The Eagle Dream

I believe in dreams. I believe God can speak to us through our dreams. Sometimes it can be very literal. Sometimes it is figurative and He will give you the interpretation for it (either to you personally or through someone else). Almost every time He speaks to us in a dream, though, it is to direct us in how or what to pray.

Below is a dream I had in November of 2005. I didn't think my blog would be the place where I would share these prophetic dreams, especially this one. I have shared it with a few people here and there as the Lord led me to, but I felt like I was supposed to keep it close to the chest, so-to-speak. However, I recently felt like God was telling me to put this dream on here - that it was time for it to be released to more than just a handful of people. I have been praying about it, to make sure it was really what God wanted me to do. He has confirmed it over and over again. So, in obedience to Him, here is my eagle dream.

I dreamed I was at a camp and saw people walking around with live eagles tethered to their arms - like trained falcons. I thought it was tragic that these magnificent creatures were being held captive.
I then entered a building and began talking with a mother and her son who had joined the military. As I was talking with them, I heard someone say the eagles were getting away. I rushed outside to see some of the eagles biting through their tethers and flying off. However, to keep them from escaping, someone released some hawks - one hawk per eagle. The hawks would fly up behind the eagle and bite at its feet or belly, which would kill the eagle. I was horrified and ran back into the building to find someone to help and stop the hawks. I saw a friend of mine talking on the phone. I told her what was happening and she said she would get some people to pray. I told her that was good, but we needed to also do something now. I went back outside and asked God to help me do something. When I did, one of the eagles flew down really low, with the hawk right behind it, so that I was able to reach out and grab it. I started to wring the hawk’s neck when I realized it was only a hot-air balloon device. It was easily popped. I started yelling for someone to come help me pop the hawks, but no one came. I was grabbing and popping the ones that I could reach as fast as I could, but there were too many hawks for me to handle by myself.
INTERPRETATION:
This was a dream about strategy. When the fight looks impossible, if we will look to our Commander-in-Chief (God), He will give us the strategy we need. But more people need to join the fight.
The Eagle = The Church in America
The Hawk = Demonic spirits - lying and fierce
Biting at the feet and stomach = The attacks were from behind and in the soft, vulnerable underbelly area. The eagles were not aware of it until it was too late. It represents - in part - backbiting among church members. It also represents "wolves in sheep’s clothing". Perhaps the reason the eagle didn’t perceive the threat is because all it saw was another bird and assumed it was one of them. There are people in our churches who - at first glance - look like us. They sound similar, look similar, and even move about like we do. But they are servants of the enemy who will come up and attack us when we least expect it and in our most vulnerable places.
Balloons popping = At first, the hawks looked fierce and intimidating, until I took action. In the flesh, it seemed like a foolish thing to do, but I didn’t take time to think about that. I just reacted to the first thing that came into my mind after asking God for help. We must be like that in the spiritual battles today. When we ask God for His strategy, we must trust and act on what He tell us to do without second-guessing or trying to figure out if it makes sense. Most of the time, it won’t make sense in our limited perspective.
Tethers: Obviously, a symbol of imprisonment. The tethered eagle is still a majestic, powerful eagle, but it is no longer able to soar as it was intended to do. In the long term, this is unhealthy and even potentially fatal to an eagle. And, in order to tether an eagle, it has to be willing to sit there long enough. It allowed itself to be tethered.
This is an analogy of the Church in America. We have dallied with the world and allowed the prince of this world to ensnare us. We still have the power and identity of Christ in us, but we cannot appropriate it to soar as God intended.
God is waking us (the Church) up, and some churches are breaking the tethers which never really had any power to hold us in the first place. This has enraged the enemy, and he is sending out his war-birds - his "birds of the air" - to attack the churches who are learning to soar again. The birds are the demonic spirits over the media, politics, and people’s voices. Through spiritual attacks, intimidation, and the court of public opinion, these hawks are seeking to destroy the churches that are remembering how to soar.
The body of Christ also needs to learn how to discern between true fellow believers and the ones who are there to attack us. There are those in the Body of Christ who are there on assignment from the enemy to disrupt, discredit, disorganize, and ultimately destroy. (And they may not even realize it.) Like Christ, we should love everyone who comes to us, but also use discernment to recognize who you are dealing with and be ready to call them out if it becomes necessary.
As individuals, it is our responsibility to stop the hawks. We cannot sit on our hands; we cannot just pray, even though that is a major part of the strategy, and we will not succeed without prayer. It must be our first priority. And we cannot be intimidated by these fierce-looking spirits. We must get out onto the field, ask God for His strategy, and reach out our hand (in faith) to whatever God tells us to do. When we do, we will realize the hawks are nothing but hot air and will easily be destroyed once they are within our grasp - as long as we are acting within the power of the Holy Spirit.

Inside the Dreams of a 4-year-old

I love dreams. I love talking about them. I love listening to other people relate their dreams to me, and analyzing what they might mean. So naturally I encourage my kids to tell me their dreams if they remember them.

Today, David came to me and said he dreamed something a long time ago, which in a 4-year-old's chronology, could mean last night. In his dream, he said he was hungry, so he ate it. Here is the conversation after that point.

Me: "What is it you ate?"

David: "My dream."

Me: "You ate your dream?"

David: "Yep!"

Me: "What does a dream taste like?"

David: "Like chicken!" Of course it does. I should've known.

Amy Beth Weed

I'm not being very consistent at blogging. I'm sorry about that. It's not for lack of material - just lack of time.

Now it's time to talk about my baby daughter, Amy Beth. A couple of years ago, Harris informed me that he wanted a baby sister. I told him he needed to pray and ask God to give him one then. Personally, I had mixed feelings. Part of me loved the idea of having another baby, especially if it was a girl this time, and part of me thought my hands were full enough with two energetic boys.

So, he started praying. He remembered to pray almost every night for a baby sister. I asked him if he would be okay with a baby brother. He said he would be okay with that, but he really wanted a baby sister since he already had a brother. Harris prayed for probably a year when we finally found out that there was a baby on the way! When we told Harris, he was adamant that it was going to be a girl. The ultrasound at 19 wks. confirmed that Harris had gotten his prayer answered - he was getting a baby sister!

We had some options when it came to baby names. I knew I wanted my mom's name, Amy, to be a part of it somehow, and Preston has always liked the name, Beth. However, we kept thinking of Beth as just a short form of Bethany or Elizabeth, and not as a name in and of itself. So, we tried Amy Elizabeth, Bethany June (June was Preston's mother's name), and others. For one reason or another, none of them seemed to fit, and Harris didn't like any of them. Then, I thought of using Beth on its own, and came up with Amy Beth - and calling her by both names. It was so different from what we had been considering, that I prayed about it before asking Preston or anybody else what they thought about it. God had made it so clear what we were to name Harris and David, so I trusted that He would do the same for this baby. A few days later, I had lunch with a friend and she told me about a dream she had had 3 times in the past week. In her dream, I kept referring to the baby as "Amy Beth"!!! There was my confirmation! The really amazing part is that all of this dream and conversation happened before we had even found out that we were having a girl!

Amy Beth was born in January this year. Her one minute and 5 minute APGAR scores were both 9, and it would have been a 10 except that the nurse said they never give 10s for some reason. I have a memory of her birth that I will cherish forever. She had just been born and was screaming at the top of her lungs. They did a preliminary cleaning up and wrapped her in a blanket, and brought her around the drape so I could see her. (I had a C-section so I everything was draped with sterile drapes and my arms were secured to the table, so I couldn't touch her.) I kissed her soft little cheek and then put my cheek against hers, and she immediately stopped screaming! When they took her away to finish cleaning her, she started screaming again. Isn't that amazing?! And to this day if she is upset and I put her cheek to cheek with me, she calms down almost immediately. She has been such a good, sweet baby from day 1. She's been a good eater and sleeper for the most part. She loves her brothers, and they adore her. Whenever they come into her view, her whole face lights up and she starts kicking and waving her fists at them. Because she is such a laid back baby, it's hard to get her to really laugh, but the boys can do it easily. She finds their antics most amusing.Now that Amy Beth is 5 mos. old, she is sleeping through the night most of the time - and really has been doing that for a couple of months now. (Hallelujah!) She is rolling from her back to her stomach, and pushes up on her hands. When she is in her bouncy seat or bath tub, she tries to do her "sit-ups", so it won't be long probably before she is sitting. She makes all sorts of noises, and entertains herself with them when there's no one else around to entertain her. On more than one occasion, the boys have been outside playing while I'm trying to get something done in the house. Amy Beth will be in her bouncy seat or her play mat. If I'm not in the room with her for a couple of minutes, she'll start making her noises. (I sometimes stay out of the room on purpose just so she'll start talking.) After she's gotten a good start on her babbling, I'll peek in at her and she'll be grinning from ear to ear - and usually staring at her hands or a foot that she has managed to grab. It is too cute!

I am a bit musical. I love to sing, and I play the flute. So I have always secretly hoped at least one of my children would be musical. Harris likes to listen to music, but so far doesn't have the least bit of interest in participating in music in any way. David goes around singing all the time, to his own made-up songs. But Amy Beth already seems to appreciate music on a different level from that. Whenever I sing to her, she stares at me transfixed. Whenever music is playing, she strains her head to see where it is coming from. And she sings...

Amy Beth has one of those Fisher Price Ocean Wonders Aquarium on the side of her crib. When the music is playing and she is either going to sleep or waking up, she'll make these long, soft, ahhhhs in different pitches - I swear she is singing to the music!!

So there is the story of my three amazing gifts from God. We are blessed indeed!