“In 1981, I had a vivid dream someone broke into my home. I remember being in the garage, putting up a load of laundry, and sharing the dream with my husband. ‘Let’s think about installing a home security system,’ he said. At 5 a.m. the next morning, I woke up to a man crouched on the side of my bed with a knife in his hand.
I was born in a Catholic hospital in 1951. It had been an easy pregnancy, so my mother was not expecting any problems when she went into labor. She opted for a natural delivery due to her severe reaction to drugs during her first birthing experience. At the hospital and in active labor, she was told the doctor could not be found. As my mother screamed in pain, the nurses held her legs together, attempting to stop my coming into the world until the arrival of the doctor. When I was finally birthed, I was placed in an incubator and put into the nursery.
A short time later, a nun walked by my incubator and saw I was a bluish color. She quickly realized I was not breathing. Due to her quick response, I was able to be brought back to life. Due to my traumatic birth, my lungs had collapsed. Fortunately, I suffered no dire consequences and was released from the hospital days later.
As a child, I had reoccurring dreams I was carried above my bed, into the night. It was always the same dream. I was accompanied by gentle spirits whose faces I could not see. I was on a blanket drifting above the clouds. It was always a peaceful experience. When I was about eight, I was sexually abused by a counselor on a camp bus. It was then the dreams came to a sudden stop.
My dreams returned when I was in my early 20’s. This time around I began dreaming of situations that would occur in the future. I always shared these dreams with my husband because I felt it was important to tell someone.
One of the dreams was about my mother who had gone on a long-awaited cruise. I ‘saw’ her crying out in pain. The next morning I received a phone call. My mother was extremely ill and being flown home immediately.
A few years later, my parent’s home was robbed while they were out for an early dinner. The police were confused as to how the robbers broke in. That night I had a dream and ‘saw’ a man slicing a screen on their back porch. Although I had not been able to prevent their robbery, I was able to shed light on how it occurred.
My dream about our home invasion changed my life forever. My husband chased after the man, yelling at me to lock the children in the bathroom and call 911. I heard a crash which sounded like gunfire. It was my husband throwing a chair at the man as he ran down the stairs. The intruder was captured down the street with our daughter’s costume jewelry in his pockets.
The detective handling the case said something that continues to haunt me to this day. ‘If your daughter had woken up, the intruder probably would have killed her.’ What the detective didn’t know was my daughter crawled into our bed every single morning at the exact same time. On this particular day, she did not. The invasion occurred at the very time she normally walks over to us. I know angels were watching over her that morning.
After the home invasion, I began organizing self-defense classes for women. Working as a recreation director gave me the opportunity to make this idea a reality. I hired an instructor who taught females how to survive if they were attacked. I was determined to help other women and not allow this traumatic incident to ruin my life. I believe it is how you handle the traumatic events in life that can make or break you.
In the years since, I’ve had many other dreams. In one dream, a loved one was kidnapped and robbed while traveling. Again, I ‘saw’ everything clearly. Before he left on a trip, I shared every detail and told him to be safe. He wrote it all down in the journal he was carrying in his backpack. I received a call from him while he was traveling. He and his travel mate had been kidnapped and robbed by two men. They both managed to stay calm throughout the ordeal and were not physically harmed. Everything in my dream was accurate except for the color of the robbers’ bandannas.
Recently, my husband and I were out for the evening. When he suggested heading home, I told him to wait 5 more minutes. ‘I have to find something in my purse,’ I said, an excuse to stall time. I had a feeling something horrible was going to happen. It wasn’t coming to me in a dream, but I still was concerned. When we finally got on the highway, a police car stopped us and said we would have to take an alternate route. ‘There was a head on collision five minutes ago. Several people are dead,’ he said.
As I look back on my life, I believe I was given this gift at birth when I briefly transitioned over to the other side. I am forever grateful to the nun who saved my life. I hope whatever the future holds, I can continue to use my gift wisely.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Debi Nevel Drecksler of Candler, North Carolina. You can follow her journey on her blog here. Submit your own story here, and subscribe to our free email newsletter.
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