In the dream, I was looking after Andy and Alex, not at our house, but at a waterfront apartment on Crowe Lake, which was also—in the odd way a dream can manage to do—the Florida Gulf Coast apartment of Gail’s family. Gail is Andy’s mom. As I looked across the water, a terrible hurricane came up from the “left” side of the apartment. I thought the picture windows might break. I backed away from them and noticed that rain was coming through the ceiling over the bedroom (which projected out beyond the normal shape for an apartment building and had a cedar slat surface like the roof on a neighbor’s indoor pool) and was wetting things (but mysteriously not really damaging them). I opened the apartment door and kept trying to get Andy to come out of the apartment with me, the floor was starting to tilt towards the water as if the storm had undermined the building’s footings—but young Andy was quite unconcerned and wanted to stay. There were other people talking among themselves; I thought they probably were evaluating the danger and their own need to vacate the building. Finally, I got both boys downstairs. Beth was there, and Gail met us, quite calm about the storm, and took Andy back upstairs with her to their apparently livable apartment. And Beth and Alex and I rejoined Dick and Dan.
I
It was the sort of dream that was so vivid and feels so real that it stays with you. For one thing, Andy’s house was perched high on a hill overlooking Crowe Lake. And it also was true on that Sunday morning October 1, 1995, that I was looking after Andy, our young son Alex’s school friend, at our house for the weekend. I didn’t mention the dream to my husband before he went golfing early. Later in the morning, Andy phoned his mom to tell her that I would take him home after 6 o’clock, which is when Dick had said he would be back with the car. However, Dick came home early, around 3 o’clock, and remarked that I didn’t need to wait until 6 to return Andy to his home.
I deliberately lingered. I was in no hurry because something clinging from the dream prevented me. The dream made no sense to my rational mind but the feeling that I should not head out in the direction of the Lake was strong. Not until around 5:30 did I feel comfortable about setting out with the boys. As we were leaving, Beth asked to come along to see Gail’s garden that was gorgeous with colorful Asiatic lilies.
Just over the top of the hill on Marble Point Road, surrounded by evergreens (cedars?) out of sight of Crowe Lake, we were stopped by a police officer who told us the road was closed due to a fatal accident. He gave me permission to go to the accident scene in order to see if Andy could still be gotten home. I stepped out of the car and noticed that the road sloped down exactly like the tilted apartment floor in my dream. I passed men from the First Response Team, some of whom I recognized. They were talking among themselves about the tragedy and about the officials they were waiting for. At the foot of the hill, half in my lane and half in the ditch, the damaged van rested on its roof. Beside it on the road, partially covered with a sheet, lay the dead woman with her baby dead inside her. Her partner, the driver, and their two little boys had been taken away by ambulance. Onlookers had seen the driver take the right-angle turn away from the Lake at very high speed. His van had slid into the shallow ditch bordering its lane, rolled three times coming across the road, and ended on its roof. It had come out of the “left”, with the Lake behind it, precisely as the hurricane in my dream had swept across the Gulf of Mexico towards the left corner of Andy’s apartment.
One man of the First Response Team let me use his car radio to call Gail, who arranged to meet Andy and me on the far side of the accident scene tapes. I went back up the hill to the car and explained the situation to the children. Andy was calm and wanted to go to his mom. I led Andy down the hill (like in the dream elevator) and past the accident scene. He remained calm, although we were only a few feet away from the effects of the “storm.” When we met Gail, who is a nurse and accustomed to emergencies, I could see where Andy had learned his composure. As in the dream, but without an elevator, she and Andy walked away down the shore road and back up the hill to their home overlooking Crowe Lake. Again, as in the dream, I passed the cluster of men attending the scene, returned to the car where Beth and Alex were waiting (as in the dream), and U-turned on the road to drive home to rejoin Dick and Dan at home.
I explained to Dick how the dream had warned me and that God had protected all of us by not letting me leave the house and end up in the path of the “hurricane” van. Dick was not entirely convinced about the events as I described them, which profoundly disturbed me.
II
A week later, Hurricane Opal was spending the last of its force as it passed through our area on the night of October 8-9. Dick and I slept poorly. It was still raining the next morning and both of us, who had been ill for several years with chronic fatigue syndrome, awakened tense and irritable. We argued in our bedroom—as the storm blew rain through the window onto the fluttering white curtains—about taking the children to school. I felt the children should stay in bed. I had a strong urge to stay in bed myself. But Dan had gotten up on his own, which was unusual, and so had Alex. Although I was upset, I dressed and went to check on Dan. Dick came downstairs saying he felt Alex should go to school. Dan came into the study to lounge in front of the TV. I misinterpreted Dick’s frustration to mean that he felt Dan, who was in dreadful difficulties academically, also should be in school. When I informed Daniel that he was going to school, too, he protested. Dick was distant. And so I insisted—against my first instincts and despite Dan’s protests—that he should come with Alex and me. I left in such a rush and disgruntled state that I didn’t even take out my hair curlers, which I never neglect. I dropped Alex at the junior school and drove the unhappy Daniel to the high school in the neighboring town.
The mist and drizzle made Highway 7 slick. I was following a semi, flatbed, loaded with steel rebar. A mustard yellow pickup truck, probably bound for the road construction on Marmora’s main street, passed the vehicle behind me, then mine, then went on to pass the long semi. We were entering a long curve and the visibility was very poor. I thought the man in the passing pickup was completely crazy. I slowed down and, in an excess of caution, pulled my van towards the shoulder of the road. Noticing O’Hara’s Mill Road, I thought I’d turn right into it but as I began the turn from the shoulder, a blue car, which had been forced into his ditch by the passing truck, came flying out of the ditch—from my left—across both lanes and hit the rear side of my van. It spun around to strike with its left front against my assailant’s rear. The car that hit me was totaled and so was our van. I was shaken, with bruises and a sideways whiplash. The older man driving the rented blue car was in worse shape than I was. Later, I realized that those embarrassing pink plastic rollers around my head had prevented a much more severe concussion when I was thrown sideways against the car post.
A couple of days later, I realized that the Gulf hurricane of my dream had caught up with me, even though, again, God had tried to speak to me to avoid an accident. This time, I had not been at peace with my husband and I did not have enough confidence in my premonition—or in our son Daniel’s feeling—that we should stay home. I lamented in my prayer journal: “How can I get in closer touch with God? I feel so bad about failing to obey Him.” However, this time my injuries and the wrecked van made a strong impression on Dick. He finally admitted that the circumstances of my accident fit right in with my warning dream.
III
Exactly two months later, on December 9, I was following Dick’s U-Haul truck east on Highway 401 in snow and icy road conditions. We were returning from an ill-begotten trip to Toronto to pick up some used furniture my sister wanted me to have, including two velvet loveseats I fancied. When his signal lights indicated he was pulling into a gas station, I assumed the rental truck was low on gas. I simply continued the journey home because we were celebrating Alex’s birthday a day late and I still had to bake his cake. Dick should have arrived soon after me, but as the hours went by I became very worried and we again postponed Alex’s birthday celebration.
Late that evening, Dick pulled into our barnyard with the truck and its small load of furniture and with a story that thrilled me. Dick had obeyed a feeling that he should pull into that gas station with the U-Haul although he could have gone further with the amount of gas left in the tank. When he tried to pull up to the pumps he discovered the truck’s brakes had failed. He slid to the end of the asphalt, coasting to a stop just short of a grove of trees. The gas station happened to be one with a mechanic and automotive repair service. His delay had been caused by the brake repairs. He told me the two hurricane episodes had heightened his own awareness of “God’s whispers” and that his obedience likely had saved his life and the lives of others that night on the icy, four-lane highway, which is renowned for its overturned trucks and fatal accidents.
Other things had gone wrong all that day, starting with the U-Haul rental in Toronto. At the truck rental depot, the office printer broke down, creating a long delay so that Dick had almost called off our “adventure in moving.” It was my fault that we persisted in standing in line; I wanted those loveseats. After we unloaded the truck that night, the truck’s ramp stuck and had to be left until morning before it could be retracted. In the morning, we found the battery in the truck was dead. A mechanic had to be called from a distant town. The service station mechanic’s arrival was delayed repeatedly until late afternoon when I was frosting the birthday cake. When he arrived, I met him to explain the truck problems, warning him that he had parked dangerously close to the ditch by the driveway. When at last he had replaced the truck’s battery, he forgot my warning and backed his car into the ditch. A tow truck had to be called to pull out his car. The entire trip had been fraught with mishaps. Was it worth the risks to collect a few pieces of furniture? I gave sober thought to my lust for such things after this mess. I also learned that when events start to go awry is the time to pray and evaluate the project underway.
Is it worth the trouble it takes to learn to hear the whispers of God? That’s one of the differences between “a prayer life” and “meditation.” People who pray learn to “listen” for that “interior voice” and how to distinguish it from other chatter in the brain. I was glad that my husband had learned to listen in that way, even if his learning was at the cost of my being in an accident. And what was my suffering compared with what Jesus did for us all on the Cross? It takes a life-threatening event to shake most of us adults out of our complacency.
The hurricane dream and the events that followed showed me that God is always trying to get through to us. Another way of saying this is that humans have an innate ability to perceive the future that can be improved with practice, which is not the same mental experience as predicting future events based on one’s knowledge of the past adjusted by intelligent imagination. Jesus said we must live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Father. (Matthew 4: 4). If we pay attention to that part of our consciousness that is open to future time and to that “voice,” we are better prepared to make decisions when we arrive at that future time. Our obedience—like Noah’s—can save us and the lives of others. Or our disobedience—like that of Lot’s wife—can destroy us.
A prophetic dream can have more than one application—my hurricane dream provided guidance and insight in at least three different situations. Dreams about the future can hold an amazing amount of significant detail. What is more amazing is that the details also can have multiple applications. This one carried at least three levels of important information.
What did I miss? I should have prayed about the dream and looked for more guidance, especially after the first incident. After three such incidents, I should have seen that a hurricane of a different kind was brewing in our sons that October day, especially in Daniel. His unhappiness, based in the learning disorder called “dyslexic syndrome” and coupled with his use of marihuana to escape from his unhappiness, was forming a substance addiction that would damage his ears, cause him to become schizophrenic, and shatter relationships in the family. We had much more to learn about “listening for the Light.”