Today is October 6, 2010….it is exactly one year since I left for The World Race. I don’t know if that is why I feel so emotional today. I have tried my very best to embrace this daily death of stillness. It was starting to get easier, but today I struggled a lot. When I was on the race, I had a dream that I was in Asia. I was holding the cutest brown, pot-bellied puppy in my hands. I knew that this puppy was sold and going to be slaughtered, and there was nothing I could do about it. So I decided to love on this puppy, until I had to release it to its death. Once I gave it up I had to leave immediately. I came back apparently too soon, and someone whispered “Oh no…Melina’s back!” I saw a white plastic bag on the floor and hanging halfway out, was the puppy…bloody and skinned. When I saw that it was still breathing, I screamed and ran to it. I lifted it up in my arms and loved on it and when I looked back down at it again, it had grown bigger and had brand new fur. Then I woke up. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what the puppy signified. I sat down with my contact in Moldova and began to share the dream with her. Right at that moment God revealed it to me….I was the puppy! My contact said she was just about to tell me the same thing. Then the Lord had mentioned to me later that I was about to experience the biggest death I had faced yet. I thought it would be the following month in the Ukraine. I braced mysef the whole month, but the Ukraine was a breeze. I was totally content and at peace. Then I thought, I would experience it in Ireland at Awakening. Nope…again full of peace. This must be the calm before a storm….a very big storm,and I was right. It has now been a month and three days since I have been home, and I’m still experiencing the unquenchable heat of the furnace, that I am in the midst of. As I was having my quiet time today, I saw a picture of a tree, and I heard the words “sycamore tree”. I looked up on wikipedia, information on a sycamore and look at what it says:
An American sycamore tree is easily recognized by its mottled exfoliating bark. The bark of all trees has to yield to a growing trunk; in the case of trees such as the Silver Maple and the Shagbark Hickory the process is not hidden, but the Sycamore shows the process of exfoliation more openly than any other tree. The bark of the trunk and larger limbs flakes off in great irregular masses, leaving the surface mottled, and greenish-white, gray and brown. Sometimes the smaller limbs look as if whitewashed. The explanation is found in the rigid texture of the bark tissue, which lacks the elasticity common to the bark of other trees, so it is incapable of stretching to accommodate the growth of the wood underneath and the tree sloughs it off.
I was instantly reminded of my dream. At least, I know now why I have been skinned. It gives me hope, that underneath, My Father is allowing me to grow at such a rapid pace…even if it is super painful.
