Dreams . . .

Have you ever had a dream so real and vivid and horrible that you woke up and wanted to hug your family tight to you? You knew it was a dream but it felt so real, it took a while to convince yourself that it was truly a dream? I had that last night. I dreamed that my beautiful little daughter was stolen from us. I don't know quite how she was stolen but she was. This horrible person did all kinds of horrible things to her. I knew every detail of the horrible things that were done to her because it was as if I were in her subconscious experiencing these things as well. We finally found her in a seafood restaurant and unfortunately the faceless bad guy got away. We took our daughter home, cleaned her up, washed her hair, held her and rocked her. She was listless and closed up. She didn't say much, she didn't need to, I already knew what had happened to her. I just held her. After awhile I started teaching her my Sunday School lesson from yesterday. I've been teaching through Mrs. Terri Chappell's Books, The Choice is Yours (Click Here for the Link). It is a book about the choices we make and how they affect us. Yesterday's choice was, "Choose to Be Strong". IT was talking how trials and temptations God allows into our life. It is Father Filtered and because of this we need to trust that if He allowed it, or even sometimes originated it then He is going to use it for our good and we need to choose God's strength not our own. Yesterday it was easy to stand up and tell the ladies that. I care for and love each of them and it was easy to tell them to choose God's strength . . . in my dream as I held my daughter I broke down and actually woke up sweating. It was hard telling my daughter that. I felt deeply as I told her that. It made it extremely personal and because of that very dynamic. I know God doesn't speak to us through dreams anymore but I do know He allowed that in my life to teach me something. One thing is when I speak in class next Sunday I'll be looking at them and thinking of them as my daughters and I KNOW that's going to change my passion and the way I tell them, it won't be a Sunday School Lesson I share, it will be a message I want to impact and hopefully use to shape their life! And another thing is I hope that when the time comes and my daughter does experience some great trial, I hope that I will be able to tell her to stand strong in the Lord. To take her burdens to the Lord because HE knows and not just that, He cares!