to back away from this relationship to honor God and her.
It just so happened that she hired me to be her marketing guy for her gym just a couple weeks earlier. I just got out of the military after 10 years of active duty service in the infantry and was having a really tough time finding work. After lots of prayer, I met her, got a job and now I am forced to serve myself or the Lord. I decided to be a man of faith and honor and create space for healing. Honestly, it broke my heart. So I was surprised at his response and thought to myself, what does this mean? He continued on and said to me “you are about to be blessed.” Immediately, I had some kind of understanding that I had been going through a multi year testing phase of trials and hard times. God saw good in me. He was proud of me and was rewarding me and finally going to restore me for doing my best. I doubted a little bit about passing any test given my background and thought I could’ve done better. I should have done better.
As he looked at me I just believed him. I know from my time in war what it is like to look into the eyes of pure evil. Maybe even possessed evil. I have never until this encounter looked into the eyes of pure love. The purest feeling I have ever felt was in that moment. I was still in thought about my friend when he smiled gently and said “this will be the sign.” Then I saw what looked like a black war helmet from behind with an out of focus landscape in front. There was a red feather on top of the helmet and lightly waving in the breeze. He said “you are used to seeing the red feather, instead, you will see a blue feather.” I saw him again and He said again as he smiled “you are about to be blessed” as I open my eyes. I was thinking what just happened? So naturally, I got up with an elevated heart rate and thought, I need some coffee. I obviously went to Starbucks pondering my dream and listening to worship music with an ear to ear grin. In line I was scouring the ground for a blue feather. I was thinking should I tell my friend about this crazy dream and make her back away even more than I had already pushed her? Or should I have faith that this was real and wait for the sign. After all it was a dream.
While I was waiting for my caffeine, I texted her and simply said “blue feather”. I had thought about how I honored the Lord and her by backing away. Then I was thinking, why a feather? I know the eagle represents honor to God. I paused and thought, only God could and would make a blue eagle feather as a sign of his promise. In that moment I lost doubt. I believed he would show me grace and mercy and bless me, but I was more excited to see the blue feather.
Later in the afternoon I began to research the meanings of everything that I had seen. For starters, God is a God of numbers and the date was 10- 5- 2013. In Genesis 1:20-23 on the 5th day God created the birds of the air and the fish of the sea! Okay, this has my full attention now as I spent countless hours trying to solve God’s unsolvable riddles. Imagine you were in God’s position and you told Moses, “Hey bro, I know you are used to seeing dirty chariots but I promise, instead you will see a blue mustang GT. That’s your sign man! Trust me you are gonna be blessed!” What? Who are you? Imagine the faith it would take just to say, yeah, the Lord spoke to me so...it is what it is!
Welcome to my world people. Why not? After all, my hope is secure in him right? He has done miracles for me before during my visits to the friendly, happy go lucky territory of Iraq. The bible says in Romans 12:3 that essentially each man has been given a measure of faith. So I decided to act on it as such or what is the point of having any faith at all! I continued to dive into research anyway just to quench my curiosity. Ten means completion and perfection of God’s divine order. Five means grace. Thirteen is God’s promises fulfilled. What a day to receive a dream in the presence of the Lord. Later I counted the words and the letters and the sentences that the Lord spoke to me. There were 191 letters, 52 words and 6 statements. The number 52 is apparently used in the Bible 6 times. The numerical value in the Hebrew Bible for the number 52 means Elohim, which translates to God of Israel. In His first statement, He established who He was. In His 2nd statement, He expressed concern, care and interest in my thoughts and feelings. In His 3rd statement there was assurance that I can come to Him about anything and He was excited to hear about it no matter what. His 4th statement was a declaration and a promise just for me. The 5th statement He made was the sign of His promise and with it hope for a future. In His final statement, there was a reaffirmation of the promise that He just made. The color blue represents the eternal presence of Yahweh. It is also the color of the people of Israel, God’s chosen people. In Ezekiel 1:26 the restored throne of David which will rule supreme in all the earth, is spoken of as Sapphire, which is blue. At this point I am just admiring how truly awesome He is knowing He knew I was going to start looking into this and He was going to get to laugh at me trying to solve this heavenly, open book study riddle. I prayed openly during my investigating about cluing me in just a little bit more about what “about to be blessed” means. I soon decided that it did not matter because I was already blessed to have had an encounter such as that. I did go for a walk in the park later that afternoon and just walked with God. I was secretly looking for blue feathers, blue birds, bird nests and only found bird poop with a rather curious slightly blue tint. I laughed out loud thinking, He is messing with me man! It was hot so I called it a day and went home. What a blessed and interesting encounter. Something is different at this point. I am hopeful for a future. This is the exact opposite of my feelings just one day before when I was feeling heartbroken and lonely again after doing what I knew was right in the eyes of the Lord. I still had no direction with work, no idea what to pursue and no money to spend. After this encounter, I felt like I could not have kept it to myself and began to write it down exactly as it happened. Then in the course of my writing, I decided to type it more formally which led me to what I feel is a holy spirit guided directive to share my testimony. That is why I am writing this book. I believe that through my life of pain and war and mistakes, through his grace and mercy on my life, others will come just one step closer to having a relationship with him. My life was changed the instant I realized his love for me and his plans for me. I did not understand that “feeling” completely until the dream. The great news is that he thinks the same things about you and he wants the same things for you! So fear not, because he will work all things and all situations together for the good of those who love him. Romans 8:28 You too, are about to be blessed!
The best part about all of this, is that His blessing is not what I thought it would be or even at the time, hoped it would be. He had something much better planned for my life with someone who he knew would take my breath away the moment I met her. Someone who loved him and would honor him and bring His promise to life. He had in store for me a relationship like no other just waiting on my faith to take action! But before that leap of Texas faith takes form in the context of words, we need to go back and look at the beginning to fully grasp the weight of redemption.
CHAPTER 2
10 Years Earlier
06/01/2003. The day I turned 19 years old, I arrived at Fort Benning Georgia to report for basic combat training for the U.S. Army. Back then, Fort Benning was called the home of the infantry. It is still where all infantry soldiers are sent for combat training before being shipped off to their units.
Needless to say, the terror attacks on the World Trade Center had already happened. My sole purpose for joining the Army was to go to war. It bothered me on a level that I cannot describe to have witnessed foreigners come to my homeland and kill our people. I believe that those who have the ability to do something, should do something. I also think that was a quote from a president a long time ago. My alternative motives for joining the Army were also influenced by my lack of direction and purpose in life. I was an angry teenager which made the pride of serving my country an easy sell for my recruiter. From the moment when I stepped off of the bus, I was submerged into an aggressive and hostile environment that I was strangely comfortable with. I was used to being talked down to and yelled at. So in some strange way I felt like it was the perfect place for me and that I was supposed to be there. I soon found out that I had many names. Many of which were four letter words or creative and derogatory insults that I proudly accepted. Obviously the first goal of the drill sergeants was to strip any identity away from the individual and establish their authority over us by means of intimidation, threats, and my favorite,
