Wagon Story - My talk with Jesus

Luke:23  9– Anyone who wants to follow me must put aside his own desires and conveniences and carry his cross with him everyday and keep close to me.

One night as I prayed over some hardships in my life this verse kept running thru my head and I finally got to the point that I called on God to explain himself. Usually when I would read this verse I would picture us humans all walking around being weighed down by our crosses, tripping over them and barely being able to walk. I cried out to God this night I was praying that my cross was really weighing me down and I wanted to follow God like the scripture said but I was feeling stuck. As I was deep in prayer I cried out to God to please explain how I can follow him. That is when my visions started. Now I am one who God has showed visions to before, I believe it is part of my spiritual gifting, so all of this that I type now was shown to me in visions like a movie being played out. 

Here I stand in a pasture and see the different terrain. Some is smooth and some is rocky. I look down and I am holding the handle to our little red wagon that I pull my 1 year old and 3 year old around in. In the little red wagon is some sand, some small river rock, one larger rock, but not too large because I went over to see if I could pick it up, and I could using both arms. There were also 4 huge boulders in my wagon. The boulders were so huge that I could not budge the wagon. I looked at Jesus and told him it wasn’t fair. It says in the Bible that we are to pick up our crosses everyday and follow him and I wanted to follow him but there were these 4 huge boulders in my wagon and I could not pull it. I tried again with all my might as Jesus stood by me and laughed. I was starting to get really mad that he was laughing at me so I quit trying and basically sat on the ground to pout. He held up one finger to me like he was saying wait a minute and he went over to the back of my wagon like he was ready to push. So I stood up and pulled, he pushed and my wagon started to move slowly. I stopped and said, this isn’t right, it says in the Bible I am supposed to follow you; I can’t follow you if you are pushing my wagon. He looked at me with a smile like he was saying, “You got it Mandy now the light bulb is on”. I said, “But look at these boulders why are they there? What can I do to get rid of them?” Jesus started to touch the boulders one by one. Some boulders turned to sand and some boulders completely disappeared. I stood in amazement. I said “How could you just do that? Why were there boulders to begin with?” Jesus pointed up and then pointed to me. He was saying it’s up to me. I said “Awww yes, free will. It was me who put boulders there, not you”. Like the saying, don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill. He shook his head yes. I took some sand in my hand and let it run through my fingers. I looked at Jesus and asked,
Is this one problem?” He shook his head no and stuck his finger in the sand and showed me one speck of sand. I said “Every speck of sand is a problem?” I had sand scattered all over my wagon. That seemed like to many problems to me. Jesus looked at me to explain. He said that the sand was my past. Jesus had heard me always talk about the scars we all have.

They make us who we are. They are our testimonies. But Jesus said you have to be careful not to turn your wagon into a sandbox. We are to let go of and be healed by most of our past. God makes perfect of which is given to him. But having a little sand scattered in the wagon was not a bad thing. 1 Peter 5:7 – Let him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you.  He then began to arrange the rocks in my wagon. He put the bigger one in the middle and scattered the smaller river rock around so now my wagon was very easy for me to pull. Jesus sat down in the grass beside me and was just playing with the grass. He seemed to be giving me time to take everything in that I had just learned. Then he pointed at his arm as if he had a watch on letting me know it was time to go. We stood up, he walked over to my wagon waving his hands across the top of my sand and rocks and everything began to shine and sparkle. The rocks seemed like gems, I could see through them, at all their beautiful colors; my sand sparkled like fairy dust. I was amazed. I just blurted out of my mouth “You made my shit look pretty.” and Jesus began to laugh so hard; the kind of laugh that comes deep from your stomach.  The kind of laugh that could make you pee your pants. I couldn’t believe I just blurted that out and that he was laughing so hard. I began to laugh too with Jesus. Then after a bit he let me know it was time to go. He walked up beside me and took two small steps forward then looked over his right shoulder at me letting me know it was time to start walking. I pointed at him as I began to cry “Just two small steps?” I asked “That’s it? Always?” He shook his head yes and we began to walk. As we walked scripture started to go through my head and I was reminded that it also says in the Bible there will be times when we are asked to help someone else carry their cross so they can follow Jesus and now I had one hand free to help pull another wagon.

Galations 6:2 Carry each other’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

1 Peter 5:2 – God has placed spiritual leaders and mentors in each of our lives, thereby enabling us to walk closer to him.

That’s the end. It was very spiritual moment for me. After these visions I felt strong and very relaxed. I understood so much now. That are daily crosses do not have to be a burden to carry. Jesus wants us to be able to follow him everyday. We have to be careful and continue to let him lighten our loads. And he is just two small steps away.

1 Cor. 16:23 – Jesus has his arms wide open for you.