There are moments in life that feel less like decisions and more like interruptions—sudden, precise, and impossible to ignore. They arrive quietly, without spectacle, yet carry a weight that rearranges everything that follows. For me, that moment came in October 2024 while I was doing something entirely ordinary: walking my dogs. There was no dramatic sign in the sky, no audible voice echoing through the air. Instead, a single sentence formed in my mind with a clarity that felt foreign to my own thoughts: “Stop looking for in others what only I can provide.”
That sentence did not feel like advice. It felt like a summons.
For years, I had understood the concept of the rapture through a familiar lens—an anticipated, future event in which believers are collectively “caught up” to meet Christ. This understanding is rooted in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, where the apostle Paul describes believers being “caught up” together with the Lord. The Greek word used here is harpazō, meaning to seize, snatch, or carry off suddenly.
At the same time, Jesus presents a more individualized picture in Matthew 24:40-41, stating that “two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left.” The scene is ordinary, almost unremarkable, yet it is interrupted by a sudden distinction between individuals sharing the same space and activity. The emphasis is not on spectacle, but on separation—something that happens within the flow of everyday life. Traditionally, these passages have been interpreted as describing a singular, global moment that has yet to occur. However, my experience led me to reconsider whether this “snatching away” might also be encountered on a deeply personal level—one that does not necessarily unfold in the dramatic way we often expect.
When I consider the possibility that Christ meets a person at a specific moment in their life, the idea becomes less abstract and more relational. It begins to resemble the Jesus described in John 10:27—one who calls, and whose voice is recognized. In that sense, the “taking” is not only about where someone is going, but about the Shepherd who comes to find them.
In that moment on my walk, something in me was taken hold of. It was not physical removal from the world, but it was a distinct shift in allegiance, identity, and source. The sentence I heard severed a pattern I had unknowingly lived by—seeking fulfillment, validation, and stability in other people, particularly through repeated and unsuccessful attempts at online dating. What followed was not a gradual change, but an immediate redirection. My attention was reclaimed, and my sense of dependence was reassigned. If harpazō means to be seized or carried off, then this experience felt like a kind of internal “snatching away,” a relocation of my life from one foundation to another.
What came next only reinforced that sense of reassignment. By July 2025, I left my job as a medical biller to begin working full-time on what would become My Crown of Grace Publishing, LLC. Despite holding a master’s degree, I had remained in entry-level positions, often overlooked and underestimated in ways that limited how others perceived my capabilities. Without prior experience beyond my academic background in many of these new areas, I found myself learning, creating, and developing at a pace that did not feel self-directed. I sometimes describe this transition half-jokingly by saying that God hired me; however, the statement reflects a deeper reality. Where others had been unwilling to invest in what I might become, I began to recognize that the One who created me already knew what I was capable of, even before I did.
I wrote a book, Manifesting with the Holy Spirit, along with additional projects including coloring books focused on repentance, obedience, surrender, and healing. I developed a website and blog, established a publishing company, and launched a mobile application on the Google Play Store translated into thirty-four languages, designed to help users cultivate a relationship with Jesus. At the same time, I began working toward YouTube content, a second application, and even a potential game. I am enrolled in courses through Christian Leaders Institute to further develop my understanding and structure what I am creating with the Holy Spirit.
This shift was not simply a career change. It was a revelation of purpose. The speed and scope of the transition suggests something more than personal ambition. It feels as though I have been moved into alignment with a direction that already exists, rather than creating one on my own.
In addition to this internal transformation, I experienced a series of external events that brought an entirely different layer of gravity. In April 2026, I was awakened in the early morning by what I later discovered were multiple bullets fired into my child’s bedroom! Eight rounds passed through the window and walls, stopping only when they struck a box of books in a nearby closet. My child was not home that night, and no one was injured. Days later, an attempted Molotov cocktail was thrown at the same window, failing to ignite due to the use of a plastic container that did not break on impact. These events remain unexplained. I do not know who was responsible or why our home was targeted.
What I do know is that we were protected.
Scripture speaks to this kind of preservation without always explaining its cause. Psalm 91 describes deliverance from unseen dangers, while 2 Kings 6:17 recounts a moment when spiritual protection exists even when it is not immediately visible. These passages do not assign identity based on protection, but they do affirm that such protection is not random.
The woman is not removed from the narrative entirely. She is relocated and sustained in a specific place for a specific time. This detail became more personal to me than I initially realized. In December 2025, I experienced an unexpected relocation of my own. Although my apartment lease was set to renew, I discovered that the renewal had been rescinded without explanation. After living there for two years and extending the lease once before, I was suddenly told I needed to vacate by November 30. The decision was not anticipated, nor was I financially or logistically prepared to move. What initially felt like disruption began to resemble a pattern I had already been living through—being redirected without prior notice.
Meanwhile, the text goes on to describe the dragon turning its attention toward “the rest of her offspring… those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17). This distinction does not suggest that one group is saved while another is not, but rather reflects differing conditions within the same broader body—some hidden and preserved in one season, others openly contending in another. The relocation described in Revelation is not framed as abandonment, but as provision within a specific phase.
Scripture presents multiple images for the people of God—the remnant, the bride, the body, and even the lost sheep. While these are not interchangeable, they reveal a progression. The one who is lost is sought out, found, and brought back by the Shepherd (Luke 15:4). What follows is not simply restoration, but repositioning. In that sense, the pattern of being gathered, set apart, and sustained begins to resemble the movement described in Revelation 12, where a people are both pursued and preserved within the same unfolding narrative.
This pattern aligns with recurring themes throughout Scripture. Israel in the wilderness, Elijah in seclusion, and even Jesus prior to His public ministry all reflect this rhythm of withdrawal before revelation. The wilderness, in this sense, is not abandonment. It is containment for transformation.
Understanding my experience through this lens does not require redefining the rapture as a completed event, nor does it require dismissing its future implications. Instead, it allows for a layered understanding: that the concept of being “snatched away” may begin in the present as a spiritual reorientation before it is ever realized as a physical event. In other words, one can be relocated in allegiance and identity long before any final, collective fulfillment takes place.
The most accurate way to describe what happened to me is not that I was removed from the world, but that I was taken out of my previous source of direction and placed into a new one. The shift was immediate, the transformation ongoing, and the implications continue to unfold. It was not an escape from reality, but an entrance into a different way of engaging with it.
If the traditional image of the rapture is one of being lifted into the sky, my experience felt more like being firmly grasped and redirected—less about departure, and more about alignment. It was not loud or visible, but it was decisive.
And once something has been seized at that level, it does not easily return to what it was before.