Thursday, February 12, 2015

An Out-of-Body Experience – January 10, 2015


The living room and dining area are filled with activity. Which kid is on dish duty? Has our Rottweiler, Sonya, been fed? It’s seven PM and Sarah, having just gotten back from her friend’s house, hasn’t eaten dinner yet. I work as quickly as possible getting the family taken care of, wondering how best to approach Tony.

“Hey, honey,” I say, deciding that the direct route is probably the best, “my hands have been tingling all the way up to my shoulders most of the day. I think God is calling me to pray or something. This is why I suggested renting a family movie: I really think I need to spend some time with God. Would you mind terribly if I didn’t watch the movie with you guys?”

“Not at all,” he gives me a hug, “go, pray or whatever.”

In less than fifteen minutes, everything is squared away and I head downstairs for some one-on-one time with the Big Guy. To cover the sound of the movie the family is watching, I play some worship music. The presence of the Lord increases, the tingling becomes heavier as I spend time singing along to the songs.

The hours fly by: at ten o’clock I am just ready to settle in for some meditation and prayer. “Is this it? Is this the call to go to Heaven?” What else can I think with the deliberate call from the Lord all day long?

Caressing, tingling power cascades down from my head to my waist as I begin thanking the Lord for all He has done, worshiping Him as God, King, and Brother. “I’m ready…” I think, “Lord, I want to be where You are.

With all my heart and soul I focus on wanting to be in Heaven with Him, pushing toward that goal for all I’m worth. A surge of…something – power, energy – pushes outward from my breast-bone. My torso heats up as if I have a high fever or I’ve ran a marathon. The muscles where my rib-cage meet, the upper part of the abs, tense like I am doing a crunch. Each surge becomes stronger than the last until it feels like my shoulder blades are tensing and I am rising an inch or two off the mattress.

Part of my mind registers Tony entering the room. Quietly, he takes his place beside me. His arm rests on my elbow. All of this occurs in a tiny fraction of my mind while the rest of me focuses on joining my Lord in Heaven.

The surges become stronger. Energy pushes outward as my body tenses, then a second later my muscles relax: tense and rise, relax, tense and rise, relax, in a rhythmic pattern.

"What must Tony be thinking of all this rising and relaxing?" I think." I hope it doesn’t freak him out…"

The train of thought causes me to lose focus on the world beyond. The surges of energy become less, gradually fading altogether. Glancing at the clock I see it is only 11 pm. “Tony, are you still awake,” I ask, since it is a Saturday night. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure,” my husband mumbles. “What’s up?”

“When your arm was resting on my elbow, did you feel me tensing and relaxing?” I ask.

“I didn’t feel you move at all,” he tells me. “You were perfectly still.”
My heart leaps in my chest. “If I wasn’t moving…” I mutter, thoughts flying lightning fast through my mind. “This means it wasn’t my body rising! My spirit and my soul must have been moving and I perceived it as my body moving!”

I squeeze Tony’s arm, “This must be why God had me wait until you were coming to bed to meditate. He wanted to teach me something…and, Honey, He used you to do it!”

Unsatisfied with a mere theory, I ask, “Will you lay like you were? I want to test this concept.” When Tony is in position, I tense my shoulder blades enough that I rise slightly off the bed, then relax back into place. It feels quite different than what I was experiencing during my meditation. I cannot seem to make the inner core of the muscles where my rib-cage meet tense like it was doing. It is an outer muscle thing, I can’t affect the inner muscles. After a few tries, I am convinced that the back and shoulder muscles are bringing me off the bed half an inch. “Did you feel that?” I ask.

“Yes, of course. You were moving,” he replies.

“If I wasn’t moving before, that means it really was my soul and spirit leaving my body!” I exclaim. “It must be why I affect the inner muscles like I was during meditation. Perhaps it wasn’t muscles at all – it was my spirit.”

I give it another try, but the pushing is exhausting. My concentration wavers, and though I am able to begin, I cannot sustain the effort for any length of time. Sometime between midnight and one AM, I doze off.



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