This is Your Chance to Shine!

Day Ten

As I was praying, the Lord reminded me of my Jesus dream.  I am certain that I have written about it, but maybe I didn’t because I can’t find it anywhere (very strange!).  If I haven’t ever written about it, then it’s time for me to write about my Jesus dream—especially now that I’ve written about those devil dreams.

It was winter/spring 2006, and I was living in Italy with my husband and younger son, Kevin, who was in his senior year of high school at the American School of Milan.  I dreamed that I entered a crowded Italian coffee shop.  Across the room there was a young man.  He was nice looking, with wavy dark hair, sturdy build, average height.  He smiled at me, and that smile changed him from average looking to someone I could hardly take my eyes off of.  His smile lit up his face and the room.  He crossed the room and spoke to me in English, which surprised me.  Actually, both things surprised me: crossing the room to talk to me and speaking to me in English.

He said, “What do you do?” and I told him that I teach English.  At the time I was teaching English to children, earning money so that I could tithe to the work of God.  So I said, “And what do you do?”  He said, “Come, I’ll show you.”

We left the coffee shop and went to an apartment nearby.  In real life, I would never, ever go into an apartment with someone I’ve just met, but there was something about him that told me I could trust him.  In all honesty, it didn’t even enter my mind to wonder if I should go in with him.

The apartment had wood paneled walls—and such wood as I had never seen before.  The wood had deep, well-defined grain and was luminous.  It was the most alive wood I had ever seen, and it was beautiful, warm, and inviting.  Three of the walls were wooden and fourth was stucco, and by contrast seemed cold and dead.  I said, “You did this?”  He smiled and said, “Yes.  What do you call this kind of work in Italian?”  I answered: “Restaurazione” (restoration)—pronouncing the word perfectly for the first and only time in my life (with practice I taught myself to roll my r’s, but my tongue can’t or won’t to roll that second one).

I pointed to the stucco wall and said, “And what about this one?”  He reached up and pulled away a chunk of stucco.  Behind it was wood, but it was dirty, dried-out, and badly in need of care.  He looked at me and smiled, “It’s a work in progress.”

That’s when I woke up, knowing: It’s Jesus, the Carpenter!  And I realized that I was that work in progress.

That dream helped me a lot because in a few months I had several things happen that sent me into the worst depression of my life, lasting over 3 years—not the least of which was my failing marriage.

While writing about the devil dreams, I thought about this Jesus dream, but like I said, I thought that I had already written about it.  In fact, I was sure of it because I remember adding the link to show what Jesus looks like.  But maybe that was only a dream, too.  Who knows?  Anyway, now that you’re curious, here’s the link: Jesus.  In my dream, Jesus had dark brown eyes and was clean-shaven, but otherwise, it is recognizably Him.

While praying this morning, I felt like God was smiling at me.  I didn’t really ask why, but just wondered, and then I remembered the dream, and especially that funny part where He asked me what His work was called in Italian.  Jesus is in the restoration business!  But why did He ask me what it’s called in Italian?  He told me: “To give you a chance to shine.”  Spoken like a proud parent!  God is good!  And Jesus is our handsome bridegroom!

You Couldn’t Make it Up!

Greetings from Abruzzo by the Adriatic Sea!

I am house-sitting for Bob[1] and Jill, like I did last year. I have Bethany and another missionary, Nina, with me. The first thing we noticed was that the dishwasher didn’t work. Bob and Jill have three very active young sons, so having a functioning dishwasher would be a real blessing for them. Because we wanted to bless them, we called a repairman and got the dishwasher fixed. We had also noticed that the wooden cover for the dishwasher had been removed, leaving it without any handle and thus making it difficult to open. The repairman noted that the cover needed to be shaved-down because it was a bit too wide at the bottom, and so wouldn’t open properly if re-installed.

We didn’t want to leave the job half done, so we asked around for a carpenter, knowing that a carpenter could plane it down in just a few minutes. But we couldn’t find any carpenter anywhere—and believe me, we looked for several hours all over town.

This morning I was in my usual place by the window, writing on my computer. Then I saw that there were three men in the garden. They entered, carrying a wooden gate, and mounted it as I watched. On a whim, I asked, “Are you carpenters?” They said, “No, but we work for a carpenter.” I told them about the problem of the dishwasher cover. One came in and looked at it. He quickly saw what the problem was. I said, “You see, it doesn’t actually require a carpenter, just one of his tools (I didn’t know the Italian word for plane).” He smiled and said, “Yes, but the carpenter has that tool, we don’t.”

He took the wooden cover with him, and went back to work on the gate. Occasionally he asked to plug a tool in. Then about half an hour later, he came back inside with the cover planed-down, and installed it—a perfect fit!

But this didn’t fix the dishwasher one hundred percent. And we wanted to fix it completely. The repairman said that the bottom shelf was missing six wheels. It had the two front wheels, but lacked all the rest. The repairman said that he had wheels in his shop and would bring them by the next time he was in the neighborhood. This two weeks ago. I was fairly certain that he had forgotten all about the wheels. But today—today!—the dishwasher repairman called to ask if we would be home after three this afternoon because he would be in the neighborhood.

He came by and installed the wheels: pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop—done!

We all marveled at how, just when we had been looking for one, God sent us a carpenter. And He made sure that the job was completely and properly finished. Isn’t that what He also did for us all? Just when things looked their worst, God sent us a Carpenter, and He made sure that the job was completely and properly finished. Hallelujah! God is good!

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[1] “Look, Listen, Love,” pg. 80