Wednesday, July 10, 2013

I'm Dreaming....Please Wake Me

It's amazing how a simple dream can affect your life.  I woke yesterday morning feeling hurt, angry, scared and betrayed.  Why?  I dreamed.....In that dream we had taken all seven grandchildren with us to a park I used to go to as a child.  The children had all taken off in different directions, some to play baseball, some to climb trees and boulders, some to play in the creek and some to arts and crafts.  Suddenly it was time to go.  It made total sense in the dream, even though we had just arrived.  I started rounding everyone up while my husband sat and talked with other adults.  As I found each child, I brought them to him to keep together while I continued my round up.  I found all but one child in what seemed like a moment and an eternity at the same time.  The last child I could not find.  I called and called his name, asked people if they had seen him, giving a fairly good description, but he was nowhere to be found.  I went back in tears to tell my husband I needed help only to discover he had allowed the other kids to go play again until I found the last child.  I threw my purse at him, deliberately missing, but I was extremely angry.  I felt betrayed and hurt.  It seemed he cared nothing for what I was going through.  I began to waken, but didn't want the dream to end this way, so I began to change it to where the final child came to me and told me he had been in a tree and didn't hear me calling.  After this I allowed myself to wake up.  However, I still felt the hurt, anger and betrayal.  I realized that I could choose to carry this with me or I could deliberately make the effort to remove those feelings from my person.  I reached over and hugged my husband and told him how much I love him.  The feelings immediately began to dissipate.
Dreams can seem so real at times.  I wonder how many times we carry the effects of them with us into reality.  I have experienced children telling me stories that never happened, but in their minds and emotions they did.  Have I ever allowed a dream to influence my behavior toward another person?  Have I allowed it to affect my prayer life? 
I started a new study simply called "God's Best."  It was after going over the first week's material that I had this dream.  It is all about, and I quote, "Thinking about how to show love to those who mistreat you."  Of all the people to dream about mistreating me, I dream about the one person who treats me with utmost love and respect.  Though it was only a dream, I still had to choose; do I harbor this against him and confuse him beyond belief, or push the emotions from the dream out of my way and allow love to reign? 
There are times in this life that things happen that seem so important at the time that we become distressed when they do not go according to our personal plans.  We choose frustration, anger, bitterness, resentment and allow our day to be completely ruined. The goofy thing about this is, a few years later we look back with wonder why we were so upset about such a trivial thing.  If a child breaks our favorite picture frame we want to yell and (women) cry and act like that frame is more important than the child. The frame is like my dream, lasting for moments, seeming so real and important, when in fact it is simply a mist in a moment. The frame is temporal, the child eternal. The child is part of our actuality.  We can purchase a new frame, maybe even an exact replica, but we can never replace the child.
Let it be known that if something like this dream ever really happened I would be, well, let's say angry.  My husband has told people, "She's very hard to make angry, but when she is....You really don't want to make her angry."  He's right.  While I won't use foul language, call names or even bring up the past, I will give a tongue lashing that won't soon be forgotten.  I admit that it is followed by a hug and explanation of why I became so angry, but people need never wonder if I am angry....they'll know.
Father, there are times in our lives that we feel angry and betrayed from events that seem so real to us, but are really only a mist we must walk through.  They fog up and try to warp our vision so that we do and say things we would not do otherwise.  Lord, in times like this I ask You to wipe away the fog that clouds my mind and help me to see clearly the difference between temporal and eternal, real and imitation.  Help me react in a manner that is pleasing to You and that will be of positive eternal value in the lives of those affected by the things I say and do.

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