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“GRACE behind the fence…” (number five represents GRACE)
Photo by Susanne Schuberth

Well, seven years ago, as I was still all alone in my walk with Daddy and Jesus, I was plagued by several fears. At that time, it was not that clear to me what the root of these fears was. As I know today, it was the fear of death, not of my own death since I had a wonderful NDE (near death experience) in 1998, but of losing my loved ones (parents, daughter, husband… you get the picture). After having already lost our only son through a miscarriage in 2009, these fears kept coming back much stronger than before, again and again. I have been pretty anxious all my life, however, during the Dark Night of the Spirit (see John of the Cross’ same-titled book) that began in 2010, it got worse and worse, i.e., God began to open the deep recesses of my heart so that I could both see AND feel these fears – extremely!!!

Just lately, let’s say during the last 2 1/2 years, I had to undergo many different trials of which one of them seemed to culminate last weekend. I felt great fear and mentally exhausted as our daughter Sarah had told us that she could not only get rid of her continued suicidal thoughts and that she had even been out on one of our balconies (6th floor) with her foot on the railing, ready to jump. SHOCK!!! Although I was at first somehow relieved that she had at least told us about it, my nervous system got pretty wobbly afterwards. My hubby Paul and I tried to comfort her with God’s help as much as we could, yet even as we prayed for her, we felt completely helpless and clueless about how to really help her. Don’t ask me about the following night!!! Sleep? Not really.  😦  Instead, my heartbeat was racing like a hammer while Satan kept attacking me with pictures on my mind where I saw Sarah standing on the balcony again, realizing that I could not do ANYTHING to keep her from jumping off! Although this was not the first horrible situation during the last years, between many, that was one of the worst nights I had lately…

As some readers might know, Michael Clark and I have an internet fellowship of which I will now share with you the prophecy God gave me about it seven years ago. “It” refers both to our fellowship and to these fears with which our daughter and family have had to struggle for about five years now. Of course, due to these 5,500 miles between Idaho and Bavaria, our fellowship has been more virtual than anything else since we never met personally. However, Christ’s Spirit is everywhere, especially where two (or three) are gathered in His name since there He is in their midst. Two days ago, after many prayers for our families and for Sarah in particular, Michael and I were talking on the phone while I was still struggling with my fears. Prayer did not really seem to help…. Suddenly Michael began to read a Scripture from the Old Testament to me. I listened to his words and did a pretty impolite thing I normally do not do. “STOP!!! STOP, MICHAEL!!!!!“ I interrupted him all excited. “This is Psalm 91, right??” Michael seemed to be a bit startled at first, but then I made him grin as I added, “YOU are the man I dreamed about seven years ago, now I KNOW!!!”I was laughing out loud and felt this burden of fears falling from my heart like a big rock. BOOM!!!  🙂

You might be curious now what kind of dream I was referring to. Well, I wrote a fat book back then in 2010 and 2011 (in German, of course) which was never published. The Roman Catholic Church was not interested in someone’s very personal experiences with God, so I let this book ‘sleep’ in a remote corner of one of our file cabinets in the office. Michael who knew about this book was very interested in what I had written, esp. in that part that consists of my more or less daily journal. Last year I finally sent him my book via email and Michael began to translate it with Google Translator. When some parts did not make much sense to him, we made the necessary corrections on the phone together. Sooo, now I want to share this part of my journal with you which describes this particular dream I had. Here you are.  😉

May 31, 2010

Again and again I return to this void in my mind.
Sometimes I am amazed that I so often share in this wonderful joy in God, especially on my prayer walks. However, at home, I am often plagued by fears, the cause of which is not quite clear to me.

Some time ago I had a dream in which an unknown tall man with dark hair sat at a table facing me. He had a Bible in his hands which he all of a sudden pressed into my hand, asking me,
“Read Psalm 91, where Jesus speaks.”
At first I wondered why Jesus should speak in Psalm 91 (doesn’t He only speak in the New Testament?), but then I tried to read…and tried…and tried. It was impossible!!! Only senseless stammering came from my mouth.
For what I saw before me was not Psalm 91, but merely singular and seemingly unrelated words interrupted by recorded symbols of a switching circuit so that they did not make sense to me at all.
I woke up completely confused and looked it up in the Bible.
When reading Psalm 91, verse 5, I suddenly felt quite warm around my heart. For there you could read,
“You need not be afraid of the horror of the night, nor the arrow that flies in the day.”
And in Psalm 91, verse 11, I read further:
“For he hath set up his angels for thee to keep thee in all thy ways.”
God knows my heart and my fears very well. I think it is so wonderful that HE takes care of all my needs and does not want me to be afraid.

Just for clarification, the switching circuit I found in my ‘Bible’ was an analogy of sorts and a confirmation God gave me regarding Michael who is a retired master electrician. It was only yesterday as he sent me a copied page of his book where he gathered many of these switching circuits. Isn’t God quite humorous in the way He communicates His thoughts and plans with us?  😉 In fact, Jesus spoke through Michael as he read these verses to me and it was ONLY as I heard him say these words as I was reminded of this dream, knowing in my very heart, “God hath spoken.” Dear brothers and sisters, we can never interpret dreams or visions unless they come true in our own lives or if God helps us explain them. I would like to issue a caveat here and warn about the tendency to interpret dreams and visions as to referring to religious and churchly stuff only. From my own experience, I can say that we are so precious to God that He speaks to us in our dreams about our own lives! Indeed, it is one of many ways we can receive direction and correction from Him.