My Testimony of Jesus Christ "What A Friend" When I was still a little girl, I fell out of the top bunk bed while goofing off. I remember seeing swirls of multi colored lights and a tunnel I was sliding into. The next day I had a nasty lump on my forhead but felt fine. It was that night I had my first of many dreams: I was standing at the bottom of a white stone stairway, with Angels lined up on both sides. The stairs seem to go up indefinitely, as did the rows of Angels. I remember seeing a bright white light at the top of those stairs, so blinding yet beckoning, that I began to ascend the staircase. I'd gone about 3 steps up when I noticed a man in white flowing robes coming down the stairs slowly. He wore sandals on his feet. I looked up at his face and recognized Jesus. He took my hand and led me back down the stairs. I remember asking why I wasn't allowed to go with him to the light and He told me that it wasn't my time yet. I remember feeling sad but compliant and the next morning I told my family about the dream. I was told it'd come from the nasty fall I'd had and that it was just a dream... The dream wasn't mentioned again but that memory of those Angels and the calm loving look upon Jesus's face stayed with me to this very day. When I was about twelve years old I had a recurring dream about being in an arena during the Roman period when Christians were still being persecuted. I tried to flee and looked behind me and was terrified to see a mature male Lion running my way. I fell..and saw how the Lion grabbed hold of my leg and started to shake it's head left and right biting down through the flesh onto the bone. The pain was excruciating and I awoke...End of dream. In my teens I often had vivid dreams, so lifelike I could swear I'd actually been there..(memories of past lives perhaps?) Like the time when I dreamt that a boy who lived across the street from us came over. Only I was in spirit form as was he. I was attempting to manoeuvre myself through the wall of our livingroom, all the while asking him how I should go about it, being afraid to try it. He then showed me and before my eyes he melted right through the wall and out of site to the other side of it. Taking a deep breath, I put my left shoulder and side tenatively against the wall near the sofa and pushed against the wall, only to find out I could pass through it without any obstruction. I remember feeling very proud and elated..End of dream. In another dream I was a man. A knight, armour and all, on a battle field. It was turning dark outside and bodies of dead soldiers lay all around me as far as the eye could see. I was exhausted but feeling very victorius. My best friend (also a man) and I were the only ones left standing and we were but a few feet apart. That is when I noticed a woman dressed in a long dark green velvet gown flowing onto the ground, with bright red wavy hair almost reaching to her waist approaching us. It was my friend's wife. My friend turned his back to me as he went to hug his wife. And as he did so, I saw her nod her head over his shoulder, her green eyes mesmerizing me with their beauty. It was then that I stabbed my friend between the shoulders...and as he dropped to the ground, his wife carefully stepped away from him and came into my arms and we embraced, for we were in love and could finally be together...This is where my dream ends. Yet another dream, in which I was a man, took place in a city bus in England 'round the turn of the century. I was half sitting and half leaning over the back of my seat talking with my (male) buddy. I was a blond man in my early twenties and we were laughing and scoping the girls...End of dream. The next to last vivid dream I had, was after my divorce. I dreamt that I was a woman of almost forty, living in Sicily. I was very poor. I was a widow. I wore a black dress, had red straight hair tied up in a tight knot in the back. I walked barefoot. The town I lived in was a very sober one. There were no luxuries. The houses were made of white cement. I had a son of about twelve years in that dream. He was my life and I worshiped him. That day my son was late coming home and I had gone from house to house in search of him. Almost the entire village went in search of him. Then I saw a group of men clustered together walking towards me. On my left some women started coming towards me trying to soothe me. For in those men's arms lay my son. He had drowned while swimming as he always loved to do. I was devastated beyond description and wept bitter tears for days on end. I wouldn't eat, I couldn't sleep and thought only of my beautiful boy. The next part of that dream I was walking to the very simple village chapel where the gleaming casket lay on the alter with my son in it. The church was filled with villagers. They were in the midst of a burial ceremony. Yet I walked right passed them in a daze up to the casket and looked inside... My son was not there! I looked up in shock at the villagers sitting on the benches in the church and it was then that I noticed HIM. The windows in the church were squares cut out of the cement without any glass panes or curtains in front of them, and the church door was nothing more than a gaping hole in the wall also. And in that door stood a young man dressed in black with my son at his side. I asked him where they were going but he just looked at me and turned away. I realized then I'd never see my son again and I started running towards the door. The people in the church turned to look at me as I ran outside. There I saw the man walking away from the church towards a dry and barren field stripped of it's crop. Beside the man walked my son. I begged the man if I might go with them for I could not live without my son. The man in black beckoned to my son to keep on walking and my son obeyed. The man himself turned 'round and I fell at his feet sobbing uncontrollably with the full force of my sorrow. As I lay there in the scorching sun, I was aware of tasting sand in my mouth and feeling the heat of the sun on my head. In the next part of this dream I saw myself laying on the ground outside the church. The congregation gathered around my body and I heared them say "the poor woman, she died from grief...." Then I felt myself floating upward and that is where my dream ended. My most recent dream of this nature is described here. ~~//~//~//~//~//~~ I guess what I am trying to clearify is that I feel I was blessed from an early age on. With a sheltered youth, reasonably good health, an eduction of sorts, four healthy sons and a couple of good friends: all in all a pretty good life, when compared to those less fortunate. And that these dreams, as well as my talent for putting feelings into words, and the way my life has unravelled itself so far are proof of this. I've known my ups and downs. And when I was at my lowest and wanted to step out of this life, I prayed to God asking for forgiveness and for the first time in my adult life I gave myself unconditionally into his hands. Looking back I now know that the poem about "Footsteps In The Sand" truly applies, for it was when I couldn't stand on my own two feet and could see only darkness and despair...God carried me to safety. As I walked for hours by myself in the forest and opened myself mentally to the silence, the smell of damp and rotting wood, the chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves high above my head, the sunrays playing with the treetops and sneaking through now and then...I felt an inner peace and warmth steal into my heart and flow throughout my entire body. It was so intoxicating that I couldn't wait for it to be morning again so I could go back to my beloved forest and marvel at it's hidden beauty in the shape of cropped mushrooms, moss, a darting squirrel, a woodpecker's hammering somewhere nearby and the serenity that blanketed me and restored my energy and love of life again... During one of those walks I ventured into a chapel which doors were usually closed to the public. I felt the urge to be alone, to pray to God and to thank him for guiding me to this place of simplicity and peace. As I entered that quaint little chapel hidden among the trees, and looked around to see if anyone was there, I noticed the light shining through the stained glass window behind the alter. My breath caught in my throat as I recognized the stairway of my childhood dream; Angels and all. Jacobs ladder. I could only stare at it and then the tears flowed. Any doubts that had been lingering, any fear I'd felt until then, disappeared as snow for the sun in the knowledge that this too was a sign from God. And as such I accepted it that this was indeed the road I had to travel at that moment in my life. The forest surrounded the convalescent home where I stayed for 3 months in 1996. I learned a great deal there and found the strength inside myself to go back into the real world and pick up where I'd left off. One of my prayers to God during that time was that I would leave it totally up to HIM to send Mr. Right my way, for I'd had bad luck with men. And God sent me my current husband, then my neighbour, who had stood by me through all of this and thereafter and on July 8th of 1997 we got married...in that little chapel in the forest. It was the first and only marriage ceremony ever performed there, we were told, and if that isn't yet another sign, then I don't know what is!!! Everyone has his or her own testimony of faith and this is mine. I know I am a child of God. I believe I need only to be utterly sincere and truthful in asking forgiveness, to be forgiven yet again. I try to live a better life, but I also believe that we get more than one chance at it. To attain that purity of thought, heart and soul which forms the substance Angels are made of. I have the utmost respect for other religions, but for me Christianity is the only one I feel comfortable with and try to live by. I mess up more than I succeed, but I intend to keep on trying because Heaven is THE place to be!!! I'm not one for preaching when I know I still have much to learn myself, but I CAN hope that by reading my testimony, you too will come to find and revel in the glory of the Holy Spirit and God's Divine love. May God bless you too and keep you and your family safe. Be sure to also read the pages: My Personal Faith and Convictions and How To Use Your Rosary.