*A note before you read this. After doing an audit of my blog in 2022, I have decided to leave content that speaks to the Christian I was at the time this was written. I no longer identify as Christian (and haven’t for a very long time.) I chose to leave these posts because it is who I was then and it is important to me to be honest and true with every iteration and evolution of self that I experience. I may decide to add comments to the end of posts like this as well
There was a time not so long ago…
I was sure of myself, so sure. Sure of other things, too. Like God doesn’t speak to people. Ever. There was also a time I denied God’s existence altogether. God totally proved otherwise.
And in the past few years, He’s been doing His Holy best to prove to me (over and over) that He does speak.
Indeed.
This is one of those stories that make me certain it is Him. (not coincidence.)
Yesterday was quite an anxiety-filled day, which truly hasn’t happened in a very long time. I let it get the best of me. I was like a can of soda all shaken up then that one thing happened and the universe opened me up and I exploded everywhere. Then I went flat and had to take a two hour nap. My eyes opened to darkness. While checking the time on my phone, I noticed a message. A deeply-loved friend said she’d had a vision about/for me and wanted to talk, said she’d call later in the evening. But later was not a good time and we decided to try again in the morning.
On Facebook yesterday evening, another well-loved friend shared some of her Visual Prayers with me. She’d downloaded an app that sent her a verse in the morning and another in the evening and she’d been spending time art journaling her those verses. I decided I needed to give it a go. I started this morning.
“I am the true grapevine, my Father is the gardener.”
I wanted to draw a grapevine with a small bunch of new grapes growing, but honestly, I was afraid I couldn’t pull it off without looking at a photo and I didn’t have the computer near me, so I just wrote words and added color. I thought I might go back and add the vine, but then I took up most of the space I had delegated for the morning verse, so I didn’t.
As the watercolors were drying, my friend called. We had a bit of chit-chat and I told her about the vine verse. It was a God-thing I told her. Because our friendship was rooted in this verse. Nearly all of our spiritual conversations come back to these passages, so I knew it was God speaking when He gave me that verse the morning she was calling.
Then she told me of her vision for me. It was during a small group prayer time led by her pastor. She was told to think on certain things and she did and in the middle of God meeting her concerning her life, He threw in a vision she knew was for me. Her first thought afterwards was, “I need to call Michelle.”
She saw a light green vine with twisties–a grapevine. The same grapevine I saw when I read my verse this morning. The same grapevine I was afraid to draw for fear of failing, fear of looking foolish, stupid fear…
There was more to the vision, but I’ve not unpacked the meaning of the rest of the vision. It’s very familiar and I’m trying to place where I saw it. I think it was in one of my dreams, but I need to dig around my dusty brain to remember. The only thing I can recall is I described nearly this same thing recently. She saw a pulsing light–not as steady as a heartbeat, it flowed with breath, light, and calm and it was beautiful. God said, “I am the giver of life, restorer.”
So now I’m awestruck again at how God uses His Word and His faithful and obedient children as His voice.
Do I know what all of this means? Not by a long shot. But I know God heard my cries and answered, even if I don’t comprehend the full meaning of the answer.
Love this! 🙂