In my imagination, I see Serena and myself as two little girls holding hands and skipping through a beautiful garden. I am barefoot and Serena is wearing combat boots… Today we have on cotton play dresses and our childhood crowns of bluebird feathers and dogwood flowers. Our long hair falls down our backs and we have daisies poked behind our ears. We are wearing long daisy chain necklaces, freshly woven. We skip along a white sandy path that runs along the edge of a lily pond. We giggle at the croaking frogs and point to the baby ducklings. The sun is shining bright. We stop at an apple tree for a snack and play horseshoes for a bit.

Back to skipping along the path, we come to a giant golden bird cage, glittering in the sunshine. Inside are hundreds of colorful birds, about the size of our hands. We are in love! Serena reaches for the door to pull it open so we can go inside, but when she does, all of the birds come flying out at once! Our eyes grow round as saucers and our mouths fly open. We are in big trouble now! We go inside and sit on the golden bench. Serena is thinking hard how to fix this ourselves. I can see the wheels turning in her head as her hair begins to curl. I say, “We need My Lord RIGHT NOW!”

A shimmer appears in the air and turns into a 6’4” pelican. We fall to our knees and bow our heads. Serena cries, “My Lord, we just wanted to come inside to look at the birds and they all flew away! We are so sorry!” The pelican pecks us each on the head once and it really hurts! I see the air around us begin to shimmer and suddenly we are tiny colorful birds ourselves! This is glorious! We can sing the most beautiful songs now!

We try to fly and bump into each other a few times but quickly figure it out. We fly in circles around My Lord’s head and he bats at us with his enormous beak. My Lord squawks and we know we are supposed to go look for the other birds. We fly through the garden to the other side of the lily pond where we see a colorful carpet of birds all around Father’s feet. He bedazzles us with his light. He is whistling a happy tune and tossing out handfuls of birdseed.

We land at the outer edge of the flock. Our Lord Father shines his face upon us and rumbles, “Come, my warriors!” We fly to him, perch on each shoulder and start tweeting like crazy. Father’s chuckle turns to rolling laughter that shakes the air in the garden. The little birds all begin hopping around and ruffling their feathers. When Father whistles again, the birds rise up as one to fly back to their golden cage. Our Maker whispers sweet things to us as he walks about through the trees carrying us on his shoulders.

Eventually, our Lord Guide steps out from behind a tree dressed like Robin Hood with a quiver of arrows on his back. He has short blond hair under his green cap with a feather in it, a short blond mustache, and a short blonde beard. He is breathtakingly handsome. We love him so! And he’s not very mad at us! He’s holding a large bow and two smaller bows. Father lays his right hand across his barrel chest and greets him, “My heart.” Our Lord responds with a courtly bow, “My liege.” To us he says in a commanding voice, “Come, girls. Time for lessons.”

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.

John 16:13 NLT