The Morning Star Rising on the First Day

I have decided to publish significant sections of my book entitled; “Possess the Vision” here on my web site. They are stories of how God protected me and guided me on a course to possess the vision. I believe that these stories, taken from my life, will bless you. Enjoy, and God bless!

CHAPTER 1 – FROM THE BEGINNING

I thought it appropriate to initiate the publication of my spiritual experiences in chronological order, therein providing a strong understanding of God’s guidance and protection throughout my lifetime. These experiences started when I was a toddler and continued even today. Some of them are inconspicuous, and I would not have included them here but for my research for this work. Others are spiritual and, therefore, often defy scientific explanation. Still, others were out of body experiences, where I walked in the spiritual realm. A final category would be outright divine interventions, incidents that changed my life course. It was these experiences that lead me to the vision, a vision that I’m going to share with you. I hope that you will join me in “Possessing the Vision.”  

I initiated this work only intending to document my spiritual experiences as I believed that they were both fascinating and profound. In doing so, however, I discovered that they all focused on guiding me to possess the vision. It was this discovery that got me to look into several previous unexplainable experiences and realize that God had been working in my life from the beginning. Until that point, I was blind to the fact that God was at the heart of these experiences. Things were happening to me that I did not understand. I knew that these types of experiences were not happening to others. I tried to rationalize these mysteries away. When that failed, I filed my memory of them into a faraway place in my brain and made them appear small and insignificant. I also discovered that telling people about them was a terrible idea, so I kept my mouth shut, not wanting the whole world to know that I was entirely out of my mind. 

As I lived these experiences, I often asked myself one question: why were these things happening to me? Of all people in the world, why me? I discovered the answer when I was documenting them. My revelation was that God was protecting me because He created me for a purpose. God created me to Possess the Vision.

I hope that in reading my story that you will join me in Possessing the Vision. 

DAD COMES HOME

I’m not sure how old I was when my dad came home from World War II. I know that my sister was born in March of 1947, so my dad likely returned in the summer of 1946, making me less than two years old. 

But the experience of his return was so magical that I can still view it in my mind’s eye, even today. My mother and I were waiting expectantly, standing behind the screen door of my grandfather’s house. Mom had been telling me for quite some time that my dad was coming home, and I was expectantly looking out the screen door for his arrival. 

I remember the peacefulness and pleasantness of that summer day, as I peered over a wood board that I used for stability. Mom was holding onto the door handle, ensuring that I would not jar it open.  

Then I heard my mom’s voice, “There’s your daddy; there’s your daddy.” I looked down the sidewalk, and sure enough, I saw this tall thin man walking toward us, wearing a Marine dress blue uniform. I saw stripes on his sleeves, and combat ribbons on his chest, and he had tilted his white hat off to one side, conveying to me, “I’m special.” His face was tan, and it accentuated his white smile. His steps had a spring in them as he moved confidently toward us. He started running as he turned up our walkway and then sprang up the steps onto the porch. Mom opened the door, and the two wrapped their arms around one another in a long embrace, kissed, and swayed back and forth.

I remember standing between them, looking straight up at them, for what seemed like a very long time. I started contemplating tugging on my dad’s trousers when suddenly, he looked down at me, bent over, and picked me up. I then became a part of the hugging party. My dad was home!

A LEAP OF FAITH

One day not long after my father’s arrival home, a very unusual event occurred. My dad was taking care of me while I ate lunch in my high chair. I did not like sitting still. My dad was all the way on the other side of the kitchen when I squeezed out of my seat and stood up on the high chair tray. I was very excited about my ability to achieve this feat and started jumping up and down. When my dad saw me, he froze. I grinned and jumped once more just for fun. He said, “Don’t you dare.” For some reason, I thought it would be great amusement to jump and have my dad catch me. There was no doubt in my mind that he would catch me. So, I jumped from the tray as if it were a game. After taking a few quick steps, my dad dove for me, slid on the floor and caught me just in time to keep me from being seriously injured. It would seem that I had a natural trust in my father’s ability from the very beginning.

A CRUEL TRICK

One of the important traditions our family kept was our frequent visits to my grandmother’s house. I remember one such occasion when I was older. My uncle was testing my intelligence. To accomplish this, he held a new shiny dime in one hand and a new 1943 penny in the other. The unique characteristic of the 1943 penny was that it was made of steel, not copper like other pennies. It was apparently due to the shortage of copper during the war. These pennies when new were just as shiny and bright as a new dime. He held the dime between his right thumb and forefinger and the penny between his left thumb and forefinger. He carefully explained that the dime was much more valuable than the penny. He then placed them both directly in front of my face and asked me to choose the one I wanted.

Initially, I reached for the dime based on what he told me. But when my hand moved toward it, he moved the penny closer to me and then jiggled it back and forth in front of my face. The penny flashed streams of light before my eyes when he did this. My thoughts were that the penny seemed to be much more fun than the dime. I picked it out of his hand. He rushed to proclaim my stupidity to everyone else in room, stating that I would never amount to anything. I felt duped and betrayed. I became extremely angry at my uncle. In fact, I wanted to punch my uncle right in the nose and teach him a lesson about playing such a cruel trick on me. But then, somehow I knew that it would do me no good, so I held back.

In retrospect, this event was just a precursor to the truth that life would always present me with choices. Some bad choices would look good and some good choices would look undesirable. It would be up to me to discern the truth and make the right choice and receive the best possible reward. I was beginning to find out that poor choices would result in paying the consequences. As you read on you will find that much of this book is dedicated to communicating the horrible consequences of my poor choices as well as the wonderful rewards for the wise choices I made in my life. These stories communicate the spiritual truth of the world around us.

A TERRIFYING MEMORY

This next event occurred prior to the time that I started grade school. My sister, Kathy, and I were playing in our front yard. Not far away, a number of older neighborhood boys were just hanging out on our next door neighbor’s lawn. I guess the boys became bored and decided to have some fun with us by taking advantage of our youth and inexperience. They achieved this by telling us scary stories about the bogeyman. I did not buy into any of their stories and defiantly told them that there was no such thing as a bogeyman.

They countered with personal assurances that they were witnesses to each of the stories they told. When that proved to be unconvincing, they provided more stories that were even scarier than the first ones. I continued my defiance by simply restating my assertion that there was no such thing as a bogeyman. Seemingly unimpressed, these boys called my bluff. They told me that the bogeyman was hiding between two of the houses near the end of the block. They assured me that if I had the courage to go down and take a look for myself, I would find the bogeyman waiting there for me. I was very scared; after all, perhaps they were right. I resisted their challenge at first, but after they taunted me with words like, chicken and fraidy cat, and used a few other words I did not understand at the time, I decided to go and look for myself.

Being quite frightened, I took precautionary tactics. I thought that if there was a bogeyman between the houses that he must be hiding so that he could capture me if I got close enough. So, I formulated a plan in my head where I would run across the street on a diagonal in order to get a view from a safe distance on the other side of the street. I knew that I had to start immediately so that the bogeyman, if it existed, would not have any time to prepare for my arrival and capture me. So, without any hesitation I bolted out into the street running with my head down as fast as I could. Much to my surprise, I could hear my sister running right behind me. When I got to the targeted position where I could see between the houses from across the street, I stopped and quickly turned for a look. To my horror there it was, right where the neighbor boys said. It was hiding between the houses, hunched over because it was taller than the peaks of the roofs. It was waiting for unsuspecting kids like my sister and I to come by so that it could pounce and devour them. Its general shape was very much like the dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex. It just stood there stooped over between the building looking at me in obvious anger and disgust. It was apparently unwilling to come out from between the houses to get us.

I lost all control and started screaming in horror. I was flailing my arms in the air and running back across the street as fast as my legs would carry me. I could hear my sister screaming as she followed behind me. Since I ran with reckless abandon, keeping my head down, I was shocked at what I found when we finally arrived back to our starting point. The boys who induced us into this adventure were literally lying on their backs on the ground. They were laughing so hard that they could no longer stand. There they lay, holding their aching stomachs in pain due to the extended laughter.

My first reaction was that they believed their deception had worked. But, I also thought that they did not know what I knew—that there was a devil just down the block and that it was waiting for innocent kids like me. What they had projected in apparent jest, turned out to be the truth.

I did not tell this story to anyone for almost fifty years. How could I? People would think that I was nuts. In fact, it never would have been told if it was an isolated event. It was definitely not an isolated event, as you will soon find out. Rather, it was a warning of the truth that the devil is real and is out to destroy us and the purpose for which God created us. I should have heeded this warning of truth about the devil. Unfortunately I did not and had to suffer the consequences that are described later. Please do not make the same mistake I did. Be careful of what you believe, and be cautious about the choices that you make because your life hangs in the balance.

THE ESP EXPERIENCES

After I entered elementary school, I started to encounter things that could not be explained by the laws of physics. Some would call these strange experiences extrasensory perception (ESP). For example, I would dream things that would come true and know things that were to happen before they occurred. Here are a couple of examples.

I DREAM THAT I WAS LIKE A SUPERMAN

One night I had a dream that I was standing in the middle of the street. An oncoming car was heading toward me at a high rate of speed. Rather than run out of the way to escape, I braced myself and extended my arms toward the car to absorb the impact. The car ran directly into my outstretched hands and it stopped in its tracks. In my dream, the car was a gray 1940’s model. The hood was v-shaped and formed a rounded point where my hands met the car. I could see my hands against the gray automobile, and I was in awe of what had happened. I remember having the feeling of extreme physical strength. I imagined that this is what Superman must feel like—knowing that you can muster unmatchable power and that there is nothing that can defeat you. In this dream, I truly felt invincible.

A few days later, I was playing with one of my friends who lived down the block. We were flying a saucer toy that he had just received. The saucer sat on top of a handle. This toy could actually fly when a string was pulled. The spinning motion would create lift that launched the saucer up into the sky. We were having a great time chasing it and trying to catch it. On the last launch, my friend pulled very hard and the saucer soared high into the air. As it rose above the houses, a strong breeze kicked up and carried it out into the street. Being totally focused on catching the saucer, I started running after it as fast as I could. I was not paying much attention to where I was going.

My friend’s mother was there. She shouts to me, “Joe, don’t go into the street. Joe, stop!” I remember hearing her words but they seemed faint and very far away. I was in the middle of the street by the time I caught the saucer. It was then that I could hear my friend’s mom screaming for me to come back. I turned and looked up the street. You won’t believe it, but there was the gray car of my dream speeding toward me. There was no time to get out of the way, so I held my arms out in front just like I did in my dream. I could hear the tires squealing in response to the locked brakes. The car hit my hands as it slid to a stop. Unlike the dream, it was evident that it was not my power that stopped the car. I realized that I was not all-powerful. The car had knocked me backward even though it just barely touched me. I watched the front of the car rock back and forth in reaction to the sudden stop. I saw my own hands against the hood of the gray car just like in my dream. I stood there trembling as I realized that I had just looked death square in the eye.

My friend’s mother came over screaming at me to listen to her. Somehow her voice grew faint again as I wondered about the dream that had become a reality. How it could be? Why were the real life events so accurate but lacked the feelings of power and strength that I had in the dream? Something stopped that car, but it was not me. I did not know what to think about this when it happened. As fast as the car was moving, I was very surprised that it stopped so quickly.

Was it possible that something stopped the car that I did not understand? Was it possible that this something also tried to protect me from the situation in the first place? Or was it a notice to me that something was here to protect me and nothing could harm or hurt me? Well, being like many young boys, I spent about five minutes thinking about it before I filed it in the back of my mind where it was not thought about again for quite a long time.

PREMONITION OF AN AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT

My mom and dad would take us to visit my aunt’s family from time to time. We looked forward to these trips because we got to play with cousins our age. Their house was about an hour’s drive across town. We were driving home late at night after one of our visits. I was quite tired and trying to get some sleep in the back seat.

I had my head propped up against the interior on the driver’s side.

Just as I started to doze off, I awoke with a start. I sensed that a car was about to crash into us at the precise point where my head was resting. Thinking that I was being silly, I ignored the sensation and tried to go back to sleep. I experienced the same thing several times before I told my mother about it. She reaffirmed that I was in fact being silly and recommended that I dismiss it from my mind and try to go back to sleep. So, I made another attempt to suppress my fear and get some sleep.

However, I could not stop the urge to pull my head away from the car. Just as I foretold, an auto came crashing into the side of us. The point of impact was exactly where my head had been resting just a second before. The accident was minor, and no one was hurt. I had to wonder about the outcome if I had not pulled my head away at the last second. The jolt of the collision was substantial. So, who knows what had been avoided. I suppose I could have sustained major injury to my head or neck. In this case, I heeded the warning and made the right choice. Still, I wondered about where these warnings were coming from and why.

A BRICK WALL

When I was about ten years old, I had a dream where I came to a red brick wall that blocked my path. In the dream, I was very frustrated. I searched for a way through or around the wall but could find none. I searched along the base of the wall in one direction and found only a dead end. Then, I searched for a way around the other side only to find another blind alley. I contemplated how I might be able to go over the wall. But, I could not find a way over it either. In my dream, I just kept searching and searching, over and over again for a way past the wall, but I found none. I had the dream multiple times over the course of several months. I had no idea about the reason for the dream. Often, the dream would last most of the night. It ended when I awoke, still trying to find a way to the other side.

One evening I joined up with some of the kids in the neighborhood who were just hanging out down the street. Interestingly, some of these kids were the ones who had the great laugh on me in the bogeyman story. An exception was that one of the boys had an older brother who was present. We were just standing around and talking about various things when the older brother suggested that we all go down to Hastings Street.

I was the youngest one there and had no idea what Hastings Street was all about or why anyone might want to go there. Much later in life I found out that it was one of the worst areas in Detroit. Lawlessness and crime were commonplace on Hastings Street. You could say that I had no idea what was in store. The other boys all wanted to go. So, I jumped in the older brother’s car for what I thought would be a nice ride. As we drove along, the older brother started to take big gulps from a bottle of vodka that he had stashed under the driver’s seat. It seemed that in no time at all he was quite drunk. In fact, by the time we got to Hastings Street he was a sloppy, goofy drunk.

I was in the back seat between two of the other boys. As we cruised very slowly down Hastings Street, I was looking out through the car windows. I saw large groups of people walking and hanging out on the street. There were women in fancy clothes standing on the street corners and under streetlights. There were bars with their doors propped open and loud music spewed out. I remember that we passed a police car that had four officers in it. One of the kids said it was the big four. They had a reputation for toughness. Suddenly, the totally sauced driver started to sing in a very loud voice, “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.” Being very amused with himself, he let go with a loud belly laugh. Then he rolled down his window, hung his head out and sang again, “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes” with another belly laugh. I remember being embarrassed at first. But after a while, I started to become quite fearful. This activity seemed to be very stupid since this was the wrong part of town for a white boy to be saying such things. There seemed to be no way to stop him either. He just kept repeating his homemade song and laughing over and over again. The other boys were shouting at him and telling him to shut up but he continued. The next thing I knew, the boys threatened him with violence and promised that they would all jump on him and beat him if he didn’t stop. All of this took place while the car was at a red light. We were nervously waiting for it to change to green so that we could move again. It was after the light changed and we had started across the intersection that I saw it through the windshield.

A chill went down my spine as the car started to slow down. Before us was a red brick wall that blocked the entire roadway. It was the red brick wall of my dream, the one that I could not find a way around. In reality, there was obviously no way out either. We made a u-turn in the road. The car had a manual transmission, and the driver was having difficulty in making the turn. As we were about halfway through the turning process, I could see men coming out of the buildings and out of the alleys in front of the wall. More than that, they had baseball bats, lumber, and tire irons in their hands. They seemed to be coming at us from several directions.

In the meantime, our drunk driver stalled the car just after he had turned it around in the direction back to the light. He quickly attempted the starter. Although the engine turned over and over again, it did not start. The car groaned, and the starter began to slow down, indicating the battery was losing power. All the while, the groups of angry men were getting closer. Then a horrible thought came to me—it was possible we could all die here and no one would ever know what happened. Just when everyone was about to give up hope, the engine started, seemingly on its last turn. Our driver, now very sober, dropped the shifter down into first gear and we peeled away.

The angry men were now running alongside and behind the car. Several of them were slamming the car with their weapons. The sounds of the attack were quite horrific. The car finally started pulling away from the mob. I am sure that if we had been there just a few more seconds, our fate would have met an unpleasant end. In looking back at this incident, I know that the dream of the brick wall was another warning from God. We must always be careful of the decisions and choices we make, even when we make them out of innocence.

A DAY OF TRAGEDY

Then something really extraordinary happened to me just after I was out of high school. I was still living at home with my mom and dad and was delivering pizzas at night for a living. I did not have a car, so I walked to work every day at about four o’clock in the afternoon and back home around midnight on weeknights and two in the morning on the weekends. One November night while I was walking home alone, I felt a big emptiness inside. It is difficult for me to explain. But, there was a guilty feeling down in my gut. I had experienced these feelings before but I only got them when I did something very wrong to someone. That was not the case here. This was a much larger emptiness than I had ever felt. It was like an enormous injustice had been done.

When I got home from work that night, I remember being exhausted. I went straight upstairs to my room and went to bed. It was then that a phenomenal thing began to happen. As I was dozing off to sleep, I suddenly awoke with a sensation that my legs were floating off the bed and into the air. I was quite startled, and I sat up in bed and touched my hands to my legs to ensure that, yes, they were still there. I rationalized that this must have been part of a dream. I decided to ignore the floating sensation and go back to sleep. So, I bedded down a second time, intent on getting some desperately needed sleep. I dozed off again, only to wake up with another strange sensation. My entire body had been lifted two feet above my bed. I sat up immediately, found myself in bed and thought, this is crazy. You are extremely tired, and you are probably catching a cold or flu. You need to ignore these weird sensations and get some badly needed sleep. So, I made a third attempt to sleep. This time when I started floating up off my bed, I just ignored it hoping that it would go away. I was very determined not to be deprived of any more sleep.

But, the sensations did not go away. My body not only floated up off my bed, it passed effortlessly through the roof of the house as well. My ascent continued rapidly into the sky and passed through a cloud layer. Eventually, I stopped traveling straight up and started moving in a direction parallel to the earth. I continued on this course for quite some time. As I traveled through the night sky, I felt the air getting warmer. This meant to me that I must have been traveling south. I started descending, and I saw a city full of lights ahead of me. I continued a gradual descent until I arrived at the side of a tall brick building. It had no windows that I could see from my perspective. In addition, I saw streetlights arrayed in a straight line in front of the building and parallel to the curb. Each streetlight was made of metal and curled over at the top. They were similar in shape to a candy cane.

Then, I saw a woman standing beneath one of the street lights. Her head was down, and she was sobbing uncontrollably. As I hovered above her I watched her. I felt great compassion for this grieving person. I started to wonder what was wrong and if I might be able to help her in some way. I also wondered if she could hear me if I spoke. Then, I wondered if I could even speak. I finally decided that I had nothing to lose and gave it a try but nothing came out. It was as if there was not enough air for my voice to speak. I contemplated abandoning my effort to speak but decided instead to try in a louder voice. This time it worked and I said to her, “What is wrong lady?” and watched. She did not respond but kept sobbing as if she did not hear me. Then, I thought perhaps I was right; she will not be able to hear me. I tried again anyway, this time speaking in an even louder voice, “Why are you crying1?”

To my surprise she answered without looking up, “Why, don’t you know? Don’t you know that today they killed the president?”

At that instant, I was transported back to my bed. I was sitting straight up and was thoroughly soaked in sweat. My heart was pounding so hard that I thought it might explode. I was breathing like I had just run a four-minute mile. I looked around my room only to find that I was alone in the dark. I sat there for several minutes waiting for my body to wind back down to normal. I did not know what to think about this encounter. The thought of the president being killed seemed to me a very improbable thing. I admired President Kennedy, and I believed that he was doing good things for our country. So, I guess that this was something that I did not want to accept. Once again, I rationalized that although this outof-body experience seemed very realistic it, nevertheless, must have been a bad dream so I went back to sleep.

When I got up the next morning, I still felt weird even though I had slept in because of the hard night. I found myself at home alone. Dad was more than likely working, and mom was probably out shopping. I went to the kitchen for some food to eat. Eventually, I started my walk to work. I felt displaced, like I was somewhere I was not supposed to be. Things just did not seem normal. For one thing, it was an overcast and gloomy day. The typically busy street that I walked along had almost no traffic. Where were all of the cars and people? There were no sounds along the way; no birds chirping, no horns blowing. There was nothing. I wondered if everything had died. Then I had that empty, hollow feeling inside of me again.

When I arrived at the pizza place I entered through the back door, which led to the kitchen. The owner was there watching television as I entered the room. He seemed extremely angry as he shouted at me, “Do you know what those crazy people did today?” I thought to myself, oh no. For it dawned on me that I certainly did know. Being horror stricken, I muttered, “They killed the president.” His mood turned quizzical. He asked me how I knew because it had just been announced on television. I just shook my head and did not answer him. I was thinking that I could never explain what had happened to me. I do not know why or how this happened to me. Was there something that I could have done to change things? I don’t think so. Perhaps just telling the story is sufficient. Or, perhaps there is more to this than meets the eye. After all, the woman under the street light said, “They killed the president.”

To this day I believe that the American people have been deceived by our government about many things that went on during this time. I should also state that I have many other concerns about our government, and that many of them are addressed in the vision statement that will be presented to you later in the book.

TWILIGHT ZONE EXPERIENCES

While growing up I enjoyed watching a television program called The Twilight Zone. It often presented stories of supposedly real life experiences that could not be explained by the laws of physics. Certainly, some of the stories I have shared would qualify. Here are others that occurred as I entered adulthood.

A LIGHT IN THE NIGHT SKY AT FORT ORD

I was drafted into the army in July 1965 and went through basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. After this I was assigned to an infantry training unit at Fort Ord, California where I entered the Advanced Infantry Training (AIT) program. The events that I will now describe took place near the end of my training program, around November 1965.

While in the AIT program, I learned that everything was done in a pre-specified order and plan. Typically, we would get up between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m., exercise and have breakfast prior to commuting to our daily training facility. This training took place at a different location each day depending on what we had to learn. Some days we would march twenty miles to the training site, and other days we would be transported by truck. If we marched out, we were trucked back—if we were driven out, we marched back. Most training days contained both technical and applied aspects. The training component taught us what we would have to do. This was followed by practical hands-on exercises to gain experience. For example, we may get a lecture and demonstration on how to throw hand grenades. This would be followed by real life exercises on a range. After the training and exercises, we would return to our home base. We had physical exercise again prior to having dinner in the mess hall. By this time, it would be getting dark outside and night would engulf us.

This particular day was Wednesday, our laundry day. So, after dinner all of us would go down to the quartermaster to drop off our laundry and pick up what we had turned in the previous week. I had returned to the billet, stored my clean clothes in my locker, and hung my dirty clothes bag on the end of my bunk. Almost everyone in our unit was going through this same process.

Just then, I looked through the window and noticed that the street outside of our building was lit up as if a high-powered spotlight was shining on it. As I watched from inside, the light became continuously brighter—like it was the middle of the day. It was then that I noticed beams of light streaming through the window. They were so bright that I could see dust particles floating in the air. I looked out through the window again and saw other soldiers on the street pointing their fingers toward the sky. Since I was not able to see anything, I decided to go outside and take a look for myself. I walked to an exit door at the other end of the building. There were a number of GI’s standing around the doorway, socializing. I said, “Excuse me guys, I would like to go outside and see what is going on.” But, they just kept talking and no one moved. It was as if they didn’t hear me. I decided that they were just reoccupied in conversation. I started to push my way through. When I moved forward and pressed my weight directly into the first guy, I was shocked that I could not get him to budge an inch. I would have had better luck pressing against the building we occupied.

I was so overwhelmed with this person’s strength that I took a step back to see if I could recognize him. When I looked at him all I noticed was that he was not moving. It was as if he was frozen stiff2 like a mannequin. This shocked me. I looked at his face. His eyes did not blink, but stared in one fixed direction. Then, I noticed that everything was quiet. I turned my head and took a look around the room. I looked at the other guys who were standing around the door and talking just a few seconds ago. They were frozen as well. I looked back down to the far end of the billet. Everyone was motionless. It was as if time had stopped. It was like the freeze frame feature of a DVD that allows the viewer to see a single frame of a movie as if it were a picture, capturing people in mid-stride.

Suddenly, everything started moving again, just like someone pressed the play button. Talking resumed in mid-sentence. Everyone picked up where they had left off. I eventually worked my way to the door and outside. The bright light had retreated back into the sky and the light of day had turned back to darkness. Only a faint glow remained in the sky and it quickly vanished. I watched until it eventually faded away. It appeared to me that the bright light was moving straight up until it got so far away that it disappeared completely.

I asked one of the guys standing on the porch what he had seen. He said that a glaring light had appeared in the sky and that it had come straight down toward earth, getting brighter as it drew closer. Then it had stopped moving and stayed suspended in motion for a while. When it began moving again it went straight up into the sky the way it came down.

I am perplexed that this happened without my knowing the reason. Why was I not frozen like the others? Or, was I? What could this have been and why? One thing that I do know is that a life-changing event occurred just a day or so later.

I was called into the company commander’s office. This was very unusual because for someone of my low rank it usually meant that you were in serious trouble. When I went into his office, he asked me if I knew that I had a Type 2 profile on my eyes. “Sir, I do not even know what a Type 2 profile means,” I responded. He explained that it meant that I was legally blind without glasses. As a result, I was unsuitable for combat and could not serve in an infantry unit. When he told me this I remember thinking to myself, after eight weeks of this training they somehow just figured this out? After all, my eyes were tested when I first entered the service.

But this is how the army seemed to operate. At the time, it never dawned on me that I had just received a huge break. After all, the rest of my unit would most likely to be assigned to an infantry battalion in a few days and then be sent directly to Vietnam. But, I never got to find out. We parted ways that very day, and I never heard from any of them again. So, certainly my fate could have been quite different.

I would never have thought any more about this event if it had not been for its inclusion into this book. In fact, I had never before made the potential connection between the events of that night and my removal from the infantry unit. Both events were very unusual and occurred within just a few days of each other. The first seemed like an angel must have come down from heaven, but for what purpose? The second event was the unexpected discovery that I could not serve in an infantry unit—one has to wonder why it occurred when it did. It is the time proximity that leads me to wonder if the two events could have been connected. In most cases this type of association would be classified as a coincidence. It is only after reviewing all the other pieces of this book that I began to see the big picture. By connecting all the circumstantial evidence, it appears that God had been intervening and protecting me all along. So why not in this case as well?

For example, remember the prior section that covered my dreams of being like a Superman, the premonition of the automobile accident, and the warning of the brick wall? These were all warnings but they were also followed by interventions. In one case the speeding car stopped, in another I pulled my head away, and in the third, the stalled car started on the last turn of the starter. You will learn of more events of this type as you continue through the book.

A GUARDIAN ANGEL

I was progressing very well in a computer programming career in the mid 1970’s. I had a good job working for a large Fortune 500 company. It was headquartered in New York City, but I was working at its technology office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Because many of the departments that I supported were in the headquarters building, I had to travel to Manhattan quite frequently to meet with business associates. On one of these trips, I had arrived at La Guardia Airport, deplaned, and was walking down the concourse toward the baggage claim area. As I walked along, I could not help but notice that there was quite an argument going on between a couple behind me. They were shouting at each other. I turned to look back. One was a very attractive young woman and the other was either her boyfriend or husband. They were shouting so loud that everyone was turning around to look. Eventually, the woman broke off the argument. She said, “That’s it, we are through.” She stormed away from the man, walking off at an extremely fast pace, leaving him behind.

I turned around and started walking toward the exit but was slowed by the heavy bag that I had carried on the plane. I could hear her heels clicking on the airport floor as she was catching up with me from behind. As she passed me, she gave me a look with an inviting smile and motioned with her head in a gesture that said, in effect, follow me. She walked past me at a rapid pace and made a right turn at the concourse intersection, toward the baggage claim area. I had no checked luggage and had planned to go straight to the taxi stand.

But, I stopped for a moment at the intersection of the concourses and watched her walk very energetically toward the baggage claim area. Just then, I noticed there was a man standing right in front of me, directly in the path I had planned to take toward the taxi stand. He surprised me because I did not see him coming in my direction. He said, “Hello, Joe.” He surprised me again because even though I looked at him closely, I did not recognize him. He was moderately tall and thin, wore a trench coat over a suit with a vest and tie. He held a leather briefcase in his right hand. Being puzzled I asked, “Do I know you?” His response was not what I expected either. He simply said, “You don’t know me?” in a questioning voice. Well, I became a bit irritated because this guy had put me on the spot. He could have just said I am Fred or whatever and we met… Feeling I had been had in a game of cat and mouse I curtly blurted out, “Who are you?” There was no immediate reply.

While I was waiting for an answer, I turned toward the baggage claim to see the woman pick up her bag, and the man rejoin her and reengage in the argument as they headed for the exit. I had only turned away from the man in front of me for a brief moment. But, when I turned back he was gone. I looked down the corridor in each direction but he had simply disappeared. The corridor was so big that it did not seem possible that he could have walked to any location without my seeing him. It was not like I could have lost him in a crowd, because there were just not that many people around at the time. In addition, there were no places to quickly turn into where I could have missed him. He had just vanished into thin air. Who was this person who knew my name? Why would he have fled after having taken the time to stop and talk to me? Was someone trying to protect me from making a very stupid decision again? It did not dawn on me then that this might be the case. Only after putting all of these incidents together in this book did I realize that someone had been protecting me all the time.

SIGNIFICANCE TO THE VISION

This chapter presents a clear communication that God was warning me of danger and protecting me from harm. What started out as a nice way for the author to introduce himself to the reader became very much more. As strange as it may seem, this chapter uncovers a solid foundational base for the vision. The following affirmations support this foundation.

● We have a heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us.

● If we put all of our trust in Him, He will protect us from all harm.

● He is an all powerful and all knowing God who will use His capabilities to the benefit of His children.

● There are misguided people in the world that will attempt to deceive us and destroy our creditability.

● Our spiritual discernment and choices in life are critical to our overall welfare and our relationship with God.

● The devil is real and that he hates us and seeks to destroy our potential in this life.

But I was not paying attention to any of this. I made a choice to disbelieve what God had shown me, and God was going to let me experience the truth for myself.

1. John 20:13 Then they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”

2. Matthew 28:2 – 4 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.