By Cynthia Burch as told to Riley B. Case

Excerpt: from pages 121,122

One night shortly after that I had a dream.  In my dream I saw Jesus.  I was the risen Jesus.  I knew that because there were nail prints on his hands and a wound in his side.  Jesus came to me and took my finger.  He wanted me to put it on his hands, where the wounds were.

They say images of the past make their way into our dreams.  There was another time, not a dream but a real time when I was putting my finger in wounds.  These were not wounds with scars; these were open wounds.  When I was in bondage to drugs my face itched from the meth.  I would scratch my face.  I would sit in front of the mirror and pick at these sores for hours.  They were so big and ugly.  They would bleed.  I would put my finger on the holes in my face.  I wanted to stop the blood.  I wanted the wounds to go away.  But they weren’t going away.  The sores—my sin, the powers of darkness—were destroying the face God gave me.  And not just destroying my face; they were destroying me, my life, my soul.  They were the wounds of death.  The scars on my face even today are a reminder.

But in my dream my fingers were being directed to different wounds.  In the dream Jesus invited me to put my finger on the wounds on his hands.  I touched them.  I touched the wounds.  They were scabs; I can still feel them.  They were wounds healing.  Those wounds were caused by nails pounded into his hands.  But I know they were more.  Those wounds were caused by my sins.

"By his wounds you have been healed”

--I Peter 2:24

The next day after the dream I went to church at First General Baptist.  The preacher Brad Swain was preaching.  The text was from John.  It was the passage where Jesus came to Thomas, doubting Thomas.  It was amazing.  It was awesome.  It was the very passage of my dream.  Thomas said, “I will not believe unless I see the print of the nails in his hands and place my hand in his side.”  And Jesus appeared to him and invited him to place his hand on his side.  And Thomas said, “My Lord and my God.”

I worshipped and said, “My Lord and my God.”