The Dream!!!

I suppose you are thinking.....what is up with the title of this blog? Well...... this is the beginning of "Our Journey". Really, the journey started years ago, this was the main pivotal point. The point that Heavenly Father used to alert Donna.... I was ready. :)
I came to work one afternoon in May, all excited!!! I couldn't wait to tell Donna & April of my dream. I have really bizarre dreams. Dreams that are so vivid at times, I cannot wake from them & when I do.... I can't distinguish reality from dream land. Weird.... yeah, I know.... but that is how it works for me.
So...Donna & April come to the desk, to see what is going on for the day & I say..."Donna, I had the most bizarre dream....I HAVE to tell you about it!!!!"
So I start to tell Donna I dreamt that I went to hell!!!!! But it wasn't the scary, fiery, burning, bugs eating your flesh, monster's tormenting you kind of hell. Oh & I was there.... visiting.... I wasn't there to stay.....Anyway..... this place, hell.... that I was in was dark and cold & it was all dark stone. It was an eery place. Nothing there to get me, just the kind of sick in your stomach kind of place that you don't want to be.
This is where the picture of the Dome on the Rock in Jerusalem comes into play. These pic's are so similar to my dream. I was telling David what the inside of the building & the rooms looked like. About 2 weeks later, he was watching something on the History Channel & they were talking about this dome, Temple, in Jerusalem. So, he pulled it up on the computer for me, while I was at work & here it is!!!! My dream!!! When I was reading about this dome, I read that some believe that this stone at the bottom level cannot be removed because it holds back hell. They believe this is the entrance to the center of the earth, the entrance to hell. Hmmmmm?!!!
So, anyway, I am in hell & I look up & there are these levels. I can see them. There are 3 of them. So, I go up to the next level. My mom was there.
My mom was in this room. It was about a 6x6 room. Big enough for a bed to fit at the back of the room, from wall to wall. So, if you came in the door & look straight ahead... there would be the side view of the bed. The head of the bed would have been on the right wall & and the foot of the bed on the left wall. There was a little tiny square night stand with a small plain lamp on it. That was all that was in this room. No pictures, no windows, NOTHING. Just the sparse furnishings & my mother.....oh & a hand mirror. The room was dark & dingy. The door on the room was open. There were no bars or locks on the doors. All of the rooms were like this.
Ok, here comes another Dome picture into play. The outer hall of the 1st level (and of all the levels) was round. There was a railing all around the farthest point out, looking down into or up into the center of this circle. The center was all open.
There were arches, just like in the pictures. And in each of these arch openings was a little like hall w/ a door which lead to a room, all on the 1st level were like my mom's room.
Ok... so back to my mom's room.
I walked into my mom's room. She was sitting on the edge of the bed (the bed was a smal twin bed), 1 leg under her & the other leg on the floor. She was sitting with her back to the foot board & she was facing the head board. By her left knee (the knee that was bent under her) she had a lt. blue hand held mirror.
She was crying...sobbing terribly & she was saying..."I'm so ugly.....I'm so ugly......" She was sobbing into her hands and her hair was hiding her face & her hands, like a veil. My my mom is United Pentecostal & she has very very very long hair.
I said "Mom, it's me Cheryl. Mom, you're not ugly. Mom, you're beautiful!!" Then she picked up the mirror by her left knee & looked into it. This mirror distorted her image. Her image got all grotesque & awful. She put the mirror down & started sobbing into her hands again...."I'm so ugly....I'm so ugly...." No matter how much I told her that she was beautiful & that the mirror was lying to her, she believed the mirror, she didn't believe me.
I left my mom's room & went to the rail. I was looking up into the center. I was figuring out how I was going up to the 2nd level. And then how I was getting up to the 3rd level.
There was this desperation as I started to climb off of the first level. I HAD to get to the top level. I HAD to get to the 3rd level.
So....I continue telling Donna....Hell is a perception of the mind. Our mind is our hell.
No matter what I told my mom, she kept listening to the mirror. Looking to the mirror to tell her the truth, when in fact it was lying. There was nothing keeping my mom in that room. No locks, no bars. She was being held captive there in that cold, dark, dingy tiny, lonely room by her own mind.
Donna just looked at me & said "Wow". That was it.
Now they say hindsight is 20/20. I have since, knowing about the 3 levels of the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father, told Donna that had somebody said that to me, knowing what I know now about the Mormon church, I would have peed my pants!!!! I would have been screaming & jumping around & totally out of control. Somebody asked me... and if Donna had done that what would you have done....Truth is...... I probably would have run the other way. :)
Then Donna had to go on her trip out West. And about 2 weeks later, I got my first visit from the Elder's. I will blog about that visit another time.
Poor Elder Jensen & Elder Pratt!!!! I'm surprised they didn't RUN as fast as they could, once they met my head bobbin', waggin' finger at them. Praise God they loved me anyway!!!! :)