My Life Prophecy
I followed, it did not disappoint!
Hello and welcome to Loved Like Lazarus! I am back after basking in the glory of my 10th post accomplishment. Just kidding, I used it as an excuse to not write for three weeks! However, during this time, discouragement raised its ugly head. I have an unquiet mind. Thoughts came, “people aren’t getting anything out of your posts, just stop, hang up the gloves(keyboard) and walk away... You had a good run… You don’t have any material left... You’re relieving too much about your personal life… Stop now, it’s going to turn out bad for you in the long run… Writing is too much work, stop doing it and relax.” These thoughts were working for a while. Until I received some very kind words from a friend who told me how much my posts meant to him and how much they helped him. It was a friend who encouraged me to start this Substack and it was another friend who encouraged me to keep going. So, I am going to say “Silencio Bruno!” Here is another post coming to you despite my negative thought box.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me… (John 10:27).
For most of my life, when someone said that they could hear the Lord’s voice or that the Lord told them to do something, I would roll my eyes and think that they were delusional. I thought the only people who heard the Lord’s voice were the saints of old and holy priests, nuns and monks. For the rest of us, it was something above our pay grade and unattainable. But my view changed drastically after my inner healing session. Soon after that, I completed an online ‘hearing the voice of God’ class and came to the decision that the Lord does have a plan for my life AND he wants to make that plan known to me. Immediately after I finished the class, I put the what I learned to the test. I closed my computer, got comfortable in my chair, closed my eyes and said, “Lord, I believe that you have a plan for my life, show me what it is and I will follow it.” Immediately I saw myself in a hot desert. There were heat waves coming from the ground and there was a mesa in front of me to the east. I walked a little ways and came to a wooden structure. It was a tabletop about knee-high off the ground. The amazing thing was that it extended to the east out of sight and to the south out of sight. Looking down from a birds-eye view, I was at the top right corner. The top of the table was covered with indentations. It was like a giant cupcake mold you could pour batter into, but instead of circles, they were shaped as people. I had a large shallow bowl of water and it seemed obvious to me that the only thing I was meant to do was to pour water into the mold. It was a miraculous bowl of water though because it never emptied. I poured so long that the individual molds would overflow and cascade into the next molds. Then, I heard a voice and felt a presence behind me. It was Jesus. He kept encouraging me to continue my work and told me how this work was pleasing to Him. I also noticed that when some of the ‘person-molds’ filled up, a person would appear on the edge of the structure. Like me, they would have a large shallow bowl and add to the mold their own water.
I proceeded to cry tears of joy for several minutes thanking the Lord for His goodness to me. I was also very appreciative that He would let me hear His voice, feel His presence and say such kind things to me. The meaning of this prayer experience was simple to me. He wanted me to spread the Gospel and to pour into people. By doing so, I would be furthering His work on Earth. Some people I would share the Gospel with would also spread the kingdom because of my efforts, because I saw them appear on the edge of the mold doing the same thing I was doing.
It was natural to take the meaning of this prayer experience as a prophecy to become a priest or a missionary. It led me to the Seminary. Which you can read in Mental Health Journey Part III.
The next prayer experience in this life prophecy was a continuation of the first. I saw myself in the same place, at the corner of the structure with the molds carved in the top. This time I shrank down and went into the bowl. I was poured into the mold structure and floated down south, hugging the west side of the structure. It was a long distance. Eventually, I climbed out unto the edge of the structure. There was a long stair going down perpendicular to the side, all the way to the ground. When I got to the bottom, I saw a tree with the stereotypical picnic blanket and basket underneath it. I heard the words “take and eat.” I then grew to full size. I looked around at the trunk of the tree and I saw Brina (my now wife). She was being cute and hiding, poking only her head around the tree. We finished the picnic together in that ideal setting. My vision then zoomed out to a ‘birds-eye’ map view of my journey. I grew up in northwest Colorado (the top left side of the structure). I floated south down to the New Mexico/Arizona border. I took the long stair from the border down and ended up in Phoenix! Our relationship grew under the life-giving tree. We were married a couple years after that. A pretty great prophetic prayer experience if you ask me!
I also had a continuation of the “island prophecy.” I’ll copy this section from a previous post that ended up with me on a deserted island.
I saw myself on the top of this tall power pole with power lines continuing behind and in front of me. There was a flood and the water kept rising. Eventually it was right beneath me. I had the sense that I had to jump into the water and swim away from the electrical lines. Otherwise, I would be trapped underneath them and that would not be ‘conductive’ to being alive. I had to take a leap of faith and jump into the flood. At first there wasn’t any land around me, just open water. Eventually, I washed up on a tropical island. I was safe and the ordeal was over.
From here, instead of me washing up on the shore alone, Brina washed up with me. Together we made a life together by ourselves. We built a big treehouse, Swiss Family Robinson style. We had two little kids. A 3-year old and a toddler. Then one day I saw a man walk up to me on the beach. I had a hunch that it was Jesus (it was). He told me to go to the other side of the island and there would be people there for me. I protested saying, “I’ve walked around this whole island and there is no one here.” But he just smiled and walked away down the beach. I knew I had to see so the next day I set off. Eventually, I came to a picturesque waterfall with a beautiful turquoise pool. There was another giant tree (like the previous picnic tree). Jesus came up to me again and He said to take my family and live under this tree, and when we saw anyone come, to point them in the direction of where He would be, standing in the pool waiting for them. Again, I protested, “there isn’t anyone here! What are you talking about?” Then I turned around and looked to the ocean… there were hundreds of ships! Old wooden ships with tall masts and large sails, year 1500-1800 types. There were already small boats coming from them, beaching on the shore to come to see Jesus. They would stop under our tree only for a moment. We would basically just wave them through, up the path to see Jesus standing in the pool.
After having this prayer experience, I thought the meaning was very clear. I was to marry Brina! After we started our life together and had two kids, the Lord would call us out to something great. I thought it was going to be a call for me to be a missionary because that was my plan when I moved down to Phoenix. But, a year or so after having this prayer experience, my plans to be a missionary fell through. It was a big stumbling-block for me. Then, over three years I was battling for my life resisting depression. I went through several jobs. I was in the mental hospital twice. At times, I felt that all those prayer experiences were just my overactive imagination. Spiritual pipe dreams. I held on somewhat. I waited until we had two kids of similar age to what I saw in the prayer experience. It seemed like the best indicator of when things would kick off for us.
I had another side prayer experience in this same place. It kept my hopes up that not all hope was lost for finding the Lord’s plan for my life. Along with people coming up the beach, there were also people in the jungle around the pool. They were hiding in the shadows, watching what was going on but unaware of what was taking place. I approached a person but they wouldn’t go with me out into the open to see Jesus. I then came up with a plan to take them up the steep slope beside the waterfall. We got to the top of the creek, jumped in, and fell off the waterfall. We were laughing and excited the whole time though. But then it dawned on us that we were interrupting Jesus’s time with other people, who were approaching him the traditional way by coming up the beach. We expected him to be mad at us because we were goofing around. Instead, he was very happy and embraced us. He asked me how we got up to the top of the waterfall. I lead him to the steep slope and there were steps carved into the side to keep from slipping because of the misty air. He asked me in wonder saying, “you made these?!” I felt very proud and was in disbelief of how they got there. But I knew that I made them or will make them in the future. He put his arm around me and we looked at the steps. It was like a wonderful father-son moment looking at a well-done completed project.
This prayer experience was at the time when I was working as a mover and coming across some very rough guys. Ones that have never heard anything about the Church or only negative things. I like to think that the conversations I had with them somehow sowed some seeds of this prophecy being answered. Or perhaps it is fulfilled with people reading and me sharing my testimony. Insert here [like, share and subscribe plug] :D
Shortly after this time, I was out of the mental hospital for a manic episode and my family didn’t know what to do with me. Nor did I. I had some delusions of grandeur for sure still. Anyone who thinks they were Adam in the Garden of Eden, then John the Baptist (harbinger of the second coming of Christ), then saint JPII having an assassination attempt and knowing the mysterious fourth secret of Fatima, then a famous mathematician finding the perfect proof to set the world in correct order, all while naked in the back of a police car, would need a serious debrief (I wrote about it in My Mental Health Journey Part IV if you want to read about the whole experience). We needed to make some moves on what our living situation would be. Brina and my relationship understandably had some trust issues. We had a 3-year old and a 1-year old. I was mental health compromised with no job. It was a pretty hard situation. We did the most important thing, we prayed. Should my parents move down to Phoenix to help Brina and I out? Should they get a small apartment near us? Should we get a big house with a casita?
While in prayer of what to do for my family, I had another continuation of the island prayer experience. An influx of knowledge from the Holy Spirit overcame me. The waterfall and the pool didn’t have anything to do with me becoming a missionary, it was all about Brina and her ministry of being the music director at the church she was recently hired at!!! That church was the waterfall and pool. I should have known! Her music brings people to Jesus in a powerful way. Pretty much after every mass someone stops her on the way back to her office and tells her how the music was so beautiful that they couldn’t stop crying. Or that they were cut to the heart and felt some sort of weight lift off from them. The liturgy at our parish is very traditional (hence the old ships carrying the people). It is a cruciform church with alter rails, a baldacchino, choir loft and pipe organ. If you haven’t seen pictures from the inside click on this link. Our parish is very large and receives a lot of out of town visitors because Scottsdale is a vacation destination (like the hundreds of people coming up the beach). There Brina is, standing under the tree, her music pointing people in the right direction to follow the path, to see Jesus and be refreshed in the healing waters of the Holy Spirit.
Here is the continuation of the continuation of the continuation of the prayer experience: Like the mold structure representing me moving from seminary down to Phoenix, I was taken up above the island and saw it from a ‘bird’s-eye’ view. Brina and I first built our ‘Swiss family Robinson’ house on the west side of the island. The waterfall was on the east side of the island. The big tree Brina and I were under was on the south side of the creek that flowed from the pool to the ocean. The creek traveled south for a ways and then turned east emptying into the ocean. If you lay this down over a map of North Phoenix and Scottsdale: our current house was west of St. Bernadette’s where Brina works. I believed the big tree represented our next home. Thus, it would be located south of the church.
My parents had a hard decision to make. My mom went to several priests but felt like the advice she got from a holy Indian priest was the best. She told him our situation and he immediately pretty much commanded her to move down here and help us. She felt like the words were straight from Jesus, ‘in persona Christi.’ That, along with my prayer experiences, led us to the decision to look for a large house near St. Bernadette. Our mission would be to establish our multigenerational house and raise our kids well. And to support Brina and her ministry to heal hearts with glorious sacred music.
We looked at a few houses near St. Bernadette. We toured the perfect house with a giant backyard perfect for kids, a downstairs bedroom, a pool and pretty much everything we were looking for. But our relator said an offer had been put in and it was likely to go through, so not to get our hopes up too much. But miraculously, the offer fell through and we got the house! Everything came together so smoothly and it was like it was meant to be! Because God said it would be in the prophecy!
Let’s recap some miraculous details that all ended up being fulfilled. Some people would call them coincidences, but we all know what the Lord reveals comes to pass. In my first prayer experience, in the desert at the mold structure. Remember there was a mesa to the east? When I first moved to Arizona, I lived in Tempe. Guess what the town to the east of Tempe is? Mesa LOL. Guess what street we live on currently? Le Marche (‘the march’ in Spanish), like the people marching up the beach. Guess the next street after that towards the church? It is called Paradise! Like the tropical island paradise where the prayer experience took place. Then there is Saint Bernadette Church! Guess what Saint Bernadette did? She dug in the ground and made a pool where healing waters flow! Like the pool at the base of the waterfall! Then the next street after that is called Kings! Guess the next street? Aire Libre (‘free area’ in Spanish). Heaven is the most ‘free area’ if you ask me. That city planner was inspired by the Holy Spirit for sure! So, here is the completed prophecy, taking all the street names and details into account, and walking south to north and beyond. Let us all march to the tune of my wife’s angelic voice, through an island paradise path, to get to the pool where Jesus lives. For He is our king! He will set us free and welcome us into heaven!
P.S.
Part of me really didn’t want to write this post. I was afraid it would come off as too braggy. “Look at me and how I can hear the Lord! na na bo bo” But, testimonies build up the church. I hope by reading this you are encouraged to pray to the Lord to reveal to you the plan He has for your life. It might instantaneous. It might take years and be revealed piece by piece. Mine spanned from 2015-2022 and it is not over. I still revisit the island paradise in my prayer, but I don’t see anything. I take it to mean that the Lord has got me right where he wants me. Here is my recommendation on how hear the Lord’s voice better. Learn about Ignatian imaginative prayer to use your 5-senses to hear, see, feel, taste and smell. Activate God’s graces you received in your baptism and confirmation by getting baptized in the Holy Spirit. Here is a video if you want to learn more (Father Dave Pivonka is the president of Franciscan University of Steubenville). Sit down in silence. Ask the Lord to show you the plan He has for your life and trust that He will make that plan known. He knows the best way to communicate to you. If you noticed, He knows I love patters (math major), puzzles (recovering video game addict), maps (I was a drafter for a couple years) and my love language is words of affirmations (he encouraged me every step of the way). Your style of prayer and how the Lord communicates to you could be similar or very different to mine. We are all uniquely created by God, and all His creations have a purpose.
There is no doubt that Lazarus saw some crazy stuff while he was in Sheol. You best believe he hit the ground running doing what the Lord told him to do.
Comments:
Muffins or Cupcakes?
What is your favorite tropical place?
Feel free to share what the Lord’s plan for your life is. It is not a brag, it builds the faith of the listeners.
As we read in Isaiah for tomorrow’s reading: Set your face like flint. Persevere Ben, you are on a mission with your writing.
There are no coincidences!