Must I Say Good-bye (Day 1 from Cleansing Thoughts)

 

       THERE IS A TIME IN all our lives when reality becomes so great it is almost more than we can bear. For me, this was such a night. I had been awakened from a dream that was so real I found myself standing at the side of the bed crying as I looked down at my husband. Cold chills came over me as I stood there, for a moment unable to move. I went to check on the boys, they were sleeping soundly. Puzzled, I went downstairs to try and sort out what I had just experienced.

   In the dream, I was awakened by a loud sound, and our room was instantly filled with a soft but brilliant Rose-colored glow. My spirit was quickened, and I knew I had heard the trumpet of God calling me home. As I stood up, I said good-bye to my husband. That’s when I realized I was stand beside the bed crying! 

   Still trembling, as if I was cold, I sat down in my chair and held my Bible close to me. My heart was pounding!  I sat there in the darkness until I turned to what I thought was a voice, “Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be gathering at the mill; one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefor, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming “ (Matthew 24:40-42, NKJV). The emptiness I felt at the moment is indescribable—not for myself because I knew I was going to be with the Lord, but for all those who would remain. The dream I had just experienced was a cold reality that most of my family would not be spending eternity with the Lord.

   As I sat there, I thought of the wives who would be leaving their husbands, a marriage of perhaps many years now incomplete. My grandmother prayed for my grandfather for over forty years before he came to the Lord, but even closer, in my dream, I had just said good-bye to my own husband of over twenty-five years! I remembered all the times I tried to say something to him, but he would turn a deaf ear and walk away in silence. I knew he was not only walking away from me, but from the Lord, and by not making a decision, he was. If this dream would have been a reality, he would have been left behind. Questions filled my thoughts. Would he know where I had gone? Would he know to go to the Bible for answers? I thought of all I had read I. The book of Revelation and wondered how he would make through the years to come and if he would turn to the Lord then.

   I could see a young mother standing over her barb’s crib, sobbing not knowing what had happened to her baby. I hear the cries of a panicked father searching for his little ones unable to find them, the despair in his voice ringing in my ears like a siren. I could feel the longing to hold them once again and the pain of not understanding what had happened to them. I could understand the agony of a teenager whose family was now broken for some unknown reason because only one had known the Lord. Who would be there to answer their questions, to make them feel safe again?