The Dream by: Susan

Aug, 2002

We moved both Josh and Sarah to Tucson in August, brother and sister starting a new life away from home, supporting each other in more ways than one. Josh had been accepted into a graduate program in the School of Pharmacy at UA. Sarah was taking internet classes and working, her health being a major reason to seek the warmth and leave the long cold winters of Wyoming.

Sat., Oct. 26, 2002

I awoke at 2:16 a.m. calling on the name of Jesus with a thundering heart and clear imprints of my son lying dead from a gun shot wound to the head. Oddly, there was no blood on him, but I could take no comfort from such a minor detail.

We were supposed to meet in a building that contained a square shaped hallway with a room at a corner intersection. Frightened from an unseen force or being that was there, I frantically searched for my 25 year old son knowing he was trying to find me too. I ran the length of a darkened hall and turned left to run down an adjoining one.

A loud gunshot rang through my fears and I immediately turned back, running toward the corner room. As I ran into the light, my eyes fell on my precious firstborn, the child I carried when I was baptized into Christ. The shooter was nowhere in sight as people began to file out of the room toward us.

My emotions screamed no as I pulled my conscious mind out of the dream. Unwilling to believe or accept, I began praying and calling out the name of Jesus, rebuking Satan and his lies and covering my son in the blood of Christ. My precious husband of 27 years awoke to hear my pleas to God and began praying with me, not knowing the dream. Sleep overtook me as I returned to my nightmare, making my son stand up and his fatal injury disappear.

Sun. Oct. 27, 2002

Our church service, titled "Restoring the Broken Heart", helped quell the aura of uneasiness from the dream, but was unable to rid the impact of that scene the night before. I called my son as soon as I got home to check on him.

Relief swept over me as he answered his phone. "I'm OK mom. Don't worry." I shared very little of my dream to him, trying to forget that I actually experienced what I did. Love and hugs over the phone. He promised to call me later.

That afternoon my closest and dearest friend, Carol, came to see us. Still troubled by the visuals that I could not shake, I again shared just a sentence of the dream to her. She seriously studied me and described a sermon she had heard that morning on the TV from Benny Hinn. In short, he said to rebuke bad prophetic dreams in the name of Jesus. We prayed again about the dream. In my wildest dreams I couldn't imagine it being prophetic.

Mon. Oct. 28, 2002

My husband's voice was controlled but urgent as his call informed me that there had been a shooting on the campus of UA in Tuscon. Josh had called his sister and said he was alright. He had slept in that morning and gotten to school late. Later that day he told me he had been impressed to turn off his radio and prayed 40 minutes on his drive to school. He arrived to find hundreds of police cars surrounding the campus. His department and the nursing building sit side by side and he walks through or around the nursing building every day of the week from his parking spot. See Google's cache of the news story from www.tusconcitizen.com.

I have witnessed the power of God and have experienced it before in my life, yet cannot grasp the possibility of our child, the first of five who love and honor Jesus Christ, being a part of such a terrible tragedy. Our hearts go out to the families who lost a loved one that day. I understand the power of prayer enabled God to move. I believe prayer changed Satan's work and a miraculous event took place over our son's life. The dream and circumstances of that day were not a coincidence. Josh is a precious child of God and I know he was spared because of the great ability God has given him. He is studying for a PHD in medicinal chemistry.

Thank you for remembering Josh in your prayers, our sweet Sarah, Jacob, Phil and Josiah, too.

In Christ...
Susan