Author: vange

Paths of Life

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Born so innocent without a clue of what’s out there that can damage you. Then as time passes and the aging continues, life throws many surprises at you. As you try to follow the right path, you are steered in the wrong direction through temptation, pressure, force or simply…deceit. After walking in the darkness for so long, you loose your way, you begin to forget about who you are. The media becomes your compass along with the majority of the crowd, mostly negative, and when you realize that you’re not at the mark of society, you feel like you’ve failed, desperately seeking justification or approval from external factors or the words of others. Now, you are more deeply lost.

That dark long road was wrong after all and it’s too hard to turn around and go back.

Look to the light that shines in the darkness. As long as you’re not in hell, that light is around, waiting for you to turn around and surrender your will.

It’s hard to surrender when you still think you can save yourself, but the most powerful thing, is surrendering to the one that loves you so much that He died for you. He took all the despair and grief in exchange for you to have hope and joy.

He’s there…all you have to do is surrender, place all of it at the feet of Jesus. He will carrying you out of the darkness and into the light…the right path, full of purpose, peace, joy, strength, forgiveness and love.

Chaos in the Streets

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Thinking and seeing all the chaos in the streets brings me back to dreams that I’ve had in the past that seem to be very similar. In my dream there’s chaos in the streets, people running around every where in panic. The streets are filthy, trash everywhere. It’s dark with the only source of light being the street lamps. People are screaming and running for safety and I find myself in the midst of all this.

My heart is pumping hard and I’m running from something after me that means harm. I’m running up stairs, up to rooftops and jumping from the top of one building to the next.

As I continue to jump, I realize how long I’m able to stay in the air, in fact, I am able to fly. My vision is now far above the streets, as a bird looks down from the sky and I can see the crowds running in fear.

As I fly further away from the chaos, I find a tree, hide and rest. With a big breath of relief, I sigh. Shortly after I’d wake up and thank God it was just a dream.

For all the times I had that dream, I would wake up thanking God that it wasn’t real, but these recent days with the riots and looting, that nightmare doesn’t seem too far away.

Another thought after waking up from the nightmare, would be the thought of those events occurring in the last days as it is written in the Bible, that maybe it’s coming close.

Dreams Under Certain Circumstances

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The other night I had a dream. I don’t even remember what I dreamt about, but what I remember was feeling an unseen presence in the room. It didn’t feel like a dark presence nor a holy presence. It just felt like something was there starring at me, watching me sleep. I didn’t freak out, as I’ve had other dreams where I struggled to wake up, felt chills up and down my spine and some unseen force pushing me down. I could not discern if it were a dream or not, because I saw everything in my room, but I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

The worst was several years back, when I woke up to the word, “demon” coming out of my radio. There were times when I would wake up with a deep scratch underneath my arm and one night when I was having another freaky dream where I struggled to wake up, seeing everything around my room was a small creature beside my bed holding a lamp stand. Whenever I had these dreams I would call on the name of Jesus and the lingering dark presence in my room would go away and I would wake up feeling extremely exhausted.

I remember the night when I slept, after I gave my life to God through water baptism, I had a similar dream. I could see everything in the room, but this time, there were no chills up and down my spine. In my dream, I was laying down in water that went right past my ears and can hear and feel the movement of the water. I felt nothing but peace and God with me and the dreams I had previously of a dark presence trying to stop me from waking up never occurred after that.

Isolation & Fear or Face Death

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We’ve been sheltering-in-place around the globe and it’s been intended to prevent the spread to those most vulnerable, but even those that may not seem vulnerable have died.

I value the precautions and attempt to control the spread, but how long can we hide from a virus that can potentially kill us?

There are people that want to prevent the world from opening because of fear that it will spread further, but not all of us want to live in fear. Some, even much older, maybe in their 70’s are going out to parks and walking around.

People should have a choice. Open up society, all the business, offices and parks, etc. and let those that are too afraid to go out, stay at home. For precautions, wear a mask in public places, but live life outside the house.

People need people and I can’t imagine those that live alone. How hard it must be. We need community, a virtual meeting is not enough than being around others. Isolation leads to loneliness and sometime can lead to suicide. Yes, isolation slows down the spread, but we can’t live in fear forever. There may be a second wave so eventually, we will need to face potential death.

Two big questions:

  1. Are you healthy enough to fight covid-19?
  2. Are you ready to die?

Nashville

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Tennessee, USA

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One of the first things I noticed on the streets of Nashville were the party bikes with a center bar. While walking through Broadway at night, we passed by many bars with live music, mostly country, from artists trying to get themselves recognized. We were at the top of a double-Decker bus and the tour guide asked us, “What is the largest industry is in Nashville?” I guessed music because of all the country music artists that come from Nashville, but I was wrong, the correct answer is healthcare.