an epiphany

So, this weekend I had some interesting things happen. I went home for the weekend, and came across a leather journal of poetry I keep. I haven't written a lot of poetry in a long time, so I read through a couple of them last night. I was surprised by how exposed my emotions were in my poetry. I also noticed that the bad emotions seemed to be accompanied by (paraphrased) "life might be bad, but God can carry me through." I realized I've drifted from that a lot. I still trust God, but it isn't the first thing that comes to mind anymore. I shook my head. "You have a lot of catching up to do, Meg."

Then, I went to a women's breakfast at my church this morning. The topic was dreaming. Not a difficult topic, considering I don't think I've ever been awake that early on a Saturday, except maybe when I had a track meet in grade school. Those were insane... I remember waking up at 4:30 so that we could drive hours into PA, and then running all day in the rain. All in all good memories, but still... its Saturday. Anyway, the speaker runs a dream interpretation group (not my friend Tiffany, although they sometimes work together). It was really interesting what she had to say about how dreams can bring people comfort and such. I was struck by a story she told:

She and her husband were living in an apartment in Hackensack. Their neighbors down the hall were elderly women. One was "eighty bazillion years old" and the other was "older than that." In her dream, she was standing in the bedroom of the younger elderly woman, just watching her, not doing anything. The room was heavy with the scent of Avon cream (she named the exact name of it, which I don't remember) and the woman was peacefully sleeping with a smile on her face. Then, the woman just quietly breathed her last, and she woke up. It was 5 am, and she woke her husband up to tell him. "Yeah... what'd you eat last night? Go back to sleep." That morning, they got up, her husband said goodbye and left for work. She was in the bathroom getting ready and her husband came back in. His face was grey. "The paramedics just brought a gurney in. The younger of the two women died in her sleep at 5 this morning." They later discovered from the other woman that the old woman had always been afraid of dying alone. Its a touching story, but there's one thing that stands out to me.

The old woman died peacefully, as if she knew there was someone there. If the dreamer's body was in bed with her husband, what part of her was with the old woman? How did this split occur? Am I reading too much into it? I admit I'm fascinated with dreams. I haven't checked, but I'm told 1/3 of the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) contains references to dreams and dreaming. Several of them occur with stories of people going to distant lands in a dream and influencing things there, probably the most famous journey being John's visit to Heaven in Revelation. Ever since I was in... perhaps 6th grade, I've always wondered, what would it be like to momentarily leave my body behind, and see things I'd probably never see otherwise?

Well, as I sat mulling this over, knitting and listening to my brother playing Halo, I began to be really tired... not surprising since today I was actually awake for my first meal to be considered breakfast instead of lunch. I began to ask God, "Will that ever happen to me? Will You do that for me? I know you control my dreams, and its probably no trouble for You." I don't know if He answered me, or if I answered me, but the question in my mind was, "Are you sure that's what you want?" I started to think... maybe I'm not ready. I admit I have a lot of fear in my life, especially with situations I've never before experienced. By this time I was exhausted and didn't much care, as long as I got my nap in. "Whatever is best for me right now God. You know my state of mind better than I do. If I'm ready then I want it with all my heart." Well, what came out of this insanely long story is that I came to realize today just how immature I am in certain areas. How much I really don't measure up at all and how unworthy I am of God's love and grace. God gave me a dream (I didn't quite travel anywhere), which I won't go into detail with just yet, but the bottom line is this: I can't just do it, I have to learn how, and I won't learn how to dream like that until I can learn how to live in my waking life first. Until I can learn to overcome fear, learn to recognize things about myself that I always just took for granted, and learn to trust God again. I still do, to an extent, but not like I used to, and not like I'd like to.

And anyway, I don't know what to say from there. Its been an interesting day (and perhaps a baffling one for some people who might read this) but overall, I think I learned a lot. I'm going to bed. Goodnight, and sweet dreams to "all y'all." :-)