Monday 16 April 2012

Annal 151: Tale from the Dream

I had a bit of a bad dream last night.

It wasn't as if the dream was horrible and gruesome.  Truth be told it simply involved a whole lot of darkness.  In it, my sister and I were wandering through our house and it was pitch black.  Something else was in the house with us, and while we could feel its movement, and sometimes catch glimpses of something blurring the dark, we had no idea what it was.  My sister was gripping my arm and kept freezing.  I was trying to move forward, trying to get to the entryway where there is always some measure of light, no matter how minute.  My sister was pinned to her spot and as I tried to move us forward something brushed in front of us.

This was when I woke up.

See, it doesn't actually sound all that frightening.  But you know that feeling when you wake up from a nightmare and you're scared to look around your dark room, scared of seeing something from your dream?  Try waking up with that sensation only you are also in the midst of packing so there are actually strange shapes EVERYWHERE in your room.

There are many things I remember from my childhood, but perhaps one of the ones that sticks with me the most (besides the family "rules" of: Stick together and don't jump in any big snowdrifts.  No drinking, no drugs, no smoking, no sex, and no ritual animal slaughters of any kind), is what to do in the case of nightmares.  Sometimes I would pull myself from my bed and rush to my parents room (I find I am a little old to do that now... and living on my own).  But usually I was too scared to do this.  Usually I felt frozen in my bed, not sure whether to keep my eyes open so that I wouldn't fall back asleep or to close them so that if something from my dream were to materialize I wouldn't have to see it.  But everytime I went to see my Mom she would pray with me.  She would pray me to fall back asleep, to have good dreams, and for God's peace to fill me up from the top of my head to the tips of my toes (I find that now when I pray for myself and others to have peace I use this same phrase).

And so I learned that when nightmares occurred, I could pray.  I could pray for peace.

Perhaps the most comforting thing for a child to know when they have a nightmare is that they can rush to their parents' room or call out and within moments there are arms around them, holding them tight.  My Mom has come rushing into my room more than once while I was growing up because I called out to her, too scared to get out of my bed.

But my parents left me with a legacy that I don't think I fully realized until I was thinking about my dream this morning.  They taught me to go straight to God when I woke up scared.

Last night I woke up and my heart was racing.  It sometimes seems silly that bad dreams will still have that effect on me (I'm an adult, I shouldn't have them anymore, right?).  What I find interesting though is that the first thing I do now in situations like this is to pray.  I pray for protection.  I pray for peace.

And you know that instant comfort that came as a child when your mom or dad would give you a hug, tell you everything was going to be okay, and then put you back to bed?  God has never failed to do that for me.  In the times when I feel like such a child, where I want to cry in the night, where I am scared, He is right there.  He wraps me in His peace and puts me back to bed.

I don't think I have ever been so grateful as I am right now for parents who taught me that in all things I could go to my Father.  Parents who comforted me while at the same time showing me that there was Another who could comfort me even more.

Such is the life of a Christian single.

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