"So runs my dream..."

First off, I need to say that I had another fantastic week of school...until the last few hours. But other than those few hours (which are usually crazy before three day weekends anyway), it was a great week of work.

I'm not sure why, but this week I have been hit with a heavy number of dreams about my dad. Dad passed away three and a half years ago after a ridiculously short, painful battle with a cancer that managed to invade his entire body in a matter of a few short weeks.

Right after he died, my dreams were filled with horrific pictures of his deathbed. In my dreams, I would not see the dad of my youth, but rather I would see my dad at his death. The man I said goodbye to on February 15th, 2005 was only a shadow of the once strength filled man I had grown up with. His face was drawn, his nose was pinched, his skin was yellow from his defeated liver, and he was painfully thin with the exception of his heavily bloated stomach. He had difficulty focusing on what we were saying to him because he was in such incredible pain.

My dreams this week have been different. They have been a roller-coaster of repressed emotions. In one of my dreams, dad walked into our old house, in his work clothes, and I was overwhelmed with joy as I determined he was still alive. I have visited my old house in my dreams many times this week. And in all of these dreams, dad is there, alive and healthy.

And then, what feels like one minute before I wake up, I get a flash of many pictures. Dad is sick again, I see him on his deathbed, and then I see his gravestone. I wake up wracked with grief, and once more relive the painful reality that Dad is not here.

In some ways, though, I think these dreams have been helpful to me. I've been reading a new series (new to me, anyway) that has for some reason turned my focus to the age and life steps that I am approaching. I have, at times, started to ponder my age, my role as a mother of three, even being married...not really regret, but more just realize that I am not getting any younger, any prettier, or ever going to experience the passions of youth like I did in my teens and early twenties. I started to, for the first time in my life, wish to be able to experience the pleasures and freedoms of my youth...first love, a clean slate, freedom of time and plans without being forced to consider others. I wished to be young again, and started to experience real heartache as I realized that so much of what the world holds dear is experienced at an age that I have already passed.

If this is beginning to sound selfish, don't worry...I myself know that it is, and have lived out the reality of those dangerous thoughts enough to know that they have to be repelled.

And so, in a strange way my dreams of dad have been helpful. Had my dad decided to forego the point in his life that I am at, I would not have had the wonderful years I did with him. He sacrificed so much to have such a good relationship with his children and wife, but his sacrifice proved to be so fruitful in what it produced in us. He kept his focus on what God had called him to be, and proved his faithfulness to the end.

It is with this that I find a renewed sense of peace in the place where I am at. I am so blessed to be a wife, a mother, and have been reminded of the amazing parts of life that these roles have brought me. I am LOVED. And it is not a love based on ever-changing emotions and passions, or on fanciful dreams...it is a love that has been refined by many fires, and with a God at the center of it who has so much more good planned for me than I could ever have imagined. I refuse to sacrifice the well-being of my children and husband for the sake of pursuing an idea of worldly happiness that will never last. Lord, help me to remain focused on the plan that YOU have for my life, and forgive me for those times that I try to fill my soul and mind with yearnings for the things in this world that has so deceived so many men and women in my stage of life.