July, 1988
I had a dream/vision........I call it this because in many instances, the visions related in the scriptures were actually profound dreams that turned out to be prophetic in nature. I was living in a subsidized government housing project at the time.....and I dreamed one night that I was walking down the sidewalk there from my car in the parking lot to my apartment when suddenly a small black man approached me out of the dark and stabbed me to death....(ie; I was killed by him)....Instead of falling to the ground or sidewalk, I looked up to the sky.....I was searching for the Lord....I expected him to "meet" me upon my death, you see.....but all I observed were dark clouds all around....clouds and more clouds.....no Jesus, as expected.....when I awakened, I was puzzled....the dream had been very profound and I didn?t view it as just a dream....I saw it as predictive of something to come.....my death....but I wondered why I was still alive.....and why didn?t the Lord meet me as promised in the scriptures.....somehow I knew that the little "black man" was called Israel....and the clouds played an important part, too.....and I knew that the dream was metaphorical in nature......it was both metaphorical and prophetic, as things later turned out.
August, 1988
Early that month, I saw my oldest son for the first time in 5 yrs. We had been estranged for that period of time, and it thrilled me to see him at last. He brought his wife (from Korea) and his 4 mo old boy....They visited for two weeks, then went back to Colorado. I was so thrilled to see him and to meet his family at last.
For some time then, I had been experiencing a lot of upheaval in my life and a lot of things that were going on were depressing me. I felt a strong need to reach out to Jehovah and one day I asked Jehovah if He would kindly allow me to see a little of His glory, just as Moses had done, because I felt a strong need for His reassurance that he was "there" for me. After a very few days had passed, one night I had a dream/vision that I was up in the clouds......but unaware of anything, except the clouds I saw around me......the clouds were solid beneath my feet and billowed around my ankles like the movie sets you see where they use dry ice to simulate a mist that the actors and actresses are walking through. It was very peaceful there......I reached down with both hands and began scooping up some of the clouds billowing around my ankles and splashing them on my face.....like scooping up handfuls of water from the sink that you use to splash your face with. There was joy in them....I could feel it from the clouds when I splashed them on my face.....I was splashing joy on my face.
The next morning when I awakened, I puzzled over the meaning of the dream/vision. When I told my daughter about the dream/vision, she then told me that during the night, she awakened in pain because her pain medication had worn off (she had back surgery), and having left it for some unknown reason on the table by the bed where I was sleeping, she came into my room to retrieve it. She told me that when she entered the room, she noticed that my face was glowing a strange pale aqua color, but not emitting the light.....like a glow-in-the-dark toy...... and that it was more masculine in appearance and she leaned close and saw that it really was me, cause she could see my scraggly eyebrows (very sparse).....As bizarre as that might seem, she said that the room was calm....there was an atmosphere of peace and she wasn?t frightened at all by my appearance....however she felt the need not to disturb me and quietly returned to her room, taking her meds with her.
And later on, as I was walking down the sidewalk there in the project, I came across a tiny bottle of perfume. It was sample-sized, but it was made of glass or crystal and shaped just like the regular sized bottle of the same label. I knew this, because it was a perfume that I had favored in the late ?60's, pre-borg. It was "Cabochard"....a perfume that I had searched for and could no longer find anywhere. Because of this I knew it was meant for me to find it. Sort of a small token from Jehovah that he was "there" for me.
About 10 days after that "clouds of joy" dream/vision, I had another one. This time, I was also up in the clouds. The clouds around the area I was in formed the walls of a room sort of.....and the cloud "floor" was slanted, so that I was standing in the lower part of the room and facing a wall just a bit above me.....In that wall, on the left hand side was a doorway.....and standing to the right of the doorway (my left) was a man dressed in robes, like the Israelites wore. His arms were at his sides, but his right hand was turned palm out toward me, as though he knew that I am frightened of men and he would not overtly reach out to me to take my hand, but that he was there waiting for me and wanted to reach out and take me by the hand. The light beyond the doorway was brilliant.....as though the room beyond contained the sun....it was so bright, in fact, that it obscured his features so that I couldn?t tell what his face looked like....yet I could see that his hair was dark.
At this point, I awakened suddenly.....as though I had heard a noise. I lay there for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling and took mental note of some major changes in my body of which I became aware. My chest and shoulders felt as though they were very broad and deep like a man?s......my lungs were much larger and I was breathing deeply....very calm and peaceful, though.....strange, I thought.....then my attention turned back to the noise I thought had awakened me and I raised my head and looked around the room and down the hallway. The head that I raised, though my own and attached to my body, was not my physical head, for I could feel that my physical head was still lying asleep beneath me.....and yet I was wide awake and looking down the hallway and checking out sounds to see if the kids were okay and that no one was trying to break in to our apartment. No reason for alarm.....I put my head back down and went back to sleep. The next morning, I told my daughter again about the newest dream/vision. Again, my daughter had forgotten her meds in my room and came to get them during the night......this time when she entered, she said my face, while glowing the pale aqua color as before, had aged quite a bit more....she said I looked older....and more fierce....and my lips were crimson (I had no lipstick on).....overall, she commented that my countenance was that of someone she wouldn?t want to meet up with in a confrontational situation.....and yet again, she said the atmosphere in my room was one of peace.....so she returned to her room, realizing she shouldn?t disturb me again......
I was so "pumped" after having this second dream/vision/transformation and having my experiences confirmed by my daughter, who only forgot her meds in my room on those two particular occasions (strange, eh?) that I immediately went to the scriptures looking for answers as to what these things meant. As I expected, the scriptures were "speaking" to me. At random, certain scriptures almost leaped off the page at me. The ones that I can recall now.....the ones that hinted at what would happen soon were III John, 13, 14.... "I had many things to write you, yet I do not wish to go on writing you with ink and pen. But I am hoping to see you directly and we shall speak face to face."
All within the next 6 weeks, my daughter up and ran off with a busboy from the restaurant where she was working and was df?d for it, we heard of a major (#10 size) hurricane, named Gilbert situated at the mouth of the Gulf, which circumference covered the entire Gulf of Mexico....and that for the first time in my life scared the poo out of me....it went into the mountains of Mexico, so we were spared here on the Gulf Coast of Texas......and the elders came to my apartment, intending to disfellowship me for speaking about my dream/visions/transformations to a few others in the congregation....and I had to contact the governing body for intervention, having been warned through the scriptures that I should "reinforce power very much....for the one that does scattering has come up before your face."......my older sister, who had moved to Escondido, California the previous year did something entirely opposite to her nature and invited me to come out to California and stay with her, because work had fallen off here due to the strike at Mobil Oil.....By the middle of October, I?d sold or given away almost everything I owned, packed 3 suitcases for myself and my youngest son, and we flew to California......but just before we left, the elders came to our apartment, having been forced to wait for the governing body?s intervention in my dream/vision/transformation case, and told me that the governing body had written to them and told them not to take action against me, but to warn me not to ever tell anyone again about my experiences, to which I of course agreed with relief (with my fingers crossed behind my back).
The first visit from the elders to my apartment regarding their desire to disfellowship me was a corker. In the first place, it wasn?t just a coupla elders that came, but it was our Presiding Overseer and the City Overseer that came. D.H. Hall and Otha Gandy......and as they sat in my living room, the Gandy, after asking me to tell them about my experiences, cut me off and started saying in a very ridiculing mimicking effeminate voice, "I can just hear you now... "Oh, I?m of the anointed and I?m having dreams and visions, blah-blah-blah." Now...I?m not a confrontational person by nature....I try to be diplomatic and tactfully cultivate peace or at least a compromise most of the time.....but when Gandy derided me, that "alter ego" that had appeared during my transformations took over my words and actions. I could feel it there "covering" me, as I suddenly straightened in my seat and leaned slightly forward glaring at Gandy across the room and told him in a VERY strong tone, "You be careful!!" Hall became frightened then and got up and told me they had to leave and urged Gandy out the door posthaste. The circus serpent was visiting that weekend and after contacting the Governing Body and telling them my "case" and receiving their instructions, I went to the KH and located him and told him what had been advised by the Governing Body.....that the elders would hafta hold their peace and wait on the Gov. Body?s decision in the matter. And yanno what? The last meeting my daughter attended with us before she ran off and "jumped the broom" was the ministry school....it was also the first meeting after the elders came to me with the Gov. Body?s decision. I remember it was the ministry school, because the song that is sung at the beginning of the ministry school is not listed in the Kingdom ministry, but is chosen by the ministry school conductor (who had no knowledge of my experience with the elders and the decision of the Gov. Body)....we came in and took our seats at the front of the KH just as the whole congregation rose and began to sing "The Shulammite Maiden".....later you?ll learn the significance of this coincident. ;)
Frannie B