Ship to the Storm

Approximately 11/25/07

My wife and I are on a white ship.  This is a sturdy ship, which could be brought into the antarctic ocean.  It is designed like a research vessel, not too large, but very sea worthy.  My wife and I are on the deck, the ocean is rough, but no waves are coming over the deck.  We are moving on the front deck when suddenly a klaxon alarm starts sounding.  There is a red flashing light up high to the left of us.  When the alarm starts my wife and I move forward to a horizontal bar which is approximately 5 inches in diameter and is mounted to the deck at either end by similar bars.  When we reach the bar, I wrap my right arm around a cotton rope which is tied to the bar, then put my left arm around my wife.  This is where we are going to ride out the storm.  A large wave is before us and we crest it.  As we come off the crest, my vision is pulled up and off of the deck, and I see the ocean in front of us from a 3rd person perspective.  I rise a few hundred feet off of the deck, and what I see in front of us defies explanation.  I expect to see a storm, even a very bad storm.  Instead, the ocean is simply missing in front of us.  I see a large bowl shaped section of the ocean missing, it appears to be a couple miles across and over a mile deep.  Large 50 foot waves are moving laterally to the sides of the bowl.  The turmoil in this part of the ocean is so hard to describe, I contemplated writing up this part of the dream for days but still could not come up with a description of what is in front of us.

As we passed over the lip of this water bowl, my vision returned back to the deck of the ship.  We quickly gained speed as we came down the side of the bowl.  About 1/3rd of the way down, I turn to my wife and say “I think we are in trouble”.  It was not a fearful moment, I just recognized that if we keep speeding up the ship will simply break apart when we reach the bottom.

About 1/2 down the side, the ocean begins to change.  The water is quickly becoming colder and slushy, and the added friction against the ship hull starts to slow down the ship.  By the time we near the bottom of the bowl, the water is very thick and slushy.  I know at this point that the ship will survive.  However, when reaching the bottom the entire ship slips as if in slow motion under the ocean. 

I am so shocked that I wake, or kind of wake.  Everything seems to slow down, I see a large bubble rise to the surface of the ocean, I know that the ship will come back up.  The question is how to survive.  I consider that the water is so cold that when the ship comes back up, we could be resuscitated.  Then I think, “no, perhaps we should have taken medication before the ship goes under the water”.  As I truly start to wake, I realize that the only way to survive is to be inside the ship, and I see a chamber inside the ship.  It is a wood paneled sitting room.  The atmosphere inside the ship is calm.

Finally, I realize that this is a symbolic “YE in ME” moment.  Being associated with Christ will not be enough for my family to survive this crisis.  Only by being integrated and grafted into the true vine will there be sufficient grace to survive this crisis.