A sad dream
I had a dream a few nights ago about Nan, my mom, who passed this past year. In the dream she was at our childhood home and was very unhappy about something. I was there with several of my siblings, and I was urging her to get ready to go to church for a Wednesday night service. But she was distracted by something that was really bothering her.
Finally, I told her that I was going to go regardless and why was she so upset? She could only she remarked that someone had been very unkind to her, and then went outside the door by herself. I asked my sisters if they knew what had happened and who was it that had offended her. No one knew—-we were all perplexed because my mom did not let things like that get her down. She was resolute and tough about life.
Then I stepped outside to talk to her again and found her sobbing uncontrollably. She was holding her head with both hands and just cried and cried—she was inconsolable. It was heartbreaking and broke my heart! I was so angry at the one that hurt my mother, but so desperate for a way of helping her through her lonesome suffering.
It’s hard to translate the emotions that one feels in a dream, but this was one of the most painful dreams I have experienced in my life. The particularly painful part of the dream, emotionally, was my poor mother’s weeping and her unwillingness or inability to allow any one to share in her suffering, let alone understand it. I could not fix the hurt or avenge those that hurt her. Is there a more helpless feeling in life than this?
There are bad things happening around me that I can’t stop, fix, or eliminate. I know that what is happening is wrong in the world today; I know that there are some very sad mothers— weeping with no hope and with no one can help them! I know that many, many people are lonely and some have given up on living and are ending their lives to stop the hurt. It is bewildering to witness this and feel so totally incapable of helping—a true nightmare!
In these things we have no other avenue of peace… no other remedy….no other source of healing… than to fall upon our knees and cry out to “Abba”, our heavenly father. Today I am hurting in my heart like I have not hurt in many years—-a culmination of challenges, obstacles, unkindness and rudeness to me etc. Like my mother I am tempted to simply walk away and find a place to weep and ask Him to take me home! If we live long enough and choose intimacy with Him, we will have these moments, I believe.
But I know that my Redeemer lives! I know that He loves me and that I am special—-anointed and one that He calls His own. He knows my name and He will not allow anything to befall me if I continue to look to Him for deliverance, protection and peace. The words keep repeating in my ears all weekend long, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”……and I do.
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