By Michael Armijo 

Last night, during the day, I was driving to the airport to pick up my buddy Mike Mendez. I was driving my current car, and was concerned about how his luggage would fit into the tiny back seat. As I gazed upon the back seat I was convinced it would fit.

When I got to the airport, I was in New York and suddenly I was part of a group of young, excited students who had English accents and were amazed at being in such a place. Where we came from, there wasn’t a place like this. So we frolicked through the airport like kids in a candy store. We were amazed, surprised, and excited to be with such a hodgepodge of people.

One of the other students made gifts and placed phone numbers in a box. He skipped his way through and handed out the gifts: mostly chocolate bars and CDs of classic rock. He gave me a phone number and said “You’ll want this number, it’s hers,” and he pointed to one of the other students. I looked at her and she was only about 19 years old, and I thought: “That’s disgusting; she’s too young for me.” Then I gazed into a nearby mirror and saw something shocking: I wasn’t a middle aged man, nor did I look the same. I was a young 20 year old, my ethnicity was now different, but I had the wisdom and memories of my current self.

I was completely confused on what was transpiring.

I went to a turnstile and saw a young man who resembled, exactly, my childhood friend Todd Mestas. I was right next to him and stared in amazement. He was smiling and looked so happy.

What’s interesting was that when I woke from this vivid and realistic dream, I didn’t know where I was, nor did I know what to do with the memory of that dream. I can visualize, hear, and smell the airport and I could still taste the chocolate bars. It was so realistic I believed I was really there.

The stranger part was the friend, Mike, who I was supposed to pick up from the airport, had passed away a few years back. So had Todd. He died the following year. They are both gone. So what does that mean? Or what does that mean to me?  I drew some conclusions:

1. When I pass, am I coming back as a new person, reincarnated into someone different who deep inside I’ve been yearning to be?
2. Should I leave California, as I’ve been wanting to do these past 2 years, and begin a new life?
3.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Was God telling me that I am now a new man?

I’ve had many dreams, but don’t remember most of them. This one stuck in my head and I can remember so many details. I thought about my life and realized I eat fairly healthy, I don’t take any drugs, I don’t drink, I just had a CT scan and I have no tumors, nor is my heart in danger. So why has this message that came to me, while asleep, embedded itself into my mind, and now into my spirit?

I’m not sure why this dream disrupted my life, felt so real, and won’t leave my mind. But what I do know is that the way I felt during this episode in my life made me feel better than I’ve felt in a very long time. Made me feel different. Gave me some type of hope. I guess God knew that a trip to a New York airport when I was living in England would give me what I needed, which it did…last night.