A Dream!

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house." Matthew 5:14-15

I had a dream last night. A very visceral and vibrant dream, and I remember it so well, as if it were real.

Andy and I had another baby in this dream. I was going through the process of labor and delivery, and then we had a beautiful baby boy. He was gorgeous and perfect, and I remember holding him and smelling him and how wonderful and perfect he was. But we hadn't been prepared for that baby to be there. We didn't have anything for him to eat, so we had to scramble and miraculously we came up with a bottle for him-it just kind of showed up. We were enamored with this baby- we loved him so much. Zander was dancing around, he was so excited to have a baby brother. Abigail was so excited too- except she crawled into my lap for one of her extraordinary Abigail hugs and asked me if I was going to ever get to spend time with her now that there was a baby in the house. Andy and I decided to name this baby Simon- but we could not agree on a middle name at all. We began fighting over the middle name- I remember he wanted Scott, but I thought that sounded terrible. So we began hunting through the house, looking for a baby name book, because I wanted something kingly for my new son. While we were busy being distracted and fighting over the middle name for our child, he disappeared. Simply vanished. And all the sudden we didn't have a third child anymore, and we were so distraught. I felt as if something had been ripped away from me, and I was filled with the biggest sadness I had ever felt, and I was also filled with emptiness, something was missing in my life.

I woke up from this dream very suddenly, and I knew it meant something. What- I had no idea. I instantly wondered if it meant that we were supposed to have another child- that God wanted us to have more children. I had to pray about this. This dream was so real and so bothersome, that I prayed this morning that if it meant something, that God would tell me, because it was one of those haunting dreams that nightmares are made of. I still... when I think about that dream and that gorgeous little boy who was mine for a short while, I miss him! A fictional character in a dream!

But I don't think this dream is about having a real baby. I think this dream is tied to the verse I posted above, because I was dwelling on it last night before going to bed. I think the baby in this dream- this beautiful and perfect baby is representative of a work that God is going to do in our lives. It was a baby- which is created by two people, it's impossible for a woman to conceive a child on her own, but when a husband and wife come together- baby can happen. I think just such a thing is out there for Andy and I. God is going to do a work in our lives that brings us together and produce something wonderful. And just like we weren't prepared with food for the baby, we may be caught unawares with this new and wondrous work, but God will provide what we need when we need it. Our children will be blessed and filled with joy when this newness enters our lives. At the same time, I will need to be mindful that we love our children and give them the attention they need as my precious little ones from God.

I think the fight that Andy and I were having over the middle name is very important to pay attention to. What is a middle name? Well, it's not really necessary for a child. We need a first name and a last name, and the middle name is just kind of there. Sometimes it has meaning for some people, but in reality it's trivial. And that's what was going on in this dream. We were fighting horrendously and being distracted by something trivial. This distracted us so much that we lost our focus on the beautiful baby, and we lost him as a result of our distraction. This could be a warning for us, a warning that something trivial is going to try and distract us and separate us from the great thing that God is doing in us. We need to watch out for those little details that we could get hung up on and pay attention to the bigger picture- pay attention to the baby in the room. Because if we let this thing come between us, the baby will be gone- the great work, the wondrous thing God is doing, will be removed from us, and we will be filled with that emptiness and hollowness that is very much like losing a child.

I'm a little overwhelmed. First of all, I'm overwhelmed that I had such a vibrant dream. I know that sometimes God speaks to people through dreams, but that he would speak to me...that's beyond humbling. Very humbling indeed. Even more so though, is the thought that He gave me a clue as to the meaning of this dream. It was as I sat here and typed, the meaning just flowed through my fingers. That's kind of scary to me- and new. Very new. And did I mention kind of scary? But God frequently works in mysterious ways, and while this does not surprise me... it surprises me a bit that he would choose me, to talk to me in my dreams. There's nothing special about me- I'm a plain jane mom and wife- but I have a heart for Jesus. And last night as I went to bed dwelling on the verse above I thought about how true it was. How in the past I've been guilty of hiding my light under a basket because I was afraid of what people would think. How I would hide my faith because I was worried it might upset those around me. And as I went to bed last night I said to God "not anymore. I'm done dimming my light". So may God use me in whatever way he sees fit, and may he continue to do this great work in our lives. Because I now know that I need not fear it. It will bring us great joy- and it will bring my children great joy. To me, that's the best part. A work in our lives that will affect our whole family for the better. Wow. How great IS our God?!