An Easter Story
By Bobbi J
This happened about twenty years ago. I was around forty-six years old and was in the throes of menopause, which made my life a living hell. I barely slept, could hardly feel normal and was up many a night as if shot full of adrenalin, which I was. Well, my lovely husband told me to ‘get sleep when I could’, even if it meant sleeping during the day when I was alone. I tried, but at that time sleep was rare in coming. I think for a period of close to three years if I got 72 hours worth of sleep the whole period I’d be astounded.
Which leads to one particular morning. I got up with my husband and saw him off to work, by then our son was out of the house, so I found myself exercising and then sitting to read the bible and contemplate it, which I did often. This one morning God asked that I turned off the light and the room became dark. It was only 5:30 and I believe just into the new year, so it was dark and as my eyes grew accustomed to the ambient light I heard a voice say hello. I looked over to see Kurt’s recliner starting to rock. I knew ‘someone’ was visiting me from the spirit world, but didn’t know who. I said hello and I could suddenly feel in my heart it was Jesus, I don’t know why, but it was. He said that He understood why Kurt liked sitting in that chair as it was very comfortable… I smiled.
Then in my mind’s eye He appeared sitting in that chair.
Now before I go on let me interject this short story… for as long as I can remember I’ve asked God what Jesus looked like. I mean, I grew up with the pretty picture we all know and love, but Jesus was Jewish and most Jews didn’t look like that, so I wanted to know.
Years went by and I started writing and eventually developed a character by the name of Dakota Eli Willoughby. A great character and one I’ve written many books about, as it seemed to come so easily to me.
This is a doctored picture of someone I found that looked almost exactly like him so I grabbed it and completed it to look like Dakota, but this is at his second wedding and in my books he’s aged since then. I have many pencil sketches of him as well, as if I know/knew his face so well I could draw it blindfolded. Well, once more, before the time I’m currently speaking of, I asked God again what Jesus looked like and His voice told me, “Bobbi, you’ve been drawing Him for years.” I sat there, shocked… looking at the drawing I’d recently done… this one…
I stared at it and stared at it and then became too embarrassed to stare at it, because I thought… well, I thought of all the things I’d made him say in the books, all the things I’d made him do and so forth. I asked God, most humbly, if I needed to stop working on him like that and God said absolutely not. Humor and intelligence was the best way to get the message across and anyone who read the books would be blessed. Funny, but the test group I had read the books - mentioning this to them after their reading - all said they wondered why they felt strangely better having read him and why they fell in love with him. This amazed me…
Okay, back to my original story…
Mesmerized I watched Christ rocking in the chair, His dark hair, almost glowing eyes and when He saw me watching Him He smiled and the radiant beauty of His smile was overwhelming to say the least. He was truly the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on. I asked why He was there and He said He wanted to answer some of my questions about Him, namely, where He was during those eighteen years not mentioned in the bible. Then a young woman and a boy of about six appeared in the room, standing off the side of the recliner and Christ introduced them to me and said this was His wife Rebekkah and His son Josiah. I said hello and it was nice to meet them, they both smiled and then slowly disappeared. Christ told me after Joseph admonished Him from going to the church to speak to the elders He lead a very simple life until He was seventeen when He met Rebekkah and the two fell in love. They were married at nineteen and had Josiah soon after. He told me one of the most beautiful things He can remember seeing was Rebekkah breastfeeding. He thought it the most lovingly wonderful moment between two humans ever. Well, one night when He was about to leave for a meeting at the church, Rebekkah pleaded with Him not to go. She had had a bad dream and was frightened. He promised He wouldn’t be long and for her not to worry, then left. That night bandits came, raped and killed her, killed Josiah, burned down the house and took the flock and escaped into the night. When Christ got home He was so enraged… burying them He then ran off into the night, ran up into Turkey and fought with their armies in battle after battle… until one day He looked down at His hands and all He saw was blood. No amount of water was going to wash that from Him. He then went to Tibet to cleanse Himself, which His Father told Him to do in order for the business at hand yet to come. He was there several years until He had cleansed Himself of the hate, the loathing and the painful sorrow of loss.
Then and only then did He return to Jerusalem to do His Father’s work.
When Christ had finished telling me this story He smiled again and asked if that answered my questions. I admitted that I had a billion questions, but that satisfied that aspect of it. He told me to share it with as many as I could and to remind people that His Father was Love, pure love and if they loved Him that love would be doubled back to them. He wished me well and then disappeared, smiling with His radiant smile as He left, telling me He loved me.
I sat there in the dark room looking at the chair as it slowly stopped rocking…
Never had anything touched me so as that morning did, that knowledge did… that this human, yet god… only went back to do something for God, even though He knew it was going to end His life.
And it made perfect sense to me why “The Little Drummer Boy” was always my favorite Christmas special… as the story of the little boy was similar to Christ’s sad story.
Christ told me that morning if one should call out the name of His son, Josiah, they would have blessings upon them, for remembering the grandson of God would be quite a remarkable thing… And to this very day, in 2026, God still urges me to work on the books of Dakota, even though I’ve tried to publish and no one will do so… but He still wants these messages out, given to the world, via these books.
As I sit here and type this out I hear both God and Christ thanking me for writing this and giving it to you guys, which makes me start to cry. God asked me why I was crying and I said, “Because if more people knew of your love as I do maybe there wouldn’t be such ugliness in the world.”
So for this Easter in a confusing and pained world remember, God loves you as no other and His Son sacrificed Himself so that you may live a great life.
Happy Easter.