"Lord, what would you like to say to me this morning?" Then pointing my finger randomly down onto the page I read aloud where my finger had landed: (Isa. 45:11) "Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and His Maker, ask Me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me." (KJV) Not knowing the meaning or the context of that particular scripture, I ignorantly thought the Lord wanted me to ask Him of things to come concerning His sons and the work of His hands (and so I did just that.) Then, I asked the Lord what else He wanted to say to me that morning, randomly selecting another scripture. My finger landed on Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) "Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he".

I immediately took those words to heart with no understanding of what I had read and I cried out to the Lord saying: Lord, I don't want to perish for lack of a vision, please give me a vision. In spite of my ignorance and folly, it pleased the Lord to speak to me: That night (while I slept) suddenly the ceiling of my bedroom melted away and the sky (above me) rolled back like a scroll. In the heavens appeared a large square written in fire:

As I watched in amazement a line was drawn (also written in fire) across the (upper) one-third portion of the burning square. Then one-by-one (across from left to right) symbols written in fire (each of equal size) appeared inside the upper one-third of the square: (1) a triangle (2) a circle (3) a square (4) a strange looking E ()

As I stared at the vision -wondering at the sight of it, I was instructed to look carefully at the last symbol/letter. I was told the last letter would disappear and that when it did, I would forget it -until I saw it again. I was told that when I saw it again, I would recognize it and remember it. At the end of the vision I heard the words: "Behold the judge stands before the door".

At that time I knew nothing about the Bible. Melinda (a friend who was a Baptist-turned-Pentecostal) seemed to know where (or how) to find almost any verse in the Bible. I was certain that Baptists knew every chapter and verse in the Bible and was confident that Melinda would know if the words the Lord had spoken ("Behold the judge stands before the door") were actually in the Bible. (Melinda was a nurse who worked in our home taking care of our handicapped daughter.) When she came to work the next morning, I immediately told her about the vision I had been given during the night. When I tried to describe the last of the symbols written in the top portion of the vision, I realized that (just as the Lord had said) I had forgotten what it was.

While I was talking to Melinda, trying to explain why I could not remember the last symbol, she closed her eyes and raised her hands up to the Lord right there in our dining room. After a moment she opened her eyes, reached for a piece of scratch paper, scribbled something onto the paper and then immediately stuffed it into her Bible. (When I asked her what it was she had written she just said never mind.) She asked if the Lord had shown or said any thing else in the vision as she helped me find the portion of scripture from the vision: "Behold the judge stands before the door" (in the Book of James.) Together we then spent months trying to figure out what the vision meant.