Precognitive Abilities? or Coincidence? or God?

For years, my grandma has told me stories of her dreams that have come true, numbers that seem to pop up more than normal, and feelings she would get about things. Oddly enough, some of that weird stuff has come up with my dad (her son) and myself. The three of us seem to be at least the only vocal ones that have some sensitivity to this intuition. We, being Christians, don't see it as paranormal mumbojumbo, but a gift of intuition that connects us with the spiritual side of things. Maybe they are things God lets us in on for reasons unknown to us. Sometimes I want more of these things to happen to me, but sometimes it seems a little to scary to ask for.

Some of my grandma's dreams have been about the wrong people, but someone related to them and have come true. She dreamed once that her uncle got stuck in a car on the railroad tracks and was killed. Instead the next morning she got a call that her cousin(?) or someone close to her uncle fell ill suddenly and died. Another time there was a picture hanging in her home that was given to her by a family member. One night it fell off the wall. That evening she learned that that person died. I wish I could remember the exact people that these things happened to, but when I interviewed my grandma about these things a couple years ago, she was having a hard time with her memory and had forgotten those stories she had told me all the time long ago. I was sad I didn't interview her sooner.

My dad has had things like people that he hasn't thought about or heard from in years, I mean YEARS, all of a sudden they will pop into his head and a few minutes later, the phone will ring, and it's THEM. He said things like that were happening a lot when he was going through a period of great stress in his life. Could a large amount of emotional energy trigger these happenings? Or is it just a coincidence? Or is it God trying to speak to us through people and happenings at pivotal times in our life?

I have had weird things happen from time to time. I have two stories of significance. They both happened around 2002-2003. The first was that I had a dream that I was standing in my church's gym and I was cupping my hand under my mouth- I was bleeding from my mouth. In my hand were teeth. I woke up after such a vivid dream and tried to figure out why on earth I'd be dreaming about my teeth falling out in my hand- with blood even! Maybe I forgot the part of my dream about a church dodge ball tournament...I don't know! That morning I got ready for my class (college) and was sitting in the classroom and shared my weird dream with my friend. Sometime during this class, we saw a gurney and two paramedics hurried by the door. We were concerned but didn't think too much of it. Our next class was on the 2nd floor, so we headed upstairs and stopped in the hallway. There was blood on the floor. We obviously connected it with the person in the gurney, but when we got into our classroom and asked a student there if they knew what happened out in the hallway, they said "Oh, this lady passed out in the hallway and knocked her teeth out on the floor..." My friend looked at me and mouthed "Your dream!" You can be skeptical but I thought it was too weird to be a coincidence!

My other strange dream was at summer camp in 2003. My great grandmother (mother of my grandma with stories of dreams, etc.) was 100 years old. Still living at home and getting along okay. One morning at camp I woke up and recalled a dream that I had about myself and my great grandmother standing in an empty pool holding hands. My great grandfather (who passed away when I was only a month old) appeared maybe five feet in front of us. He held out his hand to his wife of 60 years and she let go of mine to move forward and grab his. The the water started to come. It came from all sides, not like a wave just like a wall slowly moving in over us. I really don't think drowning would be a peaceful way to go like some say, but in this case it was a very calming feeling. I don't think the water was water to us in the dream, more like peace and love and comfort. It surrounded us and I watched my great grandparents together and I woke up. Later that morning I got a call from my mom letting me know that my great grandma had gone outside to get something and fell and broke her hip and hit her head on the front porch. She was healthy otherwise, but that fall was the step to move her into a nursing home, where she would live another three years and pass away at 103 years of age. I'm sure it would have made a better story if I had had that dream and then she passed away, but I feel like it was just an indicator on how she was finally moving towards her last phase of life. This woman lived an incredible life, worked hard, and loved her family and the Lord all of her life. She was saying she was "ready for the good Lord to take" her back in the early 1990's! The dream I had about them is really special to me.

Recently my grandma has been in a nursing home now for less than a year. My mom has been visiting her close to everyday for the past few months. Sadly, my grandma has been slipping more and more and her memory travels through old times to the present off and on. My mom told me one visit she wasn't speaking much. Out of the blue she says "Three years." "What about three years?" my mom asked her. My grandma replied, "That's what my mom told me. I have three years before I die."

Before this incident my grandma kept asking my mom when she would visit "When did my parents die?" It just makes me wonder if somehow God is speaking to her through a vision of her mother or parents- who knows what all is going on inside her head, even though we can't detect it on the outside. She may just have a rough time expressing it now, but inside she has so much to say. Three years. 2012. That in itself is creepy, but I don't give a lot of weight to the Mayan calendar. My dad has joked that he'll keel over at 52, which will be in 2012. I told him to stop joking like that!

I believe some people are given gifts by God to play a role in the life He has given us. We don't always know what our gifts are for, but here and there we may see glimpses of why we have the abilities we do. It might sound crazy to some, but I kind of feel that if we are open to God communicating through dreams and feelings, and discern what is really from Him, we'll experience yet another way to be close to Him and be in tune with His will for our lives.