Hi, my name is Cody and I am a first year student at Kingdom Domain College. My hobbies include fixing cars, mechanical objects, and pretty much anything that needs to be fixed. I would say that my gift for fixing things also extends towards helping to fix the brokenness in people’s lives. I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, where God spoke to me about coming to KDC. It was at this school where the Holy Spirit began to teach me how to hear the Father’s voice in my life. He started to give me prophetic dreams and visions. In the visions I can clearly see what is happening and as God is visually showing me, that's where my gift for writing comes into play. God showed me this vision about a rose in October:
.jpeg)
I saw a rose. This rose was growing, but with much difficulty. It was in a dark room and only able to get the occasional glimpse of sunlight. It had been trying to survive, trapped in the dark, for a long time. It fought to pull every bit of nutrients from the soil, drinking every drop of water it could. On the rose itself, and scattered on the ground around it, were old rose buds; evidence of many times the rose tried to bloom, but time and again they had withered in the darkness or were broken off. They had died before they had a chance to bloom. In this dark environment, all manner of disease and pestilence began to set in, trying to consume the rose. The rose however did not succumb but continued to fight for growth, reaching after every last glimpse of sunlight. The rose simply refused to die. One day a gardener found the rose. He saw how fiercely it was fighting to survive and how much it reached for the light. He knew that any rose strong enough to survive in such darkness would quickly grow into a strong and beautiful flower if it was in a garden with good soil and unobstructed sunlight. So the gardener went to prepare a place for the rose. He soon found a place in one of His gardens, a spot that had been missing something- a place that needed a rose. He promptly returned to the rose and carefully uprooted it. He carried the rose to the garden, to the place he prepared for it. And planted it there in the company of many other flowers. But this is not the end of the story.
As a result of years of darkness and malnourishment, disease and insects, the rose was left with many scars and damaged limbs. Even in this new environment, the same pests that had been consuming the rose returned to kill it before it could establish its roots, before it could receive nutrients from and grow in this good soil. The gardener however, did not give up: He’d beaten these insects and mended many flowers before, and He would do it again. Over time, the gardener worked tirelessly to heal every broken limb and remove every trace of disease and rot. During this time, He continually fought off the pests that were still determined to kill the rose.
In the midst of this process -in the midst of this chaos -new buds began to form on the rose, thanks to the protection and care of the gardener, the nutrients of the good soil, and the unobstructed light of the sun. Even as the healing process continues, the rose is quickly growing strong enough to repel these pests that once threatened to destroy it, and the new buds are coming to bloom, showing the rose to be one of the most beautiful flowers in the whole garden. This rose is becoming so beautiful in fact, that the gardener -with His whole garden to behold- looks on this rose with pride.
This is the vision the holy spirit revealed to me as God was beginning the healing process within me. I saw myself as that rose that God rescued from the darkness, pestilence, and disease. God gave me understanding for the symbolic meaning of this vision. The broken and sick rose that was in darkness was who I used to be. The fallen petals were broken dreams, hopes, and failures from my past. The pests were the evil spirits, demons, and lies that did not allow me to bloom. The gardener represents Jesus, the one who rescues us from darkness. While I was in the darkness He went to prepare a place for me. Even though I didn’t see or feel Him in the midst of the darkness, He had not forsaken me. He returned and pulled me out of the darkness and brought me into His light where the healing process began. I believe that this story does not only apply to me, instead I know that God can use what I've been through to transform someone else's life. Check out our blog post called "How Old is God? What is God's Age?"
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.png)