Posted 4-25-19
Hey! Eight months from today is Christmas! How is your shopping coming?
I am deeply sorry, not sorry. Remember, I love Christmas. 😉 I play Christmas music all the year long! You can take the Mark out of Christmas, but you can’t take the Christmas out of Mark.
Regardless, as I lay in bed (…or is it lie in bed?!?! I know I don’t lye in bed! Dang you grammar!)…OK as I was positioned horizontally in bed last night sleeping, something that seldom happens happened. I dreamed. I drempt. I dreamded. (I hate you grammar!) I dreamedpted visions of sugarplums, dancing in my head. OK…not that. Regardless, what unfolded was at first scary and at the end kinda joyous.
Here is how said dream played out:
I am walking along a really shallow river bank area looking for a place to cross. The river was fast in the middle. I felt quite confused in walking toward the middle of the river. I felt an unknown danger, but not the right way. I was concerned/worried about things that couldn’t hurt me and wasn’t concerned about the things that would certainly hurt me. For one, I was walking deeper and it didn’t even occur to me that the river might sweep me away.
Swimming toward me and my bank except not on a direct collision course were 2 large gators. I misidentified them as driftwood and it didn’t occur to me to be concerned at swimming driftwood…swimming against the current grain. A few folks (who I was uncertain of their identity) were yelling something I couldn’t understand from the bank. Onward I marched.
The water never overtook me nor did the gators take me on their
little nefarious death roll…and I made it to the other side to some sort of mill house structure. There were stairs up the tall bank, but I didn’t/couldn’t process that well. I felt like I needed to tell my feet what to do and they didn’t obey. I just stood by the door of the mill and looked at it….and listened to the rushing water and the splashing bass nearby. (Very vivid from someone who doesn’t typically have dreams he remembers…maybe it was the yummy, somewhat spicy potato soup I ate the night before?). I thought, after standing there for a while, that I needed to do something so I tried to navigate through the door…I needed to somehow be on the other side of the door where it was dry and less stressful and confusing.
Somehow I next remembered seeing an old deadbolt slider slide open, so I walked in, after much deliberation.
I am fuzzy on how it happened, but I ended up at ground-level at the exit of the mill looking back over a pedestrian bridge I hadn’t notice above me before that went back over the river in the opposite direction. I walked across this bridge and looked down and saw other people taking the same path I took before. I was no longer stressed and I just walked across. I was joyous, clear-minded, grateful, and free to move on…
Then I woke up.
A couple things to know:
- I am a student of the Bible and theology and I believe whole-heartedly in the absolute sufficiency of the Bible in my life. That means everything I/we need to know about God and living life here we can find in the Bible. God doesn’t need extra things to get His point across or to encourage or to teach. Sola Scriptura is on one of my favorite T-Shirts…
- It is not out of the range of possibilities for God to use a dream somehow. If it is encouraging, no harm in giving Him the credit for it.
- It was very encouraging to see myself in mom’s shoes, afraid of the wrong things and not afraid of the things that should cause fear… then exit out of the mill “above” it all, but with a newly clear mind.
- God is Good.
- Alzheimer’s is sad.
- I won’t print this out and staple it in my Bible as far as its accuracy, but it was encouraging and heaven-sent in some way or another….and it was just what I needed. Mom will be ok someday. She will be free, clear-minded and joyous. The Sweet 17, it’s my hope, will also be free and in heaven with mom someday too.
This is an abnormal topic for me. I don’t look for shapes like Jesus in my Corn Flakes or in the clouds. Just kind of an odd, helpful situation that I thought you may enjoy or get a kick out of.
Here’s to dreamin’ of better days ahead!
#EndALZ
