Love (Part 2)

This chapter is part of a larger story I am telling. Some parts are intentionally reserved for the book alone—not because they cannot be told here, but because of the weight of the material and the need to protect myself as I continue this work. What appears on this page is shared deliberately, in the spirit of truth and authenticity.

***

But how, you ask me. How is it possible that this happened?

How did the young woman I once was end up with a man like him, a man thirty years older than me? A cruel man, and an old man – a man who, not only looked like he could’ve been my father, but my grandfather?

You think I didn’t see the bewilderment in people’s faces when he introduced me as his wife?

Or read the questions running through their minds?

Not only did I read the questions, but I had each one analyzed and filed away, depending on the question and the audience, with my answers ready.

“Yes, I realize it seems unconventional,” I told one concerned couple at Carl’s Bible study. “Hard to explain, really. We just felt God tell us to do this. He told us both, separately. We were just following His directions.”

And while my words were true, they still didn’t even begin to touch what was really going on behind the curtains.

Because how could I possibly have told them everything?

I’m ready to move those curtains aside now and uncover the window into my secrets. And the only way I can even begin to explain this to you is the way God explained it to me.

Through song:

Rows and flows of angel hair/

And ice cream castles in the air/

sings Emilia Jones in a cover of Joni Mitchell’s song, “Both Sides Now.”

And feather canyons everywhere /

I’ve looked at clouds that way/

And while Emilia sings about “clouds,” all I hear is “prophecies,” because that’s what those clouds mean to me. That’s the message that came to me through the song.

I’ve come full circle now.

I went to the prophet’s house to look for prophecies – not him. It was always about the prophecies for me. They held the key to a secret door that was inside of me, and I knew it. They were the gatekeepers to light and joy, and my path to the Promised Land. They opened the door to mysteries for me, just like the clouds do in the song.

Until they turned on me and showed me their dark side.

But now they only block the sun/

They rain and snow on everyone/

And just like the clouds, the prophecies were kind to me at first, but later they came and blocked the sun.

The Prophecies

There really were ice cream castles in the air.

Or mountains, to be exact.

The ice cream mountain rose from a clear, glasslike sheet of water—upside-down, with the cone part emerging first like the spire of a castle tower in a vision shown to the prophet by a Presence he identified as Jesus Christ.

He wrote about it later, on his website. Included pictures even.

He was mad at Jesus because he didn’t understand the images he was shown.

They made no sense to him.

He argued with Him because the visions frightened him—one in particular: a nuclear mushroom cloud with a white star hovering above it.

He resisted looking at it at first and tried to avoid the subject. But the image persisted.

Finally, he gave in and asked Jesus to show him everything.

What followed was a rapid series of mysterious images, each one stranger than the last:

A clear sheet of glass with bubbles on the surface.
A large crystal emerging from the ground.
The crystal transforming into the Pentagon Building.
Followed by an image of an ice cream cone.
That cone changing into South America.
Then Africa.
Next, a windmill representing Holland.
Followed by a Sphinx standing for Egypt.
And three pyramids flying in the sky…

?

Right?

He was obviously baffled. Who wouldn’t be?

And while you could easily dismiss all of these images as someone’s hallucinations, I didn’t.

There was something about them I picked up on immediately when I encountered them years later on his website. Something strangely familiar.

This mysterious Presence had been hanging around the prophet for weeks—calling for his attention and urging him to tune in. He’d been avoiding it, listening in from time to time, then retreating. The whole thing was odd and isolating, making friends and acquaintances give him the side eye.

When he finally agreed to listen to it fully, he was bombarded with an avalanche of images that only gave birth to more questions.

The images continued.

He saw a massive black cloud move across the sky. It was met midway by a gigantic white cloud that swallowed it.
Then he saw the same sky turn a beautiful light blue, with a rainbow extending across it.

Massive black cloud = darkness/Satan/sin… was my immediate thought when I read about it.

…swallowed by a white cloud, which represents God’s power/grace/redemption conquering it.

It was like a switch turning on in my brain.

Leading to light blue, rainbow-filled skies = God’s peace and promise. The final battle. God wins.

I had put on my thinking hat.

And on they went.

Next, he found himself in outer space, watching the Earth.
A large, hot rock hit the Earth and bounced across the countries and continents he’d just seen.

There was a moment of peace, but that peace was soon interrupted by countless beams of light shooting through space, one after another, raining down on the Earth’s surface.

White beams of light = Angels/God’s intercession.

The image changed again, and he saw the Earth again, this time beautiful and whole. He watched it from outer space with Jesus by his side… until it vanished. This upset him, and he argued with Him.
Jesus responded by showing him the Earth twice more, but each time it vanished again.
He argued with Christ some more.

He’s showing him the FUTURE. I thought. The birth pangs. But the man can’t handle it.

Something about the prophet’s arguing with Christ felt moving to me; somehow, it made everything more believable.

Then a New Earth appeared, but this one was three or four times larger. It was surrounded by bright white light on the outside, with a dark center.

He told Christ he didn’t believe any of it and asked to see it up close. He was taken down to see it. It was a strange-looking place; the Earth’s surface was covered by independently moving white clouds. It struck him that they might not have been clouds at all, but spirits.

Below him, instead of ground was a vast sheet of water, still as glass. He was able to stand on top of it without sinking. Above him, a bright sphere of white light shone over the water.

Suddenly, the cone part of the ice cream he’d seen earlier rose from the water. It grew and grew until it was as high as a mountain, reaching a mile high up into the sky.

Years later, when I encountered that same ice cream image on his website, I had no idea what role it would one day play in my life.

That was the beginning.

Without warning, Christ disappeared, and the vision ended, leaving the prophet alone in his room with his questions.

The year was 1990.

I Hit Enter

Fast forward to the year 1997. I was working the evening shift at the law library in Finland, waiting for the last customers to leave. I was the only employee left for the day and responsible for closing up. The library was quiet.

We had a computer behind the customer service counter that we could use when we weren’t busy serving customers. The internet was new, and I’d only recently learned the basics — how to send and receive emails, and how to scroll through websites that interested me.

Nothing interested me more than God and prophecies.

I was a relatively new Christian. I’d experienced a deeply profound healing through a simple prayer a few years earlier, alone in my home, and now I had a hunger to understand more.

I’d discovered that I could search for these topics online. I’d noticed that many people had created websites where they wrote about their personal encounters with Jesus. I was intrigued by these stories and excited to have this new tool at my disposal. Suddenly, the whole world was at my fingertips.

I don’t know what I typed into the search engine that night — I only remember looking for an explanation for the unusual things happening to me at the time.

It could’ve had something to do with the bright white star.

This bright white star had been appearing in my field of vision from time to time for at least a couple of years now. It was a quick flash of an intensely bright white light, like the twinkling of a star, usually appearing somewhere above my head, near the ceiling. It tended to happen when I was in the middle of a meaningful conversation with someone, or when I was alone, deep in thought, grappling with a dilemma.

The light was very bright, almost otherworldly — brighter than anything I’d ever seen, even when looking at the sun. It always vanished instantly, but it left me with the impression that someone was looking over me, as if to say:

I’m here, watching and guiding you.

It filled me with questions, and I was searching for answers.

I hit enter.

My search landed me on the prophet’s website. Discovering that he’d also had an encounter with a white star made me sit up straight immediately. The ice cream cones and flying pyramids that might’ve made someone else chuckle and dismiss it as fantasy sent a chill down my spine.

What I recognized immediately was the language of metaphor.

I saw it everywhere on his website, and I knew what it was, because I knew this language.

My soul knew it.

I scrolled through the imagery and the visions, taking them in.

It’s a picture riddle, I nodded to myself—a puzzle.

Something in me told me I was meant to help put the pieces together.

Sometime later, I sent him a letter and offered to translate the prophecies into Finnish, and that’s how we met.

But there’s more to this. Much more.

For any of this to make sense, there’s something else I need to tell you about myself.

And this is the part that makes me shiver in my boots.

The Wind

There’s a Force that’s been visiting me since my childhood.

I call it the Wind.

I don’t talk about the Wind.

I wouldn’t dare. I know better.

I certainly didn’t talk about it as a child, and I didn’t talk about it as an adult—except to a very select few.

I CAN READ THE ROOM, you see, and I’m painfully aware of what talking about something like this could cost me, socially.

I was aware of it as a child, and I’m aware of it now.
I always cared too much about what others thought about me anyway.

“Oh, but you’re a Christian?” some might say, specifically Christians. “Why don’t you go to your church and talk about it with your pastor?”

Which church and pastor might that be?

You have to understand: this Wind is a force of nature. It doesn’t have manners – not the type of manners that keep me socially acceptable anyway.

It’s kind of the polar opposite of that.

It doesn’t fit into the social committees of churches, clubs, and organizations. You can’t stuff it in a box and put a bow on it.

Half the time, it points out problems to me in those same organizations—the lies and the hypocrisy living inside of them, the PRETENTION.

Look, it says. The Emperor has no clothes, and throws scriptures at me:

“You say, I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see” (Rev. 3:17)

If you’ve ever read "The Emperor’s New Clothes,” about the ruler who paraded through town in the nude, believing he was finely dressed, praised by an oohing and aahing crowd that believed it too, you’ll understand exactly how well that reference correlates with that scripture.

The Wind points at the mass hypnosis and the human constructs that grow out of it and shows me how they all marinate together in the churches—the good, the bad, and the ugly—all soaking in the same flavors.

Look, I feel it say. Be the truth-speaking child in the crowd. Go and break the spell. Go, tell them that the Emperor has no clothes!

And of course, I see the hypocrisy. I feel it wave at me like a red cloth would wave at a bull from the doorway of a china shop, calling it to run in there and cause havoc.

It stares at me amid the systems built around God, many of them taunting me. I feel the barriers they’ve erected under my skin. The barriers feel like a demon. I imagine them as a snake’s head sticking out from a suit, sitting incognito at church tea parties, surrounded by friends, laughter, and precious china, looking all smug and pretty in there, giving me a wink as it sips on tea.

And the Voice of the Wind keeps pulling my sleeve, pointing at it, saying, Look! Reminding me about it, and asking me to do something.

It feels like it’s asking me to go in there and expose it.

You see what I mean? Which pastor and which church exactly?

It wasn’t until I read the prophet’s prophecies that I encountered a Christian voice recognizing the same problem within the churches that I already saw. The prophecies even had a name for it:

“The Church of the Pretenders."

Just another thing that sold me.

So, I joined forces with the prophet.

But if it were up to me, I wouldn’t have said a word about any of these things. Ever.

I could’ve easily gone to my grave with these secrets.

But the Wind is a force to be reckoned with. It’s a Storm you can’t tame.

It says: You can run, but you can’t hide.

It uproots everything, leaving me no choice but to talk about it.

So here we are.

And isn’t it fitting that –true to its nature – the WIND makes sure my social fears are addressed in one fell swoop, by having me introduce this topic to everyone on SOCIAL MEDIA?

Not my plan, that’s just how things fell into place.

That’s how effectively the Wind goes after its targets.

Straight in the bullseye.

I remember its first visit distinctly:

The Road

It’s one of my earliest memories.

I’m not exactly sure of my age, but I have other memories from that same time period, which help me place it on a timeline. In that same cluster of images, there’s a memory of me sitting in the small kitchen of an apartment building, in a highchair, staring at a coffee cup at the edge of the kitchen table, wondering what would happen if I pushed it over. Next, I remember actually watching it on the floor, in pieces. There’s a commotion in the kitchen, as my mother and aunt fuss over the cup and clean up the mess.
I’m watching all of this take place with curiosity. I take it in.

In the next image, there’s glimmering bathwater, and I’m sitting, watching the drops, analyzing how they work. And while studying them, I also analyze my mother, who is bathing me and laughing about something while doing it.
But it’s a strained laugh.

I remember thinking that she laughs, but for some reason, she isn’t very happy. It makes me sad.

I feel a wall between us, and I know I can’t reach her.

I don’t understand her divorce from my father, which happened around that time.

And then the images turn into nighttime, and I have a dream that isn’t a dream.

This was the dream:

I was either floating or flying above a giant Road. It opened up underneath me, much like a movie screen. Somehow, in the dream, I knew I wasn’t dreaming at all, but that I was given a message of reality and truth. This is what was communicated to me, and I understood it perfectly.

I knew that I was part of the Road, and that everything that existed, had ever existed, or ever would exist was part of that Road.

I knew, without words, that the Road was TRUTH, LIFE, and GOD.

I didn’t know where the Road ended, and I began, because I was simply part of it. Its power was so massive that it was terrifying. I knew there was no existence apart from this Road.

Throughout this experience, I felt a request—a pleading—to TELL EVERYONE.

I woke up feeling the weight of that request, aware of my limitations, and afraid of telling a mother who laughed but wasn’t happy.

I wasn’t raised in a particularly religious family. We didn’t talk about God; it wasn’t a thing. My mom taught my sister and me an evening prayer, but it was part of our evening routine, after brushing our teeth and putting on our pajamas.

It wasn’t until years later, at age 22, that this dream crashed back into my consciousness when I began putting the pieces together.

That’s when I read these words in the Bible:

Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6–7)

I understood then that the Way in my childhood dream was Christ. I also read:

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (Jn 3:8)

And the visits continued.

The River

Sometime later, I had another dream. I might’ve been four or five at this point.

I was in a rowboat on a slow-moving river.

The day was sunny and warm. The water beneath my boat was calm and dark. Around me, there were high riverbanks with lush bushes and trees. There was no wind moving the leaves; nature was quiet and still, as if holding its breath.

Gradually, the river began to pick up speed. A little way ahead, I saw the river make a turn and disappear somewhere behind the shrubbery. I could hear a rumble up ahead. It was the sound of a waterfall.

I knew that I should probably turn around by now, but for some reason, I didn’t. Then I noticed I’d lost my oars; they’d been left somewhere behind. The river pulled my boat toward the bend and beyond. By the time I realized I needed them, it was too late.

The pull of the stream increased. The previously muffled rumble had turned into a roar. A slight fear began to hover in my chest, but I couldn’t turn around; I was stuck in the boat, following the pull of the river.

As I approached the river bend, my heartbeat turned into a steady hammering. I knew this fear. I’d experienced it before. Quickly and coolly, part of me assessed the situation. A strangely mature awareness in me knew exactly what was waiting at my destination, behind the bend, at the waterfall.

And what it was—was TRUTH.

The Truth of me and of anything that had ever existed and ever would. I could use other words, like GOD or LIFE, and they would be correct, but all of them would still be inadequate. Whatever it was, every cell in my body knew what it was, intimately.

I knew I was getting close to my creator and creation, and that anything beyond this was a dream. I knew I’d been dreaming for most of my short life, filling my days with nonsense, chasing shadows. And now I was reminded of the only thing that mattered.

I was so afraid that I broke into a sweat. I knew what I had to do, but what I had to do—I couldn’t do.

I knew I should let the river carry me all the way to the end, so I could merge into the Life and Truth that kept pulling me in. I also knew I should let go of the shadows inside of me that were there to keep me safe and sleeping. I knew part of me was asleep.

There was an awareness of how, in the past, parts of me had fallen asleep—when something alive in me had died and been replaced by a shadow. I knew exactly why I had chosen it. The pain I had to carry had been too much.

I knew that some of the pain I’d experienced in my short life had been worse than death. That’s why parts of me had died.

I knew I needed to let go of the parts of me that were hiding and sleeping, because they were lies I was telling myself about myself. But I also knew that letting them go felt impossible. I believed the cleansing power of the Truth before me was so strong it would kill me.

And now it was here, calling me, reminding me of all those hidden parts, banging at the door of my heart, and my heart was bursting with fear. I couldn’t open it.

I believed with all of my being that I would have to face all my pain up ahead, in the refining fires of this Truth, still ahead of me, in the embrace of this terrible force at the river’s end—where my boat was heading.

As the boat turned around the river bend, I saw what had been hiding behind the bushes.

White water splashes and foam rose above the waterfall as it came fully into view, and where the river plunged out of sight, a huge rainbow extended across the river.

I instantly knew what it was.

God is here, my senses whispered.

My body turned numb and motionless. I had no control. I sat helplessly, watching the river pull my boat toward its final destination.

A strange sound rose around the rainbow and the waterfall. It was a primitive sound, like something from which all other sounds originate. The sound of all sounds. It sounded as if it came through a barrel, but also metallic. I didn’t have words for it then; now I’d compare it to a synthesizer—the instrument.

It also sounded like the rush of many waters, or many voices—all at the same time.

I can still hear it in my head.

When I heard the sound, my fear turned me into white ashes. My body went lifeless, and I woke up in terror, drenched in sweat.

But I didn’t call for anyone. I knew better.

The Wind roared, but I remained silent.

As I screamed in the dark bedroom, all alone, not a sound escaped my lips.

Grandma

Maybe a year down the road, in preschool, at about age five, I was sitting at a table next to the window in the main room during free time, drawing, when a sudden shift in the room’s energy caught my attention.
I felt the Wind near me again, this time while wide awake.

What now?! was my first, slightly bothered thought.

These visits came regularly and always seemed to disrupt my life in some way. They made me feel isolated and different and messed with my sense of belonging.
All I wanted was to be like everyone else.

It was like a secret window inside of me opening and closing at regular intervals.

When the window was closed, I was like every other little girl in the world, with a head full of little-girl things. I’d elbow my way to our preschool’s dress-up chest at the beginning of playtime to make sure I got the nicest princess dress before anyone else did. I fought for that dress for dear life. It was that important to me.

I was my very own person too—peculiar, you could say. Every day, right after arrival, the first thing I’d do was take off my winter jacket and boots, put on my thick pantyhose, and place them on my head. I was known for this. The long legs were supposed to be my braids. I had short, unimpressive hair, and I didn’t like that, so I used the pantyhose instead and imagined they were braids. Then I walked around stroking them proudly, ideally dressed in that nice princess dress too.

All I wanted was to be beautiful.

I could’ve continued like this forever, but at some point—on a random, ordinary day when I least expected it—the window would always open again, and the whole universe would come blowing in. And then all of it—the princess dress, the braids, my need for validation, and everything that had felt so important just moments earlier—shrunk into nothing and appeared meaningless and trivial. The things that had occupied my mind, my attempts to assert my own importance, my little arguments, my ego—none of it mattered. It felt like a dream. A waste.

And I was wide awake again.

Remember, the Wind said. This is who you really are.

And instead of the dress and the braids and the beauty I’d been chasing, what impressed itself on my mind was the only thing that actually mattered: Love.

Once, during one of these visits, the Wind drew my attention to a little boy in my preschool who was a pain in my neck and gave me the impression that I needed to play with him for the rest of the day.

That one? I resisted. Surely not that one.

But I did it anyway—reluctantly. I listened to the Wind and played with him the entire day. I patiently built sandcastles with him in the preschool sandbox all afternoon and followed him around the yard in games of hide-and-seek until it was time for him to go home. I stood and watched him close the yard gate behind him, holding his mom’s hand.

But this time, the Wind had something very different to say.

Since it was free play, all the children were doing their own thing. Some worked at the tables as I had been doing; others pulled toys from the chests. A couple of kids built with blocks or dress-up clothes, and some boys played with cars.

Music was playing in the room. The teacher had put it on for us. She’d placed the cassette player on top of one of the wooden benches, and now the tunes mingled with the rest of the room’s noise.

The Wind drew my attention to the lyrics on the tape.

Pay attention. This is important, I felt it say.

There was urgency in the message. The Wind impressed on me that the lyrics were metaphorical and carried something meant for me. I’d heard the song many times before. It was an old Finnish children’s nursery rhyme. The words translate roughly like this:

Grandma took her chicks to the field, and they were all jumping/
Grandma took her chicks to the field, and they were all jumping/
But out from the woods came a silent fox creeping—so sneaky and long-tailed!/
But out from the woods came a silent fox creeping—so sneaky and long-tailed!/

(Mummo kansasensa niitylle ajoi. Pienet kanaset ne hyppeli/
Mummo kansasensa niitylle ajoi. Pienet kanaset ne hyppeli/
Vaan metsästä hiipi se hiljainen kettu—niin viekas ja pitkähäntäinen!/
Vaan metsästä hiipi se hiljainen kettu—niin viekas ja pitkähäntäinen!/)

As I focused on the words, the Presence fell over me heavily. It was clear, inevitable, and unquestionable. Without words, but with absolute certainty, the Wind told me:

You are Grandma, and the chicks are the people of the world.

My heart dropped.

It continued: Beware. There’s a fox out in the world looking to hurt people. Someone needs to warn them.

I looked at my friends as they played, I saw their innocent faces, and it occurred to me that they were very much like those chicks—carefree and unaware of any danger that might be quietly lurking in the shadows.

But what can I do? I asked the Voice anxiously, my body breaking into a cold sweat. I’m as weak as anyone—maybe weaker. What can I do about the fox and the world and all its problems?

There was no response. Only the certainty of what had just been communicated remained, hanging in the air—immovable and absolute.

I sat with it, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, feeling very old and tired. I wanted to crawl under the table and hide. I wanted to go to sleep and stay there, never waking up again. I wanted to forget what had just happened and tell myself it wasn’t real—that it was just smoke rings in my mind—because I was only a little girl, just like everyone else.

But I couldn’t deny it. It was body knowledge. It felt like Truth. And it was heavy—too heavy to speak of. I knew no grown-up would ever be grown-up enough to carry it for me.

I was the loneliest little girl in the world.

***

It’s hard for me share this, to say the words. To actually say them. I can already hear the comments in my head:

“Who does she think she is?”

Of course those questions will come.

I know, I get it.

But I ask you: should I hide this for the rest of my life, or speak it and begin — finally — to live authentically? What are my options, when—no matter how grandiose or outrageous this may sound—these experiences STILL live inside of me?

So what do I do about them?

I’ll let the song answer for me:

But now old friends are acting strange/
They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed/
Well, something’s lost, but something’s gained/
In living every day/

And from the wisdom of the song, and the nudges of the Wind, I draw this conclusion:

You have to speak of whatever it is you’ve hidden inside of you — whatever you’ve guarded so tightly — no matter what. Because if it stays buried, it will eat you alive. Truly.

It did me.

The Wind reminded me of this.

I’m not declaring anything—I’m reporting what I lived. Interpret it however you want; I have, for decades, including with professionals. I’m still telling it.

Because it’s the right thing — and the only thing — for me to do.

The Elf on a Shelf

I still have a million questions, and I don’t have a problem admitting it. I have no certainty about anything. I haven’t stopped searching, and maybe I never will. But I’ve made peace with the fact that I may never have all the answers to fully understand my journey. And I know that living in that ambiguity doesn’t kill me.

As I wrote this, I decided to look up some Bible verses because I remembered that an Old Testament prophet had also met God by a river.

It was Ezekiel. He saw God in a vision at the Kebar River (Ezekiel 1–3:17, NIV). I wanted to compare his experience to mine.

What stood out to me was a description of "a windstorm coming out of the north." Ezekiel also saw a throne above some expanse that was “sparkling like ice.” Above the throne, he saw a figure that resembled a man.

Ezekiel said that this God-like figure looked like “the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day.”

Considering that I also saw God in a rainbow by a river, can you understand why all of this is a major head trip for me?

Ezekiel also likened the sound of the Almighty to “the roar of rushing waters, like the tumult of an army.”

That description resonates with me.

After this encounter, Ezekiel was given a message:

3:17 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.”

It then occurred to me that I’d also carried that same sense of needing to warn people.

As that thought hit me, another quickly followed, a sarcastic comment I imagined hearing after I went public with this secret:

“Oh, so you think you’re a watchman on the wall?”

I’ve heard many Christians say they feel a calling to be “a watchman on the wall.” I’m not saying they’re wrong. It’s a fairly popular statement in certain evangelical circles. The phrase originates from the above scriptures, as well as the books of Isaiah and the Psalms.

The idea behind it is that in ancient cities, a watchman stood on the wall to look out for danger. In the scriptures, God uses this image to describe a prophet’s role to see what others may not, to listen to Him closely, and to warn—even when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular.

I thought about how to respond to that question:

"No, definitely not. I’m no watchman on the wall."

And that sounds right. I thought about all the evangelical Christians I’d ever met, or knew about, who call themselves “watchmen on the wall,” and how they didn’t match my energy at all. I never felt like I fit in with that group at all. On the other hand, I never felt like I fit in with most other groups either. As a matter of fact, I’ve always thought – and I’ve even said this to people, half-jokingly – how I feel much more like an elf than a human. I’ve really said this many times.

And when I say “elf,” I’m not talking about one of those graceful forest elves with slender bodies that turn the world magical with fairy dust.

No, I’m talking about one of those ridiculous Christmas Elves with red or green soldier jackets and curly-toed shoes who walk around honking some Christmas horn and remind everyone that Santa’s coming and that children should get their lives in order.

I don’t know why that image has always sat in my head, but it’s been there since I was a kid.

So, as I was thinking about these things, how I definitely was not a watchman on the wall, and barely even human, probably closer to an undercover elf, I heard loudly inside of me:

AN ELF ON A SHELF!

What the…?

Where the heck did that come from? I thought.

I knew what an elf was, but I wasn’t sure about an Elf on a Shelf, so I looked it up.

It said that an Elf on the Shelf was a Christmas tradition centered on a small elf that silently observes kids. It moved from place to place in the house and wasn’t meant to be touched.

Got it, I sighed to myself. An Elf on a Shelf it is.

And I wouldn’t have thought any more about this, but the very next day at work, a little girl, whom I didn’t even know, about six years old, came and sat next to me on a bench and randomly struck up a conversation with me about the Elf that had lately been hanging around her house, watching her and her siblings.

Christmas was approaching, so it really wasn’t that unusual a conversation for a little girl to have.

Except in this particular case, what are the odds? Humor me.

This also wasn’t the first time I’ve heard one of the Wind’s whispers repeated by children. It’s happened to me at least three times by now. So, I perked my ears.

“Sometimes it’s on the bookshelf, then on the stove, then on the tree, and this morning it was in my bed.”

“Isn’t that something?” I nodded.

“Did you know that all the girl Elfs always have short hair?” she continued.

“Really?”

(Well, I sure do, I thought to myself. Check).

“Yeah, always. But you can’t touch them. If you do, they lose their power.”

(Check again.)

“Ok,” I said.

And then she ran off.

I thought about my life, and the isolation I’ve experienced, the love I’d always dreamed of but never had, how every real thing was always destroyed before it even began, as if there was some curse over my life, some invisible barbed wire to ensure that no one ever came close.

And that was just how it was.

I remember someone once prophesying to me that God wanted me “all to Himself” because of a message I carried that was too important to be diluted or jeopardized in a real relationship.

It was just a person I knew, who suddenly began prophesying this to me out of the blue — something they’d never done before, and never did again — and then soon disappeared from my life.

I thought about all of this, and it hit me that it really seemed like I was someone set aside. Like an elf on a shelf. It truly seemed to me that this had been by design.

 I know that all of these things challenge conventional thinking. I know that my story doesn’t fit ANY of the boxes people have available for stuff like this, and I really don’t resonate with any of the labels I can already see being placed on me.

I’m no watchman on the wall, some high and mighty evangelist, some holy roller. I’m also not the opposite of that.

I’m just an Elf on a Shelf.

And a Prophet’s wife, and a little piece of a giant Road. And a Grandma, who’s been called to warn people.

That’s my conclusion, but I don’t really know.

Or maybe all of this is just craziness? Every last bit of it.

You decide.

***

LOVE (Part 3) Coming soon…