Whether it was a dream or vision that God gave me in the 1990s, I cannot rightly recall. After I come out of it, I knew that God has spoken to me concerning the church here in our nation.
I saw the most beautiful old Live Oak tree with large sprawling limbs. These type of trees do not grow everywhere. You will find them in the deep South. If you ever visited Oak Allen in New Orleans, you would get a good picture of the tree that I saw. They grow along the Gulf Coast and are typical on old Southern Plantations. In fact, I have one in my front yard. Its a gorgeous tree though not as old as you might would see in the South, extending up into S. Carolina.
I walked up to the tree with intentions of carving my initials into the bark as someone might would do, drawing a heart and leaving his initials and the initials of his girlfriend. In fact, I did that in an old Magnolia tree, RS L MS (Rayford Strange loves Marie Strange). That was many years ago but to my disappointment, hurricane Camille blew it down, typical of the many storms we’ve endured through our lives.
I reached and got a key to do the work of etching. Why a key and not a knife, is significant. At the very place that my key touched the bark, that gorgeous tree broke and fell to the ground. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. I was not only surprised beyond measure….as you might would imagine, but I was also greatly confused how such a thing could have happened to such a grand, stately and beautiful old oak, a wonderful habitation of much wild life.
I stepped back from where the oak had fallen to the ground and found myself in a state of great wonder as I surveyed its gorgeous limbs and trunk, now laying on the ground.
HOW COULD SUCH A THING HAPPEN???
I continued looking at the beautiful tree now laying on the ground, leaving nothing but a jagged stump no higher than where I had only touched the bark with a key.
I then walked up to the stump and looked inside of it. It was mostly hollow and full of corruption. I then looked at the tree and could see inside the tree. It was totally corrupt deep inside of it. Though the bark looked normal, from that point inward, it was totally corrupt. Again, I was surprised beyond measure as I wondered how such a tree could be so beautiful outwardly but within the outward surface bark, it was all corrupt.
The end of the dream/vision was me standing beside this beautiful tree in surprised awe and straitened by startled wonder.
As I cam out of the dream/vision, I had an inward understanding of what I had just witnessed. I knew that I had seen the outward beauty of the church as I know it here in America. But, the key applied to the outward bark of the tree, I knew what that meant too.
So, I wrote an article that will relate to this dream/vision. I will email it to everyone on my mailing list Saturday morning, June 17th. If you do not receive it by then, its possible that I do not have your email address. Send me your email address here, and I will send it to you also.
With my Love Extended,
Brother Strange
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