I have a bit of a distinction in my family.
I'm the dreamer.
No, not the person who thinks of huge fantastic pursuits or fabulous lofty goals or fun extraordinary escapes.
I'm the girl who goes to bed and during my sleep I dream. Crazy dreams. Wild, bright colors, slow motion, insane conglomerations of real events and movies and imagined things. Sometimes the dreams are fun and the next morning is story time for whoever wants to listen. Sometimes the dreams are exhausting and baffling. Every once in while they are scary (thankfully not often). Upon occasion I pray the Lord helps me forget the dream quickly because it upsets me and sometimes I thank Him for the happy things that have flitted through my mind during slumber.
Last night was just like most other nights - I had a dream. I (dreamt? dreamed?) that I was at my parent's house. I was inside the house and apparently in my dream Mom was still alive. I went out the front door to find her and she was sprawled out on the front sidewalk in her teal bathrobe, the one with the zipper down the front that she had for almost all of my growing up years (that bathrobe appears in more Christmas morning photos than my dad does). When I saw her lying there of course I knew something was wrong. I ran to her side and got down on my knees and in my dream I did exactly what I did that night we found her dead on the couch. I started yelling, "Momma! Momma!" and I rubbed her sternum hard with my knuckles. I don't know where I got that little first aid tip but somehow I thought it would help. After a couple moments of my knuckle-rub screaming routine her eyelids fluttered and she woke up. We started trying to figure out what had happened and she decided that some of her medicine must be interacting and that's why she stopped breathing. Dream over.
And that is where my realities merged. The night of my mom's death and the everyday hum of my workday smooshed into one odd story line. It's baffling how my mind knit together the many drug interactions we review at the pharmacy on a daily basis and my mom's passing. The mind is amazing and weird and obviously very busy while I'm sleeping.
And yeah, I've kind of struggled today with wanting to be upset that I'm dreaming about Mom's death. I've been tempted to tell God that it wasn't very nice of Him to let all that pass through the filters and be remembered upon waking. But instead, I've been grateful - that after a dream like that it didn't even cross my mind to call in sick to work and stay home and mope. I've been grateful that I can see the humorous bits of the story and I've been grateful that I haven't cried today. These little things are all victories. They are all evidence of the healing that the Lord is faithfully doing in my heart in His time. I would like Him to work faster. But when I trust Him, I trust His timing (that's totally a quote from a pic I pinned on Pinterest this week - so very true, don't you think?!).
The idea of my grief being a 'disease' God needs to heal made me think of Psalm 103:1-5:
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
I don't know about you, but those verses give me a lot of hope.
Now here's to a good night's sleep for you and for me!
