About Peter, A Vision in the Tub

Dear Friend,



I very rarely share anything personally with people until I have become quite close, and most individuals know very little of my truly personal life, this is the life that I hold most precious; my relationship with God, my children, my imitate family, and my closest friends. The following event happened in and around November 2008.

But for some strange reason I feel prompted to share with you. This fact has me a bit perplexed considering I have been brutally betrayed by women on at least two occasions, and the trust factor has been stretched at times.

 In the area of Trust, I find myself to be, (and I believe this has been used against me at times), often from the position to trust someone first, until they prove themselves to be untrustworthy.

I am a “optimist”, in what I have found to be a world of more pessimists then optimists. But once a person loses my trust, I find it very difficult for them to build it again. 

The things I am thinking of telling you in the next few pages are of the most personal to me, this is my walk.




Without getting into too much of a life’s history, lets just say that all at once I was facing losing my home, business, my family, any money I had was tied up in property that seemed to have no chance of liquidation, frozen assets stocks, etc. For a person who has taken care of themselves since they were literally 14, and had always had backup plans, this attack I was under seemed to be designed to destroy me, there was NO way out! 


I was so depressed that I could hardly eat, my whole life was being stolen from me by an adulterer/adulteress who came in and saw what they wanted, seduction was allowed and engaged upon, and they were in the process of stealing, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I remember I was having trouble sleeping, I had to take care of my three small children when she just left, that wasn’t so bad, but when she returned and decided that she was going to take everything for no other reason then “she could”, and her father had the money and power to do anything his daughter desired, this placed me in a position of constant worry.

My heart was racing, I was cold all the time, I could hardly wait for the children to go to bed, so I could lay in the Jacuzzi tub, often times for hours at a time; 10 or 11 until 3, 4 in the morning. It was crazy. 



Months prior to this, and this is important, there had been discussions of doing missions, I played in the church worship band on and off, for almost fifteen years, but make no mistake I had one foot solidly planted in the world. Amazing now that I look back, there were so many times that I would be watching a movie at night alone, and this might sound crazy, but God would speak to me through the words or images of some of these movies, and I would sit in my TV room crying out to Him; “I want to change, please help me change”. Never did I think He might actually answer. 



Well back to the “tub”, when everything was crashing down on me, I literally had no out! I didn’t know what to do, my heart constantly racing, and I even had to make the bath so hot just to give me even a remote sense of not having a chill all the time! 



I remember first earlier in the night looking down into the water at my hands and then realizing; “Oh that’s it!” I could see the peace in the water! 



I have walked and talked to God my whole life, and when I read the stories of David especially as a youth, I could completely identify with that, because I used to love just walking and talking to God, literally as long as I can remember. I always walked to school, even when others took the bus or their bike, I loved to walk. I did this mostly alone and I would carry on pretty long engaging conversations with, who I knew to be God. I knew it was God because the answers were often not anything I knew, or sometimes wanted to hear, but always good, true, peaceful, and full of love.

I had an image in my mind of whom I was talking to, and that image has never changed. I will describe that in a few minutes.



As I lay in the tub I remember the calmness of the water, and for the first time I could understand how someone could desire to end their life. That concept had always eluded me, even after loosing the love of my life, the woman I went all the way to Holland for, in a car accident. And to make matters even more tragic, that first love was driving to the hospital a day before she was due to deliver our second child. She was hit and killed instantly, her and the baby.

I will tell you I know she was killed instantly, but right now I’m not going to share how I know this, that one will have to wait. Even after all this time, those specific details are almost impossible for me to bring to the surface. Even with this, suicide had never even entered my mind, I had a daughter I needed to take care of, and frankly I always wondered; “how bad does it have to get, that people would want to end it?”

I guess I had finally seen.



So after my “Great” revelation about the calmness of the water, I laid there for who knows how long. All I know it was midnight or so, and it was in this tub I began to desperately to call out; “please help me, Lord please”, I wasn’t hearing anything and frankly I didn’t expect to.

Now when u pray, do you ever get any sparkles of light, maybe in the corner of your eyes when your eyes are closed? I would sometimes, when I would pray, not often, but sometimes, and even one time I asked my mother (a very strong Christian woman, who prior to this event I considered a wacko!), I asked her about this, and she said; she heard that this phenomenon may be a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, sounded cool.

Well I’m laying there, and my eyes are closed in the dark and the Jacuzzi stops, nothing special about that, because the thing was on a timer and would shut off after an hour or so anyway! 

I am just laying in there feeling the bubbles caress my skin, a moment of distraction in my life of utter anxiety, stress and desperate anguish. So I laid there and just rested and waited for what?, I didn’t know.

Then suddenly in the dark I started to see one of those little light sparkles in the corner of my eye, and I remember saying actually out loud; “Thank you, Thank you!, one thing! One thing in my life positive!” and then whoooosh! My whole field of vision went white!

As bright as a bright summers day, yet one that was cloud covered, you know those hazy clouds that just seem to make the whole sky bright white! 

For a moment I just sat there in the dark room staring at the bright white field before my eyes, thinking “this is nice”, and then within the whiteness suddenly I saw Christ standing there, kind of like my eyes adjusted, He was standing on rough water yet he was also standing on kind of like a cloud, the sky around Him was churning, with swirling dark clouds among the whiteness, but then it became clear that the bright light seemed to emulate from Him, behind Him or from His cloths.



Now His clothes they were interesting, and while they were bright as I could hardly stand to look at, yet I could easily look without any trouble, they were white and then again they weren’t!, kind of like, an off shade of white “Ivory white or egg shell”. The cloth clearly was some kind of coarse linen, but it hung on him in such purity and majesty it seemed perfect.

He was looking towards me, but kind of next to me, turned slightly to left. I could clearly see the Right hand with the wound on the Right wrist, it red as a ruby!, and kind of angular?! He had a look on His face of calm, peace, and completely inviting compassion. His Hair was Red-Brown, but frankly shown in the light, making it hard to actually make out the color exactly, but I did see it was clearly wavy and shoulder length. 

 I was just looking in awe, and suddenly as clear as I hear people right next to me, I hear; “get out of the boat and come to me”, all I could say was; “What?”…. “Get out of the boat and come to me!” again I said “what?” this time, kind of loud and with authority; “Get Out Of The Boat And Come To Me!” all I could manage to say was “Ok”, and in my mind I seemed to be getting out of the boat???

I felt a sudden calmness come over me, starting at the top of my head and spreading down all the way to my feet, and it sort of made me tingle almost as if something was being poured over my head. My heart stopped racing and I felt peace for the first time in a month! 



I then realized; “wait a minute, where am I?” I opened my eyes and realized I was still in the Tub! I quickly closed them again, but the image was gone! Suddenly the sinking feeling, a cold chill coming up from my feet and as it reached my heart, the racing heart started again, and as the chill got to my head, all the fears and anxieties returned. All I could think was; “that was a nice dream, back to reality!” 

Then the baby started crying (2 years old), I was alone in the house, so I got out of the tub went into his room and picked him up.

I had my favorite rocker in his room and I just held him and rocked him. As I held him I cried a bit (I seemed to do that a lot back then), and he just seemed to envelope himself into my chest, with his arms wrapped around me. I said to myself or probably to God; “Is this how it feels when we come to you?” And He said as clear as a loudspeaker in my head; “Yes!” and suddenly I could feel huge arms wrapped around me, and my anxiety seemed to lift, from my head down, the heart stopped racing, and a calmness and peace just came over me, giving me a complete feeling of knowing; “everything was going to be all right, no matter!” All my fear left me!



I sat there holding him for at least two hours, put him to bed, still “felt the Arms”, and went to bed, having the first restful sleep in weeks! I woke up the next days feeling great, “The Arms” still there and I went to work, a 125 mile drive to Phoenix feeling great all the way. Later that day I called my Pastor friend in Cuchara Co and told him of what happened to me, he asked me very specific questions of what I saw and how I felt during the episode, and then told me “you had a vision”, I was about 50/50, but he said “that’s ok, you will get more confirmation if it is truly God”.



My cousin had called, but I have been purposely avoiding his calls because I didn’t want to tell him of my problems, he lives in Wisconsin, and frankly he wouldn’t understand, plus I was ashamed of the impending divorce. But when I checked my messages he said “I really need to talk to you”, so I thought “why not?” I have the Arms around me, I feel good.

So I called Jerry, and the first thing he asks is “are u OK?”.

“I’m great!”, I said, I mean I had the “arms” around me still!.

He says “oh?” Kind of confused, and he goes on to describe a dream yesterday at 2 am, and that is funny because he never dreams and never, ever, remembers if he does, but this one wakes him straight up in bed crying out; “Pete, Pete!”, he even wakes his wife. He was dreaming we were in a boat together and I fell out, he pulled me in, and I fell out again, this time though the ice, so he was trying to pull me back yelling Pete, Pete and he woke up.

His wife asked him what was it, but he said nothing, and went back to sleep. Then the exact dream repeats at 4am this time his pastor and his very religious cousin are also in the boat holding him, as he tries to pull me back in. After waking up twice, his wife says you need to call Pete in the morning!

He asks me “do you know what it means?”

I said no but listen what happened to me and I tell him of the tub.

He said that is amazing, then says “I lied to you, when I said you kept falling out, the truth is you got up and stepped out!”, he said I thought you were trying to commit suicide that why I had the dreams! 



That same day, when ever I put on the radio, everywhere I looked, every, and I mean every, every, every time I looked at a billboard, a sign, a TV, at anything I saw boats, references to Peter the apostle, storms. Over and over.

I started just laughing, “what’s going on?” 

Over the course of the next week, I spent much of my time in prayer and contemplation, and the Word just flooded in, I would listen to cd’s from John Ortberg, Purpose Driven Life, The Shack, I was listening and reading all I could get my hands on, and God was speaking to me constantly. It didn’t matter what I was listening to, if I was talking about faith with someone in private, or just regarding a particular topic to myself, regardless of the specific topics or chapters I would listen to, I mean I would just turn it on, and they would happen to be talking about the very topic I was interested or talking about that moment, exactly!, praying about or in discussion about. Boats, Peter the Apostle, over and over again.

Crazy fast amount of information, I literally went through ten, fifteen books in a week. Mostly audio books! 



Then my mother says she wants me to go to a men’s meeting on Saturday at her church, now I was watching the children that week, knee deep in the divorce, still trying to rectify somehow, walking on eggshells. So I didn’t want to leave the children with my mother, maybe possibly irritating the wife!

But also by this time I am beginning to suspect, that when my mother tells me to do something, “it may?”, probably was!, somewhat prophetic, and most certainly blessed!!

So I reluctantly agree to go, but when I hear its an all day deal, I said NO WAY!

With a little arguing I again reluctantly, promised! My bargain; if it was good, I would order the cd on their website, and then just listen on my way down to Phoenix. 



My second vision is on the way!, but I’ve got to do some work so I will send this through and tell you more in a bit.

By 

peter colla

“Thank You Jesus, for not only the gift of seeing You, but for the grace of hearing me when I was on my knees, not only that but for the opportunity to be on my knees! Let all my brothers and sister, be so blessed.”