For as long as I can remember my mom has told me that there are no such thing as coincidences, only Godcidences. Nothing is an accident, its all part of Gods master plan and perfect timing.
I often have very vivid dreams. I also have a few reoccurring dreams. But the other night I had a dream like one I have never had before, and I don’t really want to ever have one like this again.
I went to bed Tuesday night and fell into this dream:
I was in a city at night time and it was very creepy and dark. There was a girl, I’m guessing my age, that was with me. I have never seen her before. She was very possessive of me for some reason and kept grabbing my arms and making me follow her around. She kept telling me about this “friend” of hers that I had to listen to talk and that it was serious and important. I knew that if I tried to leave she would get very angry and I knew that if I left she would do something serious and try and harm me. I asked her if we could go to this library down the street on the corner right next to this underground train because there were lights and people. She agreed and we went to library. We were waiting in line and I turned to the man behind me and mouthed “please help me” to him. I turned and the girl was standing an inch from my face, she began to yell and scream. She randomly just went silent and walked straight out onto the train tracks. She put her arms down at her sides and closed her eyes and put her head back and waited. Everyone was yelling at her to get off the tracks. In a matter of seconds the train flew by, taking her life, as we all stood there witnessing the horror. After the train past I noticed she was gone, but her clothes were perfected folded in a neat pile on the tracks. A loud, deep, creepy sounding voice began to talk. I turned to my left and saw the “friend” she mentioned earlier. This “friend” of hers was huge, the size of a house. She sat cross leg in the tunnel of the train station. She wore tons of gold jewelry and had a ton of hair all braided and tied on the top of her head. She started talking loudly, looking straight at me and I couldn’t look away. “I am a false prophet. Or am I? This is for you to decide. I will tell you what to believe but it is your choice to believe it. I am right about what I say but you don’t know if I am or not.” She was confusing and scary and kept talking about what I should and shouldn’t believe in but then gave me the choice to choose. She ended her speech and threw her fist in the air and hit the ceiling of the train station. The ceiling started to crumbled. “Get out! Get out! RUN RUN!!” I shouted to everyone and we all began to run as fast as we could away from the city and towards these big stairs. As I was running the ground under me started to crumble away and people began to fall into this pit of complete darkness and I just ran and ran. I made it up the stairs and through a hallway and back down stairs on the other side. When I got to the bottom of the stairs it was day time and I was in a backyard with green grass. I noticed a trail, the kind of trail that you know is heavily traveled on because there is no grass that grows there any more. The trail lead through the yard and under a fence. Someone had dug such a huge hole under the fence that I could literally just walk straight under it to the other side. I noticed muddy footprints leading to the side of the house. (This is the part of the dream that gives me chills and is hard for me to talk about). I turned the corner and saw a pool there, with two very large chains on the top of the water stretching from one side of the pool to the other. On the other side of the pool was a young girl in a blue swimsuit, she was covered in mud, the grey, thick, gross kind of mud. Something was wrong, so I started to run to her. As I got closer, her lifeless body lifted into the air, like a possession kind of thing. When her body was in the air and was pretty high up, I paused and I didn’t know what to do. It hung in the air for a few seconds before she quickly lifted her head and opened her eyes and looked straight at me. I felt like she was looking straight into my soul, and I have never been more scared in my entire life, I have never felt the way I did when she looked at me. Her body was then thrown into the pool. She was going to drown so I ran and dove into the pool to get her out. After I dove in I lifted my head out of the water and she was back laying on the cement out of the pool. I grabbed the big chain and started trying to pull myself towards her. The chain was one big continuous chain so when I pulled the chain it moved but I stayed in the same place. The young girl laughed hysterically and stood up and got into the pool and swam over to me. I turned around and started trying to swim away from her, she then said “Please! No! Don’t leave me! Save me! Please help me!” She reached out her hand, I reached out for hers and grabbed onto it. She pulled me deep into the water and I kicked as hard as I could, got away, came up for air and then woke up from my dream.
I was paralyzed with fear. I was trying to process what I had just dreamed about and I was so terrified. I turned on the song “You Make Me Brave” by Bethel Music and prayed and God gave me strength to get up and turn on the lights and get ready for the day.
Every day when I get to work the first thing I do is go into my assistant manager office and talk her ear off for the first 30 minutes of our day. She has become one of my best friends and I am so incredibly blessed to have her in my life. This job seemed very random for me to get at first. It has nothing to do with anything I have ever been interested in and I never expected to have a job in the field. After meeting so many people and so many events that have taken place I know for a fact that this position at this job was exactly the one God wanted me in. He has truly blessed me by placing my assistant manager into my life, who I genuinely am able to call one of my best friends, she is such a beautiful person. So, I walked into her office and said, “OH MY GOSH, you have to hear about this dream I had!” And she was said, “Hang on. I was in my car on the way here and just got a feeling that you were going to tell me about a dream that you had last night, and I have an interpretation for it.” Okay, now I’m freaking out. She knew I would walk in and tell her about a dream I had, and she had an interpretation for it before she even heard what it was about. I went ahead and told her all about the dream. Keep in mind, she has not heard my testimony and does not know everything about my past. She said, “I think that since you have recently dove into your faith and have become so devoted to God, which is great but I think you have a fear in the back of your head about something falling apart and falling back into your past ways. I think you can sometimes let your past chain you down, or hold you back. You have worked so hard and made it so far and you continue to do that.” I didn’t even realize how on point what she was saying to me was until way later in the day. There were people in my path, including myself, blocking me from reaching God, I asked for help in the wrong places from the wrong people, and sometimes have felt so hopeless, like standing in front of that random train. I lived in the dark for so long and one day I just took off in full sprint towards the light. The ground seemed to crumble beneath me and try and suck me back into that dark pit I called my past. Along the way Satan has placed false prophets in front of me and its been incredibly hard at times to know what to believe. In the bible it even explains how Satan can do things and place people in your life that seem so good, and can almost sound spiritual, and seem like it was God sent, and he tricks you into eating the fruit. And I stood there in that dream and listened to this false prophet shout out all sorts of stuff and I could not turn away from it. My life started to crumble beneath me and above me as my beliefs shook and were being questioned. I ran and made it to the other side of the stairs where the light was in life. Thinking I was home free, I was quickly reminded that following Jesus is hard, and just because you accept him into your heart, that does not mean that life all of a sudden is without struggles and pain and hardship. No one has ever told me following Him would be easy but Jesus himself has promised me that it would be worth it. I have to give my chains to him, they are to heavy for me to carry but he is strong enough to not only carry those chains but to break them.
(I still didn’t quite understand the part in my dream with the girl covered in mud in my dream.)
That short bit of my day was enough to put me on a spiritual high. I was in the best mood, I was in awe of God.
The same day I had the dream I got a message from an old friend. This person has been one of my best friends for probably ten years or so now. Last summer we decided to get a house together and both of us were going through things and long story short, there was a lot of hurt and I really, really messed up and several other people walked away and left me after this happened but even after this my friend said she would never leave. And trust me I gave her every reason to walk away from our friendship. It has been months and months since we moved out and we have talked a few times but nothing in depth and we definitely didn’t bring up what happened with us. So she texted me that day and said, “Hey! I keep seeing your posts about your upcoming to trip to Nicaragua. When are you going again? I really want to go on a trip sometime!” I continued to tell her the details about the upcoming trip in July and how I was so sorry but I thought the trip was full and the deadline had past but maybe she could go on the next one. I sent a text to my mom about how I was bummed my friend couldn’t go on this trip. My mom told me we had one spot left, and that today was the deadline. GOD IS SO GOOD! In the next few hours my friend finished the paper work, turned in her deposit and was set to go on the trip with me!
She texted me again yesterday asking if I wanted to meet up for dinner. UM YES! Of course I did! I walked into El Rodeo and she stood up from the table and gave me the biggest hug. We sat down and she just straight up goes, “Alright. Lets just get this out of the way.” I laughed and agreed. We sat there and apologized and explained and laughed, for 2 1/2 hours straight. Let me just say this again..GOD IS SO GOOD. I could not be happier that I have one of my dearest friends back. This is someone who has every right in the world to hate me, to never want to see me, to be mean and to walk away. She is one of those friends that I knew for a fact, that I was the one who would forever be loosing out on the greatest friend anyone could ask for. She never left, and she forgave me. And now we are fundraising together for our mission trip this July to Nicaragua. WOW!
So just when I thought this day couldn’t get any more amazing, God did something amazing again.
Side note: Lately I have struggled with opening up about my testimony and my past. I internalize and I don’t share anything deep with anyone. But after some very obvious signs from God over the past few months, I knew I needed to start opening up and sharing. This is something I am still working on. The past week for some reason the word “courage” kept popping into my head. It is a word I very rarely say or hear or bring up. And recently asked my mom to just pray over that word for me, not knowing why.
Something I am currently doing to fundraise for my upcoming trip to Nicaraguais making a box chart. Its a piece of paper that has 50 boxes on it, each labeled a number 1-50. I have asked people to claim a box and donate. So an example, box number 17 equals $17 dollars and when someone claims that box and donates I cross it off my list. I also make it fun by saying things like, “If I can get ten boxes filled by this Friday I will crab walk through the lobby of my building while wearing a santa suit.” And I promise to post a video. Fundraising is always so amazing. Ill admit that there is a piece of me that sometimes worries about not being able to get all the funds, and then I remember I am working for the King and He ALWAYS provides. It is so cool because so many people that I haven’t talked to in years, or who barely know me or who just met me have donated and it is such a huge blessing and means more to me than anything in the world.
Last night one of my dear friends from Nicaragua, who is nick named CornFlakes messaged my mom on facebook. (Just like before, keep in mind, she has not heard my testimony and does not know very much about my past). She messaged my mom and simply said, “I will take box number 2 from Madison.” We wept. This is someone who every single day wonders where her next meal is going to come from, who needs medical care because she is sick but has to work because she has children, who has no money for herself let alone anyone else. Every penny that people donate to me means the world to me please know that, but it is this kind of love and sacrifice that I will never be able to understand. God says in Luke 12:48, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” She is not being demanded to give me anything at all. This woman who has nothing wants to give me $2 to help me go to Nicaragua. I was quickly reminded, she doesn’t have nothing, she has the Lord living in her heart, that is clear. She went on to say to my mom, “Don’t cry, unless they are tears of happiness. I love the way you guys give your lives for Nicaragua and even I don’t have too much but I want to feel part of it. And I am praying blessings over her (me). Not just economical, also spiritual because I feel that she has a powerful word to restore the people here.” She is saying this about me. ME. I have never been able to open up to anyone about anything and since recently I have been able to, God has worked in amazing ways! She is telling me that she fully believes the things I say have “the power to restore people here” in Nicaragua. Now I have chills. She went on to say, “When I saw Madison’s post, I loved it because I felt the love through her eyes. I see a difference. I saw her saying to the people, (she is describing the vision she had about me), “I care for you, I don’t want you to throw away your life, don’t waste your time, you can do great things with God today,” and I just felt something special looking at her picture…and I start praying for her for wisdom, provision, protection and also for a new robe in her life (if you read my last blog, “Sincerely Freedom” you will know how important her saying that part about the robe is to me), and then I decided to help her with number 2 box, I don’t know why…” Then she told me mom to tell me something. She said to tell me, “Madison, those bad moments when you got stuck in the mud of life (she has not heard about my dream I had), you were just in training. Now you can see the people in their eyes and let them know that there is more outside.
All of this happened to me in one day. One day! GOD IS SO GOOD!
A lot of people would read this incredibly long story and say, “Wow! What a cool coincidence!” but I know for a fact there is no such thing. There is no other explanation for all of this other than God. This was a Godcidence.
This morning I knew I needed to blog about this and share this amazing story with as many people as I could. I always start my day with Max Lucado’s daily devotional book, “Grace for the moment.” Todays title was “Too see God” and the verse under it is from Matthew 25:40 and it reads, “Anything you did for even the least of my people here, you also did for me.” This verse could not have been more perfect. Lucado ends this short devo with this, “Jesus lives in the forgotten. He has taken up residence in the ignored. He has made a mansion amid the ill. If we want to see God, we must go among the broken and beaten and there we will see him.” How many times have you heard someone come back from a mission trip and say, “They have absolutely nothing at all, and they are the happiest people I have ever met!” I have said this! Well I have recently figured out that this makes perfect sense! Ill use America as an example; here in America, we have everything we could ever want and more. Big houses, nice cars, boats, money, health care, opportunity, whatever else we want, we can pretty much have. So why would we need God right? Well in these third world countries where they have nothing, no cars, no homes, no money, no food, no healthcare, the ONLY thing they have is God. And that is why they are so happy. My whole life I have filled this hole in my heart with things that I thought would make me happy. New jobs, boyfriends, friends, cars, travel, whatever it was and the only thing I didn’t try to fit in that hole, was the only thing that fit perfectly. God. I have always felt very clearly called to be “where the wild things are.” To me, that is what the verse in Matthew is saying. The “wild things” being the people who are different, ignored, looked over, passed up, forgotten, broken, beaten, ill. Lucado could not have put it more clear for us, “If we want to see God, we must go among the broken and beaten and there we will see him.” Every time I do a mission trip it restores my hope and I ALWAYS feel closer to God. And I reminded daily of the hope he gives me, and the love he has for me. This was honestly one of the best days of my life.
There are no such things as coincidences, there are only Godcidences.
GOD IS SO GOOD.
Please be praying for my upcoming mission trip to Nicaragua. It is my first time co-leading. You can claim a box by emailing me at [email protected] and you can donate to my go fund me account below. I also listed the link to my friends go fund me account that I mentioned above, as well as my little sisters go fund me account. God Bless!
My page: www.gofundme.com/nica2016ragua
Cassie Higgins: www.gofundme.com/2016mission2Nica
Peyton (my sister): www.gofundme.com/peytonnicamission
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