Dreams

These Dreams…….

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The Bible talks a lot about dreams. Joseph, Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, Solomon, Moses, The Magi and Pilate’s wife to name a few. All these and many more had dreams in which they were directed themselves or told by God to direct or warn someone else. Joseph’s dreams got him thrown into a pit by his brothers. Pilate’s wife had a nightmare concerning Jesus and when she awoke she told her husband that Jesus was innocent. I have read many accounts of Muslims having dreams where Jesus appears to them.

I have always dreamed a lot. I have talked about my dreams many times on this blog.  I am a worrier and a normally anxious person. I appear calm on the outside, but my insides churn and that spills over into nighttime. All my life I have had dreams where my teeth get loose and begin to fall out. And I think most of us have these kinds of normal dreams where we go to school or work without clothes on, or we forget where we are supposed to be. Or that we have missed the last month of assignments.

One time I had a healing dream and I awoke healed from Anorexia. I say healed because I knew the second I got up that God had healed my mind. That morning I ate scrambled eggs, maybe even toast. Then the tough work of healing my body. That took a lot longer.

Some dreams linger throughout the day and are much more powerful than others. When I get these, I always pay attention and open my heart to the Holy Spirit to see what it might mean or what God is trying to speak to me about. This time I believe it was to convey an attitude of remembrance and gratitude for what He has done for me, for all of us as believers.

The dream itself was vague and I was in a group of people and activity and nobody I know was in the dream, all strangers. But there was a crime and I was somehow responsible. And I was shunned by the group and I remember the shame, and hiding under a table so they couldn’t find me. This next part is what I struggle to find words for, for I was subjected to the most powerful feeling of forgiveness, mercy and healing from that same group.

I remember how fully they embraced me, how incredibly loved they made me feel. Almost as if I could feel God’s touch through them. I am basking in the afterglow of that feeling now and I thank God for reminding me of just how deep His love and mercy for me really is.

I think most of us are extremely hard on ourselves. Yes, God wants us to look into our hearts and evaluate our lives, but He also doesn’t want us to be so hard on ourselves that we chain ourselves to guilt. The great freedom of the Christian life is that we……are…….forgiven! Sealed for the day of redemption.

And that’s my message for today friends. Embrace life, embrace forgiveness, embrace a new start. The world’s message is believe in yourself. The Bible tells us to believe in the “Him” in yourself.

My dear children, you come from God and belong to God. You have already won a big victory over those false teachers, for the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world. 1 John 4:4 MSG

 

Summer 2019

 

It’s been awhile…….words continue to be elusive, just out of reach. I try to relax and realize that this is just another season and to let it go. And yet, I miss the release that comes with letting words and feelings go and maybe send a little healing out to you readers, if any of you are still there. If you are, thank you for your tenacity in believing I still might have something to say. 

Briggs is still with us. We enjoyed a trip to the beach not long after summer vacation started and he had a rough go of it on the way. He was fine after we got the Motorhome settled and brought him some shrimp from Phil’s which he loves.

Moss Landing was a blessing as always. I went on my usual quest for sea glass and was not disappointed. I was breathing out a prayer of thanks for the treasure I was finding one morning and shortly after that He rewarded me with a very special piece. A color I’d never found before.

Not long ago I did something I have wanted to do ever since we moved here. I bought myself a little one person tent from Amazon and dragged it and the mattress down by the river. The inflatable mattress was a little too fat and that didn’t leave much breathing room for me but I was very comfortable all night. I left the door flap open and a whisper of air came in. I even got a little chilly which was wonderful. I was serenaded by an owl which was like a dream. It held magic, that night. 

I want to do it again, but poor Elaine hardly slept. Briggs didn’t know where I was and he yowled and was up and down all night. Poor guy. He has slept on my bed for 18 years and he didn’t know what was going on.

Lately I have been treasuring my time with Mom. She is lost in her own life and not doing really well. We have entered yet another phase with the memory loss. Dad is her anchor right now and she wants to be wherever he is which is extremely hard on him being the solitary person he is. She asks me questions now like “Why aren’t you at work?” “Where do you live now?” But it is easy to do things for her because she is so very sweet.

Dear readers, hopefully someday the tap will be turned on once again and words will flow freely as they once did. I try and think why it was so different in Arizona and I can’t come up with anything. Maybe I felt freer there. Maybe it was because I felt more secure. Maybe I miss our home. Maybe it’s all of the above.

Books continue to be a joy and for that I am grateful. I look for excuses to go the library. I mingle with the homeless and the other odd library people and I feel at home in between the shelves. I remember when they built that library and when I close my eyes I can still hear the wooden card catalog draws slide in and out.

There is something to be said for having a history with a place. I wish you grace, mercy and peace from our Lord Jesus my friends. 

Good Day (of) Sunshine

image For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land…..Song of Solomon 2:11,12

I know winter is not over yet but all over there are whispers of hope. I saw bulbs coming up, maybe narcissus the other day. We have had consecutive gray days and this morning, after a patter of steady but light rain the sun came out and the birds were giving their exuberant assent back and forth across the sky. Blue sky changes things. Just a smattering of sun reminds us that things just might be okay after all.

I was feeling thankful that this could bring me joy because to some in their minds all days are alike. I know this, I have seen that heartbreak. The thing that makes Christianity stand out so starkly in the climate of our world is that no matter our circumstance, the Holy Spirit lives and breathes within us and fans that flame alive even when life around us points to the contrary.

Satan can fling his accusations at us all he wants, just daring us to hope. He tries in vain to pull the shutters down from inside because he knows his time is short. He will settle for a few moments of despair here and there. He has lost, my friends, and he knows it. He lost long ago on that hallowed ground where Jesus gave His Momma over to the care of Mark and forgave the world, forgave us.  His last breath here was only His reentrance back Home, just as it will be for us.

For those who have followed my journey here, you know I have moved back where home once was, the only home I knew. I feel a bit like Bilbo Baggins describing his “There and back again” journey. I have met my own little Smaugs. I have been job searching. Going on job interviews feels like first dates from what I can remember.

You go through that exultation that you got the interview (the date) then you have the instant regret and desperation…….(will they, won’t they call.) The anxiety, the waiting for the email, the phone call. Hoping they will, hoping they won’t (when you think you made the wrong choice)

I am proud of myself and my milestones lately. They haven’t found me employment yet, but they have brought me something else. A victory that has grafted into myself that no one can take away. It’s God’s and mine. And everyone that prayed for me.

There was the 3 hour assessment test which I passed. And the typing test just the other day. Both times E said, just take them! And I was hoping for 45 words a minute on the typing test and I got 46! God is so generous. It was kind of surreal. It was a beautiful office and I could see other people settled happily in their suites, an architect here, a real estate office there, an attorney farther down. It was like entering another world.

And I greeted the two gals at Blue Ribbon Personnel. They were well dressed and standing at their ergonomically correct workstations, like the one I had when I had a job. It was like old home week.

Thankfully there were no numbers or special characters on the test. As Elaine said, Angels wings were there on the keyboards.

God has birthed a new day and I am going to step out in it and see where He wants me to go next. I don’t think I plagiarized the Beatles because I added the “of.” The lyrics are how I feel right this moment.

Peace on your day.

Hard Stop

house in reflection

Funny how things can come into focus when you’re still. When you’re quiet enough to let that stillness wrap itself around you and you start to believe that it really will be okay. There are those today reeling from loss, whose homes are no longer a reality, but only a reflection. I identify a little bit. I miss my home and the security that went with it every day. And yet I know that my true security lies in God and nothing else. Homes will come and go but He stays forever.

Last Friday I sat by the river and thought great and wondrous things. At least five of them. Later when I tried to capture them I couldn’t remember one, but the feeling of peace stayed behind. I was so grateful for that because there have been times this year when scenes of great beauty bounced off my soul like teflon and that troubled me. For I’ve always been able to find my way back to God through His beauty in creation.

We slip and fall headlong into our worries and problems and then He wakes our soul once again and I think it’s because He wants us to feel the gift of Gratefulness again.

All around us, nature is enfolded in a great drama and it never stops. She invites us to partake and be more than a bit player, and the rules are simple. We have to do a “hard stop”

curly leaf on water

A hard stop is when we allow our worries and cares drift away like this leaf who fell twisting in the wind. It didn’t think of falling, it didn’t even try to fall, it just fell. And in that simple act it had a power it didn’t even know it had. Its little presence announced that a change is coming, the first of many reds and golds and browns that will rain down in the coming months.

taking flight

Psalm 55:6 says: “Oh that I had wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.”

I have a friend who used to say that when he flew, his problems seemed smaller. They weren’t really, but from the air his perspective changed. My flying usually involves driving to the beach. We all need a place where we can see clearer, feel calmer. But we can do that from anywhere with prayer.  Jesus has the peace we so deeply crave. It’s His free gift…….though it cost Him plenty He was happy to do it.

heart leaves

And when we accept it by stopping our striving and wrestling and open our hearts to His love He is honored. When we do that, It makes Him feel like it was all worth it. Like a parent who has had to sacrifice so many times they feel their battered ripped to shreds heart may just give way this time. Then the child realises he or she is not the only one in the world, that someone loved until it hurt for them. When that love is released, hearts can start to mend.

Do you see a heart here, or just a dead tree?

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Accept the invitation that God sends through His nature friends. I can assure you of a reward. A wise man named John Muir said this:

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

A peaceful morning

Last Saturday I had one of those undefinable moments of peace that come which I have been trying to recreate ever since. Every now and again all those factors come together to create a memory burned in your soul. Those are the ones that remain long after years pass.

It was like this. I was deciding whether to go out on a morning walk, but then I decided to stay in and make Elaine breakfast since she has done that for me innumerable times. (She was fast asleep in the back) Living in an RV you are pretty much camping all the time, so I did what I needed to do with the stove. (Moved the Keurig so I could use the front burner) Then I rustled around for the lid to the pan, trying not to make too much noise.

Alexa remembered my David Nevue mix on Pandora and it was filling in the quiet softly in the background. As sausages sizzled in the pan, I scrambled eggs as a golden light filled the kitchen. When they were done I took them out and cooked the eggs in the remnants and after I sprinkled a little grated cheese over the top I put the lid back on and poured myself another cup of Don Francisco breakfast blend.

It was sublime. Isn’t it sometimes the simplest tasks you do for someone else that bring the most joy and peace? When Elaine got up I shared how I was feeling and said, “What if these days in the Motorhome turned out to be some of our best and sweetest memories?”

These days of transition that have been a sacrifice and a struggle.

These days that have put a much bigger financial dent in our lives then we ever dreamed.

These days we longed for our old stability, security and rest.

But…….could it possibly be that these moments must might be some of the sweetest when we look back through the clouds of eternity? Jesus is still here. He hasn’t left us, this I know. And though I haven’t had the rich prayer life I had in Arizona, I have had other things, other blessings.

I have been able to walk and drive along these streets again awash with memories, and walk up my parents drive, knowing they are still in their house together. I can help where I can and leave when I can’t. I have that choice.

I have been able to get to know my Aunt in a way I never would have if we hadn’t lived here in all this beauty.

Jesus said, seek peace and pursue it. Pursuing it means you have to do certain things in order to get it. Recovery teaches that. You have to own what’s yours and not borrow other people’s responsibilities and trouble.

There is a time to step in, but you have to know when to step out for your own sake and theirs too. That is the most difficult thing to get right. All any of us can do is our best and pray we are going the right direction.

I wish Peace, His Peace for you and for me my friends.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27 (KJV)

The unchanging nature of God

 

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God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? Numbers 23:19

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today. Hebrews 13:8

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows. James 1:17

I don’t know about you, but I draw tremendous comfort from a God who never changes. People and relationships will change. Circumstances change. Life is all about change and frankly, I am tired of it. I want a settled life.

But the fact that I am tired of it won’t change it. Change won’t stop until we take our final breath and part of what it means to be well-adjusted is to make peace with that.  I am learning to breathe and find peace in the moments. I have spent way too much time mired in anxiety since we moved and it has stolen too much of my joy.

I remember going out in the early morning dark when I was trying to make this big decision and praying while gazing at the moon. It’s kind of like God’s face. I made the decision to leave my comfort zone, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. My life is open-ended, there are no conclusions, no end results yet. But here is the line of the song that just came through my headphones:

But He’s alive and there’s an empty grave……my redeemer lives.

And when He said, “It is finished,” He meant it. What that means for all of us that believe His words are true is that the biggest conclusion of our lives is all wrapped up. The struggles and questions we have down here, well, He is totally equipped to help us with those too.

So until the dust settles, I am thanking Him for all those moments when I surrender my anxiety and exchange it for His peace. And when my time here runs out and it will for all of us, I will be able to say with Him. It is finished, and the end result will be very, very good.

The Flip Side of Sadness

Last night I had some company. First to show up in my dream was my cousin John with the crazy staccato laugh, huge heart and endless pranks. He and his brother George were always up to something. When they were little, they asked my Aunt Esther if they could decorate their rooms for Christmas. After she told them they could they scooped up buckets and bagfuls of brown pine needles and covered the floor and everything else in their room…..Join me here at Bibledude for the rest of the story…..