- Jan 7, 2025
- 16
- 20
- 28
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
I have very little free time that I can spend drawing, so this thread will probably be updated rather infrequently.
I am fairly new to Christianity. As a child, Christian traditions and even holidays were deliberately withheld from me by my family. Of course, I still grew up in the United States, where you can absorb a lot of low level understanding through cultural osmosis. If you think about it, Christian morality and theology underpins most of Western thought throughout history. Even the explicitly atheist paths to understanding the world in the West are informed by and react to Christianity. It feels like asking a fish what water feels like. But I digress; all this to say that I had never read the Bible, and even now have not finished it yet.
A few months ago, after several years of thinking about how I wanted to understand this “water” I’ve lived my life submerged in better, a series of strange and miraculous events occurred in my life. Suddenly, I felt motivated to go to a church so that I could express my thanks somehow. I spoke with a deacon there who gave me guidance on the path to conversion as well as a guide to understanding the missal.
Shortly afterwards, I fell ill with a severe fever. On the last day of my illness, I had a strange dream:
It was a long time ago in the past. I'm not sure if in the dream I was myself or someone else. Sometimes, in dreams, I'm a completely different person than I am in the waking world, though I don't notice the difference until I wake up and see my reflection again. My dream self watched two men in soldiers’ clothes carrying a rectangular container into the mouth of a cave in the side of a hill. After two days where I waited and watched for them to come back, they returned empty-handed. A large group of people dressed like me in peasants’ clothes were waiting there and mourning, maybe hoping to go inside, but only I went in after they were sure to be gone. I didn't have any shoes on, and it was cold and dark inside. I had to feel the wall of the cave, which felt more like a long tunnel than a labyrinth. Even though my feet hurt and I became terribly hungry and thirsty, I kept walking for one day. There was no promise of food or drink further inside, but I didn't want to turn back either. At the end of the tunnel, I came across a chamber, which was fairly humble and undecorated. But inside there was a figure made of glowing light, who seemed to be looking inside the empty tomb. I couldn't make out its facial expression or details, because it was too bright to see, but when it noticed me, it seemed to be surprised to see me there. Suddenly, I felt the sensation of two invisible hands on my shoulders, pulling me backwards into the darkness, and in an instant, I was back outside with all the others, who were in the middle of a celebration. I turned to see what they were celebrating, and then I woke up on Sunday morning to find that my fever was gone.
Here is a digital drawing I did of my dream:
I searched for the general themes of my dream because it seemed strangely specific and found that it was very similar to the story of the empty tomb, which I had not read yet.
I am fairly new to Christianity. As a child, Christian traditions and even holidays were deliberately withheld from me by my family. Of course, I still grew up in the United States, where you can absorb a lot of low level understanding through cultural osmosis. If you think about it, Christian morality and theology underpins most of Western thought throughout history. Even the explicitly atheist paths to understanding the world in the West are informed by and react to Christianity. It feels like asking a fish what water feels like. But I digress; all this to say that I had never read the Bible, and even now have not finished it yet.
A few months ago, after several years of thinking about how I wanted to understand this “water” I’ve lived my life submerged in better, a series of strange and miraculous events occurred in my life. Suddenly, I felt motivated to go to a church so that I could express my thanks somehow. I spoke with a deacon there who gave me guidance on the path to conversion as well as a guide to understanding the missal.
Shortly afterwards, I fell ill with a severe fever. On the last day of my illness, I had a strange dream:
It was a long time ago in the past. I'm not sure if in the dream I was myself or someone else. Sometimes, in dreams, I'm a completely different person than I am in the waking world, though I don't notice the difference until I wake up and see my reflection again. My dream self watched two men in soldiers’ clothes carrying a rectangular container into the mouth of a cave in the side of a hill. After two days where I waited and watched for them to come back, they returned empty-handed. A large group of people dressed like me in peasants’ clothes were waiting there and mourning, maybe hoping to go inside, but only I went in after they were sure to be gone. I didn't have any shoes on, and it was cold and dark inside. I had to feel the wall of the cave, which felt more like a long tunnel than a labyrinth. Even though my feet hurt and I became terribly hungry and thirsty, I kept walking for one day. There was no promise of food or drink further inside, but I didn't want to turn back either. At the end of the tunnel, I came across a chamber, which was fairly humble and undecorated. But inside there was a figure made of glowing light, who seemed to be looking inside the empty tomb. I couldn't make out its facial expression or details, because it was too bright to see, but when it noticed me, it seemed to be surprised to see me there. Suddenly, I felt the sensation of two invisible hands on my shoulders, pulling me backwards into the darkness, and in an instant, I was back outside with all the others, who were in the middle of a celebration. I turned to see what they were celebrating, and then I woke up on Sunday morning to find that my fever was gone.
Here is a digital drawing I did of my dream:
I searched for the general themes of my dream because it seemed strangely specific and found that it was very similar to the story of the empty tomb, which I had not read yet.
