I was looking through my old journals and found this dream I had written down from 2005 that I had completely forgotten about:
Our stake was doing an activity based on the Plan of
Salvation, and I was part of it, as a member of the angelic choir that sat in
rows of fold-down chairs in front of and facing the stage. The beginning of the activity featured three
different movies depicting the plan of salvation, but to drive the point home
even further, a live pageant was to be performed for the audience.
At the dress rehearsal (the only rehearsal the choir ever
had with the rest of the cast), I sang our best the pieces written for the
heavenly choir and watched the pageant actors with interest. The story of Adam and Eve was told first,
starting with the Garden of Eden and ending with their partaking of the
fruit. When we got to the scenes after
that, the ones featuring Satan and Christ, the director said we’d be skipping
those scenes in the dress rehearsal. A
feeling came over me that those scenes with be very important to me, but I
shrugged it off.
The evening of the activity went well. The movies were mildly interesting, if a
little repetitive. The pageant itself
went smoothly, and before I realized it, we were up to Satan’s first scene after
the Fall of Adam.
As the actor playing Satan delivered his monologue, the
choir sang a wordless tune in a minor key, softly at first but then rising into
a crescendo as Satan reached the climax of his speech, ranting and raving like
a madman. My angelic song turned into
shrieks of horror as Satan lunged at me and grabbed me. I was not expecting this. With me in his icy-cold clutches, he flew
through the air toward the back of the room with the help of stunt ropes. As he
threw me into the pit of hell behind the audience, reality seemed to fade away.
Darkness seemed to engulf me, and the snake-like Satan laughed and laughed as my
misery grew apparent. I started to weep
and wail uncontrollably, feeling like I was doomed to spend eternity in the
misery of hell.
Just when I was about to give up hope, a light started
shining through the impenetrable dark, and I saw Christ flying toward me. He took me in his arms and flew me far, far
away from the pit of hell, toward a world of light filled with angelic
singing. I continued to cry, but they
were tears of joy as well as sorrow, because I knew that while I had been
weeping in hell, He had been atoning for my sins and dying for me so that He
could come rescue me. Finally, we
reached our destination, and as He let me go, I collapsed into a heap at his
feet. All I could think of was that He
had delivered ME, personally, from Satan’s grasp. I stayed there, on my knees, for what seemed
like forever, but eventually reality returned, and I realized that the pageant
was over. As I got up from my knees, I
understood the feeling I had had during the dress rehearsal: those scenes left
me with the deep impression that Christ knows ME personally and loves me so
much that He bore my sins and died for me so that He could save me from death
and hell. It was a feeling that I never
wanted to forget.
