Stories & Inspirations


Stories And Inspirations March 29, 2009

Our church council meets on the second Tuesday of each month (our Council is like a “board of elders” ). The meeting was over, and one of the council members asked if she could speak to me. At the time I didn’t know that Betty had prophetic gifting, but I was soon to find out! She asked me if I had applied for the pastoral position, to which I told her yes, that I had, but I had not told anyone. Then she told me that she needed to share something with me. It was a recurring dream that she had been given and God wanted her to share it with me. I also asked her to write it down, which she did and emailed to me so I had it in written form (for such a time as this!).
Email from Betty, sent June 17, 2003 ~ Subject: Women at the Well Dream
Betty writes “I can’t even begin to tell you how honored I feel that my dream meant something to you. I will attempt to describe it for you: You were wearing a blue robe with long sleeves. It had a tie at the waist, but tied to the back like a dress. You didn’t speak, but your expression was calm and searching, and you were very focused on seeking need and meeting it.
You went to the well (which had a few other women around it too, but they didn’t interact with you) and dipped in your dipper. You then proceeded to seek out a woman who needed a drink and you went to her with your dipper. I wondered why you didn’t use a bucket, as this would be more efficient. It came to me that you were meeting people’s needs individually, and that what one person may require from the well is very different than what the next person would need. You were indeed honoring people by quenching their thirst on an individual basis rather than being efficient and thereby risking missing needs. This use of the dipper also ensured frequent trips to the well for yourself. It also seemed that the women you were ministering to couldn’t quite make it to the well themselves, and required you to intercede on their behalf. Perhaps that is why you didn’t interact with the women who were already at the well (actually, it was not that you didn’t wish to interact with them, but I had a sense that they were already engaged amongst themselves and it would have been an interruption if someone had approached them). You seemed focused on going where the need was, rather than where a need was already being met.
This dream struck me as quite significant, and I experienced an ongoing nudging: that I needed to share it with you.”
The night that Betty told me in person, once she was done I asked Betty if she knew anything about my story, to which she said she did not. I told her what God had entrusted me with ~ His Vision for women! Women Refreshed at the Well! Her eyes filled up with tears, and I felt like the hair was standing up on my arm. To this day, as I recall that story, I still get that feeling!
Well, little did I know that God had even more in store for me! Later that week, on Thursday morning, I received a phone call from another woman in our church named Ellie. Ellie also had prophetic gifting, which included receiving visions. I remember asking her that morning, how the visions happened. Ellie told me that when she had a sense that she needed to pray for someone, she also would ask God if He “had something that He wanted to give her, to give to the person that He laid on her heart”. And then the vision would roll before her eyes like a movie clip. She is fully awake, but seeing something that God gives her. After Ellie shared her vision with me, I asked her if she could give it to me in writing. Here is what Ellie gave to me:
“I saw you standing outside looking up at a night sky. You were alone looking at one star that kept getting brighter and brighter. The start suddenly shot out of the sky like a comet and swirled around you. You kept dodging the comet, but showed no fear. Suddenly the comet shot away and you began to follow it into a dark tunnel. You lit a match because it was pitch black and the light seemed to comfort you. Moving ahead in the darkness a train appeared and you stepped aside just in time. The tunnel came to an end and train tracks continued on far as you could see. To the right, and left, were sharp drops so you had no choice but to follow them. You were fearful of another train coming, (thinking) where would you step out of its path. Suddenly a stair case appeared on the left side of the tracks so you began to descent, relieved to leave the tracks. You saw a hut ahead that was black and burned, though whole. You walked past it into darkness. Hope this blesses you Joy.”
Now this vision was strange. Betty’s dream seemed very straightforward. Ellie’s vision had me wondering. Ellie told me that she did not have the gift of interpretation. I asked her what her “gut feeling” was, to which she told me that she felt this vision had to do with my work at church, and directly related to WRATW. She encouraged me not to lose sight of what God had called me to with the Vision. Even though she said the work at church was very good. This was an encouragement to me to keep moving forward with the Vision. Don’t lose sight!

John 4

The Woman at the Well
Jesus realized that the Pharisees were keeping count of the baptisms that he and John performed (although his disciples, not Jesus, did the actual baptizing). They had posted the score that Jesus was ahead, turning him and John into rivals in the eyes of the people. So Jesus left the Judean countryside and went back to Galilee.
To get there, he had to pass through Samaria. He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon.
A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)
The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)
Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”
The woman said, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this ‘living water’? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?”
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”
The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”
He said, “Go call your husband and then come back.”
“I have no husband,” she said.
“That’s nicely put: ‘I have no husband.’ You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re living with now isn’t even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.”
“Oh, so you’re a prophet! Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?”
“Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God’s way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.
“It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”
The woman said, “I don’t know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When he arrives, we’ll get the whole story.”
“I am he,” said Jesus. “You don’t have to wait any longer or look any further.”
Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked. They couldn’t believe he was talking with that kind of a woman. No one said what they were all thinking, but their faces showed it.
The woman took the hint and left. In her confusion she left her water pot. Back in the village she told the people, “Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?” And they went out to see for themselves.