Four Dreams

I am fifteen. I have woken from a deep sleep, but I am not in my bed. Rather, I’m in my mother’s bed. It is the middle of the night and I must use the bathroom. I stumble down the hall but when I reach the bathroom, I sit with the toilet lid down. A spirit, entity appears before me. I cannot see it, but I can see it. It is both there and not there, both having form and no form. It is as a cloud with a face, or a person made of wind. It is hovering inches from my face and says with no words but in some manner which I still clearly hear and with resolve and hate “If you speak of it, I will rip your teeth out.” I awaken suddenly in my mother’s bed. I had not gone to sleep there.

I would lose most of my teeth in the next fifteen years. Prophecy or threat exacted?

I am twenty eight. I have laid down for a nap with my toddler daughter sleeping beside me. I have not yet fallen asleep when I feel a pressure, a sudden force at the base of my spine. It was as if the strongest man had taken the base of his palm and with all possible force, popped me where my butt meets my back. And though I felt the most incredible force, I felt to pain. I have POPPED up into the air above my bed and then have slowly been laid down by some invisible force on the floor beside my bed. I peer up and see my daughter there in the bed. Confused, I stand and walk to the bathroom but as I reach for the door handle, I cannot grasp it. My hand goes right through the handle. I turn and walk to the bedroom door, becoming scared now and try to open that door but again, my hand cannot grasp the handle. I step back and realize, I am not in my body and must only think that I want to open that door and it will open. As soon as I think this, the door has opened, but not into the rest of my house. Now I am standing just within a room I know from when I was fifteen. I am in my high-school best friend’s home, in her old bedroom. It is no longer her room. There is a bed and on that bed is a baby. A young woman is playing with the baby. She is my friend’s sister, grown up as I have never seen her. She picks up the baby and leaves the room. I follow her down the hall, through the living room and just to the threshold of their kitchen. There she stops and turns but now she is a very small girl, also as I have never seen her. She looks directly at me and laughs maniacally. I am suddenly back in my room, awake, but I am on the floor looking up at my daughter who is still asleep in the bed above.

I have not seen that friend or her sister since well before this. I may never again, but I have walked through there house. Maybe this is a place where I took a turn, where something led me down a path and laughed maniacally when I followed. Curiosity.

I am thirty two. I have been sober for roughly five years but my children’s father, who I am still dating and living with, is not doing so well. At the time I could not know why he acted as he did, but my life was consumed by one destructive act after another. I spend my days trying to survive, my nights burying my face and fists into the floor, crying out to God. I can find no relief, see no way out. I am too poor to leave, too attached to send him away, too hopeful to upend my children’s lives. I am waiting on God who has become so quiet or I so deaf. This theme will repeat itself. I have fallen asleep, feeling betrayed and alone.

I am in a home which I know is mine, yet I have never seen it before. It is small and quaint, a farm cottage, no pretentions. I am sitting at a small table in my kitchen and there is a door just off the room looking out into the world. The world is not well. A great flood has come and the waters are rising above my windows. I am marveling at how the windows have not broken, at how I am somehow still alive. I am more amazed and curious than scared, but I am scared. There is a window in the door I am facing and through it I see a man in a small boat. He is rowing in the raging flood waters. I think to myself, I should let him in, and suddenly with that thought, my door has opened. I watch as he rows his boat into my home. His boat is now there in my kitchen, floating at the level of the water, yet no water has come in with him. I am marveling again and somehow I know I have made the right choice to let him in. He has long hair and a kind face that I know. I know this man and I love him and he loves me and he is peace and hope. His eyes are so kind and without fear or judgement. He can hear me thinking, thinking amazement and wonder and curious thoughts and without moving his lips or uttering a sound he says to me “Your house floats”.

I awoke and knew I had met Jesus, a name which hadn’t come to me in the dream because in the dream He was as He truly is and should be known — as love, promise, kindness, hope, a friend — not a name or a thing that was but ceases to be. Since that day, I have clung to this promise. Every storm that I have encountered, I have survived. The home is my spirit. Inside I am simple, quiet, alone and observing. Outside, the storm rages on, always threatening to devour me, but by allowing Him in, I have accepted his promise that I will continue to float above it. And I will.

I am thirty four. I am being chased by an elephant down the street I grew up on. This elephant is a prehistoric breed, a female and it has been transported through time to this place. It is charging me and I am running for my life. I cut through yards until I get back to my mom’s house and I am so tired I can barely continue on. My youngest daughter is hiding behind a tree and cannot move from fear. Suddenly it has gone from day to night. I am standing on the porch and the back door has been smashed in. I grab the glass and my hand bleeds. but I continue to hold on. I feel no pain. Suddenly there is a genderless and ageless person standing with me. I do not recognize them. We are looking out into an adjacent yard where a man is standing. He appears as a king with long purple robes and a crown. This man is hunting the elephant. He cannot see us but he can hear us and he has stopped to look our way. I tell the genderless person to yell out to the man. Then the king lifts his staff and points it at the genderless person. When he does this, a lasso of light extends from the staff and around the genderless person and now the king can see us. We tell the king where the elephant has gone. I notice that he has a few young boys standing at his side and he can see these boys.

I believe I am now, in my waking life, asking the genderless person to call out to the king. I have been running, running for my life, holding on to things that are cutting me, without acknowledging pain or letting go. But today I stand looking out at my King. Lord, you hear my prayers and you see the one who stands beside me. Please hunt this elephant.