’t read the symbols and no one recognized them as part of our language.  Not knowing what was to come, we decided that we, myself and my counterpart leader, should investigate further alone, leaving the throng behind to await the news of how to continue.  There was such a draw to this pyramid, a need to discover its meaning, and it was at this time we felt our first twinge of fear. 
Sometimes when you are presented with something that is brand new, fear tags along to whisper in your ear.  Why do we fear the unknown?  It could bring great things—or it could destroy great things.   You won’t know until you take the time to check it out.
We scaled the steps, climbing for what seemed like forever, the higher we climbed, the frostier we felt.  It was so strange that this structure could bring with it all the feeling we had been missing along our journey.  There had been no words spoken up to this point.  We had all just known what was next, but at this point my friend turned to me and said, “I think there will be blood.”  Morbid and unexpected.  I nodded in return.  I knew it too. We were looking for the path, waiting to see where it would continue and how this pyramid fit into our journey.  We reached the top and climbed up onto a flat surface.  The space was large enough to host our entire group.  As soon as our feet were planted on the summit, the strangest thing happened.  There was a low rumble and all the thousands of symbols screamed with light.  The rays burst out through each individual shape and then an altar began to rise up from the center of the flat surface.  Blocks from the belly of the pyramid formed some sort of giant block and on top was a sheet of paper.  At this point we could hear the crowd below us as the rumble had startled us all.  Now they were starting to climb to see for themselves.  As the pyramid had shifted we noticed it had shown us our path and my friend was right: there would be blood.  Across the valley was a wall of snow, a road was carved out leading to it, and blood had been spilled over the wall.  Everything around us was white but the crimson stains in the snow.  We knew that we were supposed to somehow climb that wall of snow and that it was the only to reach our destination. 
As the calls of the crowd grew louder, my attention was drawn back to the paper on top of the table.  We approached it and saw that the writing was English and I saw it was written to me as my name was there in bold.  At the same time my friend saw his name, just where I saw my name to be.  As we began to read the letter we both read from the same paper, but the message was particular to the reader.  It was specific and personal and filled with information about each of our lives, as if a close friend had written it.  It then told about our future, the relationships we were to have, the experiences that were yet to come.  It encouraged us to finish the journey because the prize at the end would be great.  It was as if God Himself placed that paper there with all the intimate details of my heart written in my language for my eyes only.  No one else saw what I saw.  They all saw their own story.  We passed the paper around, reveling in the unique message everyone receive by reading their words.  We knew that we were standing on a very special place.  It was like a mountain in Heaven—the Spirit of God was there, we could feel His presence.  As the last person read the paper, the lights faded out of the symbols and it was time to continue.  We saw the path, bloody as it may be and felt our determination returning to us, but fear didn’t leave.  The people were looking to me and my friend as the leaders of the group.  We moved on.
We began our descent to the bottom of the pyramid, carefully making our way down the steep steps.  The road was carved out of snow and as we reached the snowy wall, we saw that it was actually a solid sheet of ice and we had no way to climb it.  The air had turned cold, we now felt it all and so with our bare hands and feet we began to climb.  We soon learned where the blood had come from previously, as we were not the first to take this path.  With each placement of our hands and feet the ice would stick to our skin, but we had to keep climbing.  Before long we were leaving our own bloody trail, but we knew that over this wall would bring us our reward.  Once the last had reached the top we all turned to see what lay on the other side. 

It was at this point I woke up, completely on my own….no alarm, no phone call, no thing woke me, but I found myself suddenly wide awake.  I haven’t figured out what was on the other side and was hoping that last night I would have picked it back up where I left off.  To my disappointment it didn’t.  I’m sure that there is more to come because if this had been your dream and you felt when I felt, you would be sure of it too.  I’m not usually into the idea of messages through your dreams, but something about the whole thing left me with a feeling of purpose.  Something I couldn’t shake all day.  It was Sunday, and we sang a song in choir that took my breath away: “When We See the Lamb” with, “Hallelujah.”   I felt like I was just about lifted off the ground when we sang that song and all I could think about was the dream…

"I had zero faith," a young woman said to me yesterday.  "I believed in nothing at all.  I wished I could, but it just wasn't there.  I began praying, without faith, that God would help me to believe.  He did.  I know He answers that kind of prayer."
This young woman is a conscientious wife and mother, a faithful church member and a growing Christian.  Her life witnesses to the answer to her prayer.  She started with nothing.
Sometimes we start with a small measure of faith, like tha to fthe distraught father who asked Jesus for the healing of his son.  "I have faith," he said, and then, aware that it was not enough to support the weight of the thing he was asking, petitioned, "Help me where faith falls short" (Mark 9:24).
Unbelief is a stronghold of such spiritual power that only mighty spiritual weapons can storm it.  We have those weapons--"not merely human, but divinely potent to demolish strongholds" (2 Cor. 10:4).  Prayer is one of them.  Must we be experts in its use?  The young woman's testimony shows that we need not.  We must only come, aware that our faith is not enough, aware that the Lord Himself waits to help us if only we ask.
Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.

Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp Unto My Feet

Tonight I did something I haven't done in a coupla months:  I made cheese scrambled eggs and toast!  My favorite meal, any time of day, but especially late at night.

Yum! Yum! Yum!  Cheese scrambled eggs and toast!!!