Curling
I prayed that the Lord would plant me in a big place. Some years later, the Lord spoke to me about going to a land He'd show me. I had two dreams about this place and it was covered in trees. In 2000, we moved to Australia, and I asked the Lord if this was the land. A friend sent me a card with the words, "Australia the big country" on it and I knew God had answered that prayer, however the first place we lived in didn't have trees like those I'd seen in the dreams.
I loved the bark peeling off the eucalyptus trees and made poems and art about it, including the one above ( I was going to redo it to fix the background and leaves at the top, but didn't). I didn't know it was prophetic at the time. To me, it showed the land of my physical birth (NZ) peeling off like bark and the land of my spirtual birth (AU) growing up.
In 2012 my husband wanted to retire to the Gold Coast and I saw trees on the Gold Coast like the trees God had shown me, so we moved to Mount Nathan. We sarted going to a church in Nerang. The Holy Spirit then let me know God had planted me here and I knew I was in the right area.
In 2018, because I heard in a dream the word, "Map. I hardly ever see one now," I asked God what it meant and researched it, discovering the concept of spiritual mapping. Consequently, I looked up the history of Nerang and the Gold Coast. I was amazed. A few nights before, I'd dreamed some of what had happened in Nerang's history.
I also discovered the original name for where Nerang now is. It is Birribi meaning spirals of dead bark hanging from eucalypts (Hanlon, W.E 1935, John Oxley Journal 2/80). It was like the painting I'd done and photos I'd taken and poems I'd written when I first came to Australia in 2000. God did indeed show me the placce He was leading me to, although I didn't realise it at the time.
I also dreamed about the land rising up, and discovered the land here rose up according to a dreamtime legend. The art work I did in 2000 has the aboriginal symbolism for this area.
So, although I didn't know it at the time, the Lord had been showing the land, the place where He wanted us to go to, just like He said He would.