Dreams

Last night I had a dream. It was a heart-wrenching dream -- one of those dreams in which your deepest fear comes true, and you awaken in panic, fully believing the thing has happened. Pulse racing. Mind swirling. Heart breaking.

Dreams. What do we make of them?

In biblical times, they were nothing less than prophetic. Through dreams, God foretold (among other things) times of plenty and famine, the outcome of wars, the madness of one king and the birth of another. Joseph, Gideon, Daniel, Solomon, Joseph (husband of Mary) – all dreamers (and/or interpreters) of significant Biblical dreams.

But what are we to make of dreams now?

Crissy Sharp has a theory. She says dreams are compilations of all the incomplete thoughts of our day. A plausible possibility –ideas, situations, people rolling around in our sub-conscience, left to germinate and grow into a thought-life of their own.

Last night’s dream was set in a foreign city. (No surprise there.) It began with a trip to the dream-version home of a very real friend whom I haven’t seen in over a year. Robin’s daughter graduated from high school yesterday, and I thought about her all day long. The last time I visited Robin, her husband had just completed a basement expansion of their home.

In my dream, Robin gives us a tour of the dream-version renovations. There's a reason for the tour – perhaps a place to stay while living in this foreign place – but before I learn what it was, my dream jumps to another scene.

Our family is in the city – again, the foreign city, one with a feel of Czechoslavakia, or Lithuania, or some other Eastern European location. We’re standing, conversing, agreeing to go separate ways – to divide and conquer: Steven and AJ together, the other kids with me. After the allotted amount of time, we’ll meet up again at the subway.

Cut to the subway (which isn’t a subway actually, but some sort of subway/bus system hybrid). The kids and I are there, Steven and AJ aren’t. I’m pondering what to do; Emma’s suggesting we move along, and let Steven and AJ catch up with us. I’m wanting to wait; Emma’s insisting we go ahead.

In my dream, I relent, and we pay our fare. The kids board, and I haggle with the attendant over whether I have time to check once more for my husband and son. “Go,” she says, so I do. Back to the lobby; no Steven and AJ. Down the escalator and back onto the street; no Steven and AJ. Frantically, I run back to the attendant, who tells me the bus/train-thing (hereafter referred to as the “brain”) has already left.

There I am, in a foreign city, with three kids alone on public transportation, and a husband and son nowhere to be found. So I board the brain, take a seat, and notice, incidentally, that a smiling (unknown) Jenny Bartz is seated across from me.

My mind is racing. Are the kids ok? Where are Steven and AJ? Are the kids ok? Where are Steven and AJ? Are the kids ok? Where are Steven and AJ?

I pick up my cell phone to call Emma, but before I can dial her number, my phone rings. I answer, and hear a familiar, but anxious, voice on the other end. It’s Charlotte (Cooper), and she tells me that Vicki is listening in on another phone. (Vicki is Jackie Cooper’s sister, with whom I have no connection, but who, by the way, spent many years as a missionary in Romania.)

“Laura,” Charlotte says, “I have bad news.”

Pause.

“I don’t know how to tell you this.”

Pause.

“Laura, Steven was killed.”

At which point, I begin to wail. And then I awaken, roused from sleep by my own real-life wailing.

And in my state of semi-consciousness, somewhere between dreaming and fully waking, my pulse literally races, and my mind literally swirls (“AJ. AJ. Where is AJ?”), and my heart literally breaks.

I snuggle up to Steven, and reality gradually takes hold.

Dreams. What do we make of them?

Sherry Burnett, my friend and walking buddy, believes God communicates with us through our dreams. I’m inclined to agree.

Does that mean I think God is telling me not to go to Ireland? Do I think he’s warning me of some tragedy to come? Absolutely not.

But I do believe the Holy Spirit, in that mysterious way of His, uses our conscience, and even our sub-conscience, to reveal things to us about ourselves. Our fears. Our blessings. Our expectations. And, yes, the things we put our hope in other than Jesus.

Ken Gire, author of Windows of the Soul, writes about dreams: “In the Old Testament, when God spoke to Joseph through a dream, He used images that were familiar to him, images of the field where he and his brothers had worked. When He spoke in a dream to the king’s cupbearer in prison, He used an image of grapes. When He spoke to the king’s baker, He used an image of bread. Because all of these images were so familiar to the recipients, each sensed God was speaking to him directly.

“God spoke to those people then and speaks to us now in the language most familiar to us. I’m not talking about our native language, with all its regional dialects and colloquialisms. I’m talking about the language of our heart. And not the human heart in general, but each individual heart, with its own intensely personal images.”

One time, I dreamed that Jesus was holding my hand. I woke up believing and feeling as if he was really in the room with me. Was he actually “holding my hand?” Probably not. But the image was one which resonated with me, one of love and comfort, absolutely consistent with the character of God to His children.

Dreams. I don’t entirely know what to make of them. But today, I’m repenting of my fears. And I’m looking forward with faith to A&O next week. And I’m thanking God for a living, breathing husband.