37 Years Ago Today Is The Anniversary Of That Tragic Day, The Day There Were 4 Survivors & 3 Bodies Were Lost At Sea. One Of The 3 Bodies Never Recovered Was My Brother.

Time sometimes seems to lessen the blow when tragedy hits your household. Once you lose a sibling no matter how young or old they may have been, a part of you seems to want them to come back. You at times wonder to yourself..I bet they would have been a great husband to someone or even a great/fun dad to their children if they would have had any. This was not the way you would like to have a sibling die, not that there is ever a great way one would die in your family. Does that make sense? This really was a tragedy. This could have been the "Perfect Storm" story way before the movie was ever made. Seven people on the boat near the Bermuda Triangle area, they lose communication and a Russian vessel comes along and tries to throw lines to them but in the storm the boat shatters. You now have people in the water hanging onto pieces of the boat debris waiting to be rescued. Now, it has been a few years ago I may not be using the proper terminology, we do have the coast guard report that was sent to us.
The survivors told my mother that they heard my brothers voice for they would call out to each other. I think this was during the night and then they no longer heard his voice. Four had life preservers on and they were the survivors.
Let me share the hope in this story. Recently a few family members were talking about this story and sharing it with some people and reminded me of this. An aunt of ours gave my brother a travel bible before he left on this trip. One of the survivors told my mother that before they left for this boat trip that my brother had them kneel on the beach and he read or prayed from that bible. Another story was that one of the survivors (a female) was afraid that if the boat crashed in the storm that the boat would cave in on her and my brother shielded her to protect her.
This happened a few months before I was off to college. I would wish that one day he would just show up at my dorm and tell me he survived and was stranded somewhere on an island with amnesia and then he had memory again. That was wishful thinking, I guess one would call that hopeful thinking, that is the better term. I did share this with you once before, I had a vivid dream about what he was wearing when the accident happened and because I hounded my mother so much about this dream she asked a survivor and what I saw was what he was wearing. This was the dream...we were both under water, it was not dark or anything like that it was actually light considering in the natural being under water would not be light but it would be dark right? I was facing him and I could see what he was wearing and I could see him but there was a glass wall/partition between us. I could not reach out to him but just see him standing there. God answered my question for I wanted to know what he was wearing. Isn't that odd, of all things to know what he was wearing? No, not odd at all for the God I serve loves me very much and knew that this was something I wanted an answer to, the dream occurred and then confirmed by a survivor. He has since used me in prophetic dreams a lot. At times I am given instant interpretations of dreams and then at other times I pray it through and the interpretation comes in due time.
I must have been a "seer" back then but had no clue as to what one was. It was not time to be revealed to me, it is always in God's timing. I believe that when the gift is there it may be in operation even as a child but until you commit your life to Jesus that is when the revelation knowledge begins to flow in your life. Since then I have learned much about this gift. At times I use to be so excited when Holy Spirit would give me prophetic dreams (that was in the beginning) and like Joseph in the bible I would share my dreams with others and unfortunately, disbelief on the part of the others would steal or kill the dream. Now, I have also learned that when God speaks forth something in your life and it is received via dream form then no devil in hell can steal that dream. Has He spoke to your heart through a dream lately? The test I use when one of these dreams occurs, when I wake from the dream what type of presence do you sense, peace or evil? You must test the origination of the dream to know whether to receive and accept the dream or to get rid of the dream. Always ask Holy Spirit is this dream from you, He will either confirm or say it is not from Him. If it is of Him then let Him also give the interpretation to you (you must ask Him for it.) If it is not confirmed that it is from Him then you want to discard that dream and do not receive it. Cast it away and also stave off anything that would come forth from that particular dream and ask Holy Spirit to take away and remembrance of the dream also. That is important to do.
Maybe when I was in high school one the nuns had an inkling that the banner they presented to us may have been of a prophetic nature with the verse on the banner, "dream deep for every dream precedes the goal." For some reason that  phrase stayed with me and I even used it on the cover of our wedding invite and we had that banner as a part of our wedding mass. I guess it was a small part of my brother being there on my wedding day.
Even in tragedy God can speak forth and comfort and soothe hearts. Throughout the years this thought would pop up in my mind, why not go and interview the survivors and document and write a book about what happened. I would not even know how to contact them since so many years have passed by. I guess I am the one that likes to write and maybe that is why this thought would come and go throughout the years. Maybe that is something God will have me do one day. It would have to be His timing, direction and his protection on this project and doors would have to open wide for me to walk through to accomplish this.
One final thought today, tell those in your family that you love them today for we are only promised today and there may not be a tomorrow for you to tell them that you love them.