“But the Lord stood at my side and gave me the strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.  And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth.”(2 Timothy 4:17 (New International Version)

I heard this passage for the first time approximately four years after that dream…

When I heard the Bible verse, 2 Timothy 4:17 spoken on the podcast that day, my heart felt as if it completely stopped and everything in time and space seemed to freeze for moments.

I knew this was for me. I had heard of God giving people “life verses” before and instantly in that moment, I knew this was mine. 

I think these precious words came over me that day, so many years after my dream because my heart was finally healed enough to receive this verse for my life. 

I’m not sure how to explain this other than to simply say that God can speak to us through dreams.  The dream is “different” in a way that is difficult to explain, but one thing I can promise is you will recognize it to be different than a normal dream and your memory will hold on to it, letting it come up in your thoughts often and with a distinct feeling encompassing it.

The Lion Dream:

At the very start of the dream, I found myself panicky, standing nearly waist-deep in water with my very young daughters on each side of me. The water appeared to be rising higher by the second.  Hurriedly, I looked around to find an escape.  My eyes were drawn behind me first, only to see a tall landscape of a brownish-red rock wall encircling the entirety of the natural pool of water we were in.  The walls were half a mile’s swim to get to, and even if I could somehow swim both girls to the walls, they were smooth with no footing to climb them.  No possibility of escape.

My desperate eyes then quickly looked straight ahead.  I noticed a sandy beach with the same earthy wall behind it, but this beach was closer, probably only 20 swimming arm-stokes in front of us.

For a quick instant, I began to move toward the shoreline. 

But then, a roaring lion appeared on the beach.

His gaze was right upon us and his ferocious prowl was moving in our direction.  I knew he was on his way into the water to take our lives.

There was truly no way out.

With complete despair and complete surrender, I wrapped one arm as tightly as I could around each of my daughters as we shut our eyes and put our heads down in defeat.  Our death was inevitable.

Then, we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Moments later in the dream, I saw myself in a completely different setting.  I was running around an outdoor marketplace in what seemed to be a foreign country, but the faces in the market felt familiar.  I was jubilantly screaming at the top of my lungs that God had saved us from that lion!  I couldn’t do anything but run with full force to let everyone who could hear me know He had saved us.  My feeling of gratitude and excitement of being saved from that lion were so overwhelming, I couldn’t help but desire for everyone to hear about Him and what he had done for me.

I clung to this dream often for years to come.  During my trials and darkest moments, that dream would come to the forefront of my mind and managed to somehow remind my innermost being, that God saw me and was with me.

Pretty incomprehensible, that the MAKER of the Universe knew me and reached out to me in a dream, right?

Even so, it is true.

It’s also true that even though this impacted my life so greatly, it still took me a while to be restored to Him.  I was still in a dark place of grief when I had that dream, but he gave me the strength and the desire to move forward in small steps. 

With slow, but intentional perseverance, I began to seek to understand the Bible and who Jesus is.  I began to connect with people who already knew Him.  I began to surrender my life to him, by asking for his guidance and living according to what I had been learning through his word.

He re-introduced himself to me in a new way and has helped me learn to live a more fulfilling life that savors real riches like joy and peace, that can truly only be found through Him. 

Most importantly of all, I realized what He saved me from.  A life of eternal darkness, separate from Him.

Today, if you find yourself in this very marketplace, hear my voice.

“God saved me and He will save you, too.”

I have purple toes.

Really, it’s true.

It’s some medical thing where I look down at my feet sometimes and without even knowing it, my toes will be purple.  It’s a family lineage thing.  It’s normal to me now, but I sure to get some funny looks from people in the summer when they find themselves gazing at my grape-colored toes peeking out the front of my flip-flops.

I’ve had this condition since I can remember but it has gotten more prominent as I age, especially in my left foot.  HOWEVER, as I sit and bend my toes TODAY to get circulation moving through them, I am over-the-moon excited to realize I can bend them all downward once again! 

You see, for the last couple of years, the middle toe on my left foot has started to become “unruly” and has chosen not to bend downward alongside her neighboring four friends.

That being said, just a few short weeks ago, I was walking down a flight of carpeted stairs and as the bottom of the staircase started to curve towards the main floor, my right foot completely slipped out from under me and my left foot took the direct hit to the main floor below with my toes curling up under the pressure of my body. 

Immediately after, I walked right back up the stairs and felt just fine. 

The next day, I didn’t feel so fine…. 

My whole left foot began to turn red and ache, and eventually bruise.  I had clearly strained my foot and toe muscles and couldn’t walk on my foot without pain for a few weeks.  Once I could start putting weight back on it, several toes still felt sensitive to the touch, and bending them was out of the question.  However, I tried to remain positive as I was glad I could begin to put weight (gently and slowly) again on my left foot.

That’s really the main part of the story.  But, it did cause me to reflect and that’s the part I really want to share…..

Although it was just a short time in my life, it was painful. 

It slowed me down in every way possible.

These bruised, injured purple toes made me long for the day I would have my strong purple toes back.

So, today when I look back at all the suffering, (and complaining), that occurred, it dawned on me that healing eventually did begin to take place.  Not only that, but although my toes returned to the toes occasionally decorated with a coat of purple, they are better now after going through the hurt.  Somehow, they are back to bending completely downward and are even more springy than they have been in a very long time.  Even my unruly middle toe!

I know it’s just a silly story about my left foot digits, but it really got me thinking about the way that Jesus sometimes presents himself in our lives.

He will allow us to go through hurt.

But as we do, He’ll invite us put our arm around His shoulder while He lifts us onto our feet.  If we let Him, He will teach us to put our weight on Him as He gently walks us through the array of difficult circumstances in our lives. 

Jesus does not promise our toes may not always carry a purple tinge, but HE does promise He’ll give us the strength and provisions we need to keep walking on them anyway.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” 

Ephesians 3:16-19 (New International Version)

So, where do I start?​

Maybe I just start with my shattered heart.​

A heart in a million pieces, every sliver stinging.  Feeling completely hopeless and truly believing my heart could ever be put back together.​

But that’s what He does.​

He pieces shattered hearts back together.  He strengthens them, restores them, shapes them, and I know now, ties each heart back together with a bow.​

I’m personally not quite to the bow stage just yet, but I feel it coming.​

I really can’t explain the devastation, internal defeat, anger, sadness, hurt, and mass feelings of failure that I’ve felt having to start life over (from what I anticipated the rest of it would look like) at nearly 40 years old.​

I hate divorce.  God hates divorce. ​

Fortunately, He’s loved me through it anyway.  He’s picked me up, carried my weight, protected me under his wings, and shown me a love that I have not deserved.  A love that I have trouble accepting at times, because of it’s unexplainable richness.

But, I am learning to accept it with one key reminder to myself; He’s not me. 

God doesn’t give us His unfailing love because we deserve it or because of who we are.  He loves us because of who He is.

He IS love.

He shows mercy when He doesn’t have to.

He teaches us how to forgive.  That we have to forgive.

He leads us into true freedom.

Freedom from believing in and trusting in the things of this earth.  Freedom that comes with forgiving others.  Freedom that comes with putting Him first and identifying with what He thinks of us over what the world thinks of us.  Freedom to be our true, authentic self.

Have I experienced these things as I’ve chosen to grow closer to Him?  Yes!  Am I perfect?  Far from it!  Do I have days with questions about who God is and where He is in my life?  Of course.  Do I still have days I feel sad and hurt?  Absolutely.

Even so, I choose to snuggle deeper into faith during those days.   He will find a way to give me reassurance when I falter and grace when I question. 

I still mess up.  I still lose my temper.  I still overspend on worldly treasures. 

But, He still loves me.

He still brings me back in and reminds me of what is good.

He still lets me rest under his wings.  Day after day.

He has given me new eyes to see now. I have recognized a magnificent change in my ability to love others well and a desire  to choose a life that honors Him far more than I did before.  The more I recognize Him in my life, the more My heart aches with desire for more closeness to Him.  I now experience treasured moments in my life when I feel Him connect right to my heart through His words in The Bible or when my heart skips a beat as I see Him sending someone or something into my life to answer a prayer.   

“Daughter”.  He pinpointed this woman out of a crowd in the Book of Mark.  A woman who believed if she could just touch the hem of his gown, her ailment would be healed. A woman whose faith was seen by the Savior and cherished by Him.  Rewarded by Him.

God does not cause our suffering here on Earth, sin does.  But God can help His sons and daughters get through their suffering and provide a healing in their heart that we simply can’t do without Him.

One sparkling little girl who is everything but ordinary……and a following collection of experiences that prove you and I are everything but ordinary too.

“Mom, you know how you always tell me to wear a jacket when it’s cold outside, but I never want to?”  “That’s because I was born in a snowstorm, so I never get cold”.

​“Welllllll, you were born in a hospital……but it was on a snowy day…”

​This girl.  Allie, my 8-year-old sparkling, strong-willed child makes me laugh every single day.  Her persistence and determination are unparalleled, and I often joke that she runs the show around our home.  My beautiful 11-year-old daughter, completely agrees. 

​I’m not sure what I’d do without their sweet and strong presence in my life.  I’m not sure they will ever understand how deeply I treasure them.  I wish I could show them my heart, so they would know.

​By that, I mean it must be difficult for them to know sometimes.  I’m divorced and it’s tough.  I have stress just like everyone else.  I have grief, just like most.  I have days I just keep plugging away to get through to the next day.

​I’ve never stopped loving.  Still, I wonder if it’s difficult for my girls to see my love some days when it gets buried under the mounting stress.  Under my short temper.

​On the days I feel like I am not living up to the mom I want to be, I cling to the promise that even though I may fail them, He never does.

​He {Jesus} has them.

​They’re beautiful.

They’re strong.

They’re resilient.

They love freely.

They laugh with delight.

They fill my heart. 

​I can’t show them my heart for their eyes to see.  However, I can be a constant presence of showing up, in the good times and the hard times.  They can choose to trust my love for them because I say it’s true. 

​Our relationship with Jesus Christ is the same.  We can’t see Him.  But when we know Him, we can see Him working in our lives.  We can feel His love resonate through other people He puts in our lives.  We can witness Him filling us with the strength to move forward when our difficult circumstances make it impossible to do so on our own.  We can continue to trust His presence as we choose to continue to know Him through His word and lean on His promise that there is nothing, that can separate us from His love.

​Romans 8:38-39 KJV

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.