Taia Van Fleet's prophetic and teaching articles and words all available through BannerWORD.com

Vision: My hands were open in a holding fashion, and oil is being poured into them.

Scripture: In 2Kings 4 there is a widow talking with Elisha about the problems she's had since her husband's death. She tells him that since her husband's death she owes money that she doesn't have, and she has no way to pay the dept. Elisha tells her to gather as many jars as she can and to start pouring oil into them.

I was in prayer the other night and the pastor asked everyone to life their hands out in front of them, and as I did so I heard God tell me to put my hands together in a cupping fashion. As I did this and closed my eyes, in my mind's eye I saw oil being poured down--from somewhere I could not see--into my cupped hands. As my hands filled up it just continued to overflow over the sides--and yet it kept pouring down. It poured out until I moved my hands away and the oil had nowhere to go anymore.

In the the story with Elisha, the widow listened and gathered jars from all her neighbors. As she poured out the oil from one jar into the other, the oil kept going. The oil kept pouring beyond what the one jar should have been able to hold, and filled a room full of jars with oil. The widow kept telling her sons to 'find more vessels', until they said there were no more. And then the oil stopped flowing.

I believe God has jars full of oil ready to rain down on us, but is waiting for us to open up our hands and receive it. Do we have something to hold it in? Are we in the right place to receive it? Do we even want to receive it? Oil and blessings and prosperity and answers He is ready to just shower us with--but He is waiting for us to open up our hands and cup them together to receive it. He wants to know that what He gives to us we will not just let fall through the cracks; that we will not just let it slip through our fingers.

And just as the jars of oil got the widow through her time of need, and then blessed her multiple times over, I believe God is wanting to do that with us. Just like the widow, we are coming through and from hard times and seasons where the blessings and the voice of God felt far off and distant; but God is holding His jar, ready to pour His oil out over us to cover every single one of our needs. He has not left us, He has not forsaken us--but in many cases, He is just waiting for a vessel to pour into.

Blessings,
Taia Van Fleet
taia@mdaia.com

The sun was setting with the afternoon light. Darkness hadn’t yet settled in, though the two girls knew it was coming, biting at their heels.

The smaller of the two was leading, jumping and bounding through the tall familiar grasses, up and over fallen trees and large rocks. She was full of energy, her face full of smiles and glints in her eye. Her hair flowed long behind her and mingled joyously with the skirts of her dress.

The second girl followed behind, moving a little bit slower than the first. Her freckled face didn’t have any smiles, and there was no glimmer in her eyes. She didn’t pay much attention to her surroundings and what the first girl pointed out to her. Her eyes remained down to where her feet were going, not the birds above her or the voice floating back to her. She looked out into the shadows for the main house, more than ready to head back home.

The smaller—though not any younger of a girl—turned around, smiling. “Where do you want to go?”

The taller girl—called Rebecca—kicked at a small rock. “Home. I want to go lie down and go to bed.”

Angie crouched down, wrapping her arms around her legs while she smelled a flower. “That’s no fun. You’ll miss dinner, and then we can’t play.”

Rebecca kept walking. “I didn’t want dinner. I want to go home and pretend I never came out here. I just want to go home.”

Angie didn’t respond at first, but just stared down at the flower. “But we’re remembering.” She plucked the flower up, holding it for Rebecca to see. “See? It’s a forget-me-not.”

Rebecca stared back at her in the way little girls do when they disagree. Her eyes crinkled at the sides and her freckled nose wrinkled up in thought. She wasn’t sure if she liked what Angie was talking about, or if she wanted any part of it.

She watched Angie’s smaller form jump up from the dirt and begin in the direction they had originally been headed in. She moved quick on her feet, away from where had stopped.

“Wait,” Rebecca called, starting after her. She pushed a low branch out of her way as she caught a glimpse of Angie heading into the trees. “Where are we going?”
A rustle from the ground and a splash of sunlight came through the leaves to her. There were trees all around that made it look like a sanctuary, somewhere safe and calm. The grasses seemed to be whispering things to her, telling secrets on the breath of the wind.

The grass was nearly taller than her in some places. It made her feel funny, not knowing what lay behind it in any direction.

Rebecca moved deeper into the grasses, past a free standing boulder. She touched at it for balance, her foot slipping as she went down a small slope. “Why do we have to remember? I don’t want to. I want to go home and forget.”

“We want to remember what he did though. We want to remember the good things so that we never forget.”

Rebecca stopped running, catching her breath. She lifted a hand to wipe at her forehead, taking in a large breath. The sun was getting lower, the air feeling a little brisker in the shade. Angie was down on her backside, her lacy socks and dress shoes tossed aside without a second thought. She had rolled her skirts up above her knees and was dipping her toes into the shallow stream.

“What are you doing? We have to go back to the house!” Rebecca said in a dramatic tone, pointing back to the way she had come from. “Mama’s going to worry about me. People are going to worry about us.”

Angie turned her head, giving Rebecca a skeptical look. Her flowing blonde hair rolled back over her shoulders and down her back as she rolled her eyes. “Rebecca, relax. Sit here with me.” She reached out and patted the ground with her hand.

She crossed her arms in defiance. “No. I don’t want to take off my shoes, and I don’t want to roll up my skirts, and I do not want to play in the water. That is stupid and childish, and I want to go home right now.”

Silence hung over the girls, even with the sound of water slowly flowing by and the grass shifting back and forth against itself. Angie turned back away from her, shrugging her shoulders. “You can go home. Go home and forget all you want. I never want to forget. I want to remember forever and never forget.”

Angie reached into her pocket and pulled out some crackers, while reaching behind her also and grabbing at a bottle. Before taking it herself, she offered it up to Rebecca. “My mama packed me a snack. Do you want some?”

Angie shrugged, popping one of the crackers into her mouth and taking a drink. “Mama says grape juice makes you smarter. Helps you remember things better.”

Angie gave her a sharp look. “Go home if you want to forget everything. Just go home.”

Rebecca’s face heated up, her small face contorting in anger. “I never said I want to forget forever! I can’t ever forget what I’ve seen—what I know really happened.”

Angie sighed, reaching out her fingers to play in the water alongside her toes. “But you don’t want to remember either. Is that any different than wanting to forget?”

The taller girl made a face again. She considered her options, frustrated with the situation she was in. In the next moment she dropped down on her knees beside Angie. She didn’t want to be there and to give in, but also didn’t want to be remembered as someone who wanted to forget her uncle. “Why are you doing this? How does this help to remember?”

“He wants us to remember him,” Angie said, lifting up her hands. In between her small fingers the water from the stream sat, reflecting. “He made this, Becca. He made this for us.”

Rebecca stopped and looked around her. She saw the tall brown and green grasses around them, encasing them in a bubble. The stream in front of her was nowhere as wide as she was tall, and it wasn’t hardly deep enough to be halfway to her knees. There were wild flowers everywhere, littering her sight like small jewels.

She looked at the water, not trusting any of it. “How could he do that? I mean, why would he do that?”

Water glistened like crystals as Angie jumped up from her perch on the side of the stream and ran. Her feet kicked up behind her as she took off straight through the middle of the water flow. Little droplets splashed back up, adorning Rebecca’s face. “Angie! Where are you going?” She lifted her hand to shield her face from the splashing, peeking around to see where she was going.

Angie turned back to look at her, the sun setting on her shoulders, making her hair shine like gold. “Come on! We’re going to see.”

Rebecca looked at Angie’s cast aside shoes, curious how far this was going to go. How far did she want it to go?

When she looked up and saw Angie had turned away again and began running, she quickly made up her mind and stripped off her best shoes and socks. “Angie wait,” she called, scrambling out of the dirt. She grabbed the skirts of her dress as she jumped feet first into the stream and began to run after Angie. The water was cold and crisp at first as it ran up her ankles and splashed at her shins. Rebecca nearly fell over herself multiple times as she tried to get a hold on her clothes to keep them from getting wet. She wasn’t ready—didn’t want to submerge and go completely under.

She wanted to know what Angie was after. She was curious about what was around the next corner, and what she would be shown about her uncle next.

Rebecca stopped short as she rounded the corner, her heart racing wildly inside her chest. Above and all around her little pieces of gold seemed to be falling through the air. It floated and sparkled like the water had, though in a far more beautiful way. There was a tree overhead that seemed to be reaching up into the sky, long tendrils of itty-bitty leaves streaking back down through the air at her.

She felt like the leaves were reaching out to her specifically, floating like wreaths of feathers around her head.

She kept going further under the tree, trekking her feet out of the water. “Angie?”

The smaller girl came around the tree, her hands against the trunk. The little pieces of gold were floating down around her small face, lighting her long blonde hair. “I used to come here to see him. He liked it here.”

Rebecca looked around again at the tree and the floating gold specks. “But he didn’t plant the tree here. The tree is too big. It’s been here forever.”

Angie gave her a look. “Of course he didn’t plant the tree. When did I say he planted the tree?”

She shook her head. “No. This is just where he would come to be alone or talk with his Father.”

Rebecca stepped forward, closer. Her curiosity was spiking, taking advantage of her. She touched at the grass absentmindedly, her fingers tickled by the fur at the top.

Angie shrugged, halfways shaking her head. “Not really—but sort of. He said his Father was always with him, even when he couldn’t see him. He said that even if I couldn’t see him, that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. And if I wanted he could always be with me just like he was always with him too!”

A shiver of something foreign and familiar at the same time ran through Rebecca. “What if I don’t want him? Why would I want someone that I can’t see?” She stepped back away from Angie, unsure how she felt about all of this. It was all so strange, and it made her skin tingle in an awkward way that she wasn’t used to. Her feet backed up into the water, submerging to her ankles into something that felt familiar and safe.

Angie looked up at the tree. “Because then you’ve always got someone with you. Like a forever best friend.” She touched at one of the strings of bead-like leaves, dangling like faded emeralds. “But you don’t have to take him if you don’t want to. If you accept uncle though, then you can have his papa too.”

Rebecca looked up at the tree. “Why did he have to die? It doesn’t seem fair.”

Angie stepped down from the roots of the tree, back down to the dirt and the stones. “I want to show you something else.”

Rebecca balled up her hands into fists and stamped her foot. She shook her head, her brown locks spinning around her irritated face. “I don’t want to see anything else! I came this far with this silly game, and now I’m done. All you’re doing is making me more upset; you aren’t making this any better, Angie.”

The smaller girl’s eyes shone like pools of liquid. “You don’t have to come. If you don’t want to come, then don’t. It’s your choice.” She turned away from Rebecca and began up the stream again, her toes working into the dirt alongside the water, making a single set of footprints.

Rebecca clamped her teeth down on her tongue, stamping her foot in the same dirt. “Angie? Angie!” The smaller girl didn’t turn back, but just kept walking to her next destination. Rebecca silently fumed, looking back at where she’d come from, unsure what she wanted to do.

She could go back home and pretend that none of this had ever happened; or she could keep going to see what Angie want to show her.

She let her shoulders drop, sighing. She went on after Angie, far too curious to not find out.

She ran a further distance this time, still traveling by way of the stream. She called out for Angie, having no idea in which direction the girl had been headed. She looked up at the sky while catching her breath.

He wasn’t her real uncle; not by blood anyways. He had been like a relative to everyone who ever met him though; he never turned anyone away.

How could he—someone who was just as much a man as anyone else—have created all of this? The stream, the sanctuary of trees? Did he create the speckles of flowers too?

No, she didn’t believe he had created it. Maybe he had brought it all together—brought them all together—but he hadn’t created it. A man could not create; he could only observe creation for what it truly was.

She stumbled in the creek, catching herself before she completely fell. “Angie? Where did you go?”

Up through a break in the trees she saw a shadow.
“Angie?” she called, moving up towards the familiar shape.

At the top of the slope she stopped, the sun blinding her. It was still going down, though it seemed to be going far slower than before. It was like a giant clock, and it was like time had slowed down for them, giving them another chance.

Off to the side she saw Angie running through the grasses. It was all nearly as tall as her, the very same color as the hair flying back from her face.

They sprung through the fields, running and jumping as they had been before, a simplicity trying to return to a childhood nearly gone.

She slowed down as they came to a borderline in the grass. Angie was pulling herself up the boards of the fence, stepping her bare feet up the side. At the top Rebecca watched as she swung her body up and over so that she was seated on the top board facing the direction they had been headed in.

Angie shrugged, clearly not caring. “Neither am I. What I want you to see we can watch from here.”

Rebecca stepped up to the fence, placing her feet on the first step. She laid her arms on the top as she peered over, her eyes flickering back and forth. Her nose wrinkled up. “All I see is a school. It is definitely not time to go to school, Angie.”

Rebecca reluctantly looked back to the scene before her.
They weren’t waiting long before a sound came from the small school house. Rebecca stood high on the top of her toes, splinters digging into her skin. She stretched, eager to see what they were looking for.

After another moment there was another sound, and then the school doors were thrown open. Children of all sizes dashed through the opening into the open yard, their voices ringing out on all sides. Small giggles and screams came from children around their own age, running and dashing and jumping like all small children do.

The two girls watched quietly for a long time, both observing the same scene in different ways, as if through two completely different lenses. Angie was appreciating the sight, watching the children jump and play; Rebecca was fervently searching for what it was she was supposed to see.

Angie turned and looked at her. “Work there? No. Why are you looking at the school house?”

Rebecca stared back, frustration flaring. “Isn’t that what you’re showing me? Aren’t we looking at the school house? At the teachers or something?”

She saw Angie’s face sober up. Her smile fell, and the twinkle began to fade out of her eyes.

It was said in a way that stopped Rebecca’s anger hot in its tracks. She suddenly found herself feeling meek and very, very wrong.

“I—” she clenched her jaw, unsure what to even say.
Rebecca looked back at the scene of school children. She focused, trying to remember what Angie had told her. What had she said?

It took her a moment, but then it clicked in her mind. It had clicked for her without someone else trying to convince or force her; and she though she finally understood.

Angie’s face lit up, her smile returning to her. She reached out and threw her arms around Rebecca, throwing them both off balance on the fence. They both fell back into the tall grasses, their limbs entangled together.

“You get it! You got it all on your own! It was his heart—the children—they are his true heart.” She jumped up again, pointing through the boards. “See? They’re ok. They lost him too, but they’re ok because they remember him. They remember what he did and said, and so they haven’t completely lost him.”

Rebecca shook her head, feeling herself choke up. “But what if that’s not enough? What if I forget what he said and what he did? What if I forget him entirely?”

Angie looked at her, her eyes still twinkling. “Once you’ve met him, he never really leaves you.” She grabbed her hand. “It’s been three days Becca. It’s time to remember him now; let’s go home.”

They ran back across the land together again. Away from the school house, through the creek—in which they both stumbled and soaked themselves this time. They ran past the tree that was shedding gold, and back to where their socks and shoes still sat to the side. They grabbed them up and grappled up the hill back to level ground. They laughed as they ran through the grass and the sun turned to sun-set, their shadows getting further and further behind them.

They ran to the edge of the farm, climbing through the boundary fence. There were people scattered all around the main house; families, babies, and plenty of old people.

Angie ran first to the snack table filled with all different things to choose from. She grabbed two cups and filled them with grape juice, turning around with both hands full.

Rebecca grinned back at her, her own hands full as well. “I’ve got the crackers.”