Delusion Busting Dreams

What comes to mind when you think of spring?  Flowers?  Budding trees?  Allergies?  Bless you.  Mulching and weeding?  Sunshine?  Baseball?!!

When the birds start to sing and a warm breeze first tousles your hair, what memories and emotions begin to stir?

Ever since we finished homeschooling I have felt the squeeze on my time with the kids.  I look forward to spring break and summer vacation.  I think of all the things I want to do with them, all the lost time I feel like I need to make up for.

But do you know what emotion those warm summer breezes elicit in me?

Fear.

There.  I said it.  I, Cristy Maddox, am a great big chicken.  I write about trusting in God and I do … most of the time.  But when I start to feel confused in the heat and can’t quite decide what to do, knowing the sand in my hourglass is draining quickly, I’m afraid.  When my right leg buckles first thing in the morning, and I have a busy day ahead, I feel nervous.  If it’s doing this when I’m rested and cool then what is it going to do when I’m fatigued and in the heat?  When my kids are loud, and I start to jump at the sound of potato chip bags being opened, and the kitchen lights feel like the sun blazing directly into my pupils, I’m afraid the heat will be the fire for my dynamite.

But I try to ignore it.  I try to tell myself I’m not scared.  I try to psych myself up into being brave and believing all will turn out well.  I remind myself that the opposite of trust is worry. 

However, my dreams call my bluff. 

WARNING: I’m about to get real real here.  I know, I know.  I already did plenty of that in Chronic Blessings, and I am aware this world doesn’t actually need more TMI from Cristy.  But hey, I’ve opened the can of honesty worms and those creepy crawlies seem to just keep, well, crawling their way out.

My dreams.  In the winter I have normal, regular, everyday dreams.  Like, I took my rocket ship to Target and bought toothpaste and Rubik cubes for my new chinchilla that I’m taking on a motorcycle trip to visit my deceased relatives who are somehow still alive.  You know, normal, regular dreams.

But when the weather warms up, I have weird dreams.  They are weird because they aren’t weird—if you get my drift.  They make too much sense.  I suppose I should be thankful cause I could have shelled out a lot of money to lay on a lot of therapists’ couches to clue me in on what these dreams have revealed.  I had these dreams a lot in the past.  But they went away, and I patted myself on the back for the progress I’d made.  Well look at you, Miss-trusting-in-God-completely-now.  You don’t even have those psyco fears anymore.  You’re back to dreaming about rocketships, bizzare pets and Target runs.

Darn the return of spring and warm weather dissolving my delusions of peaceful, trusting grandeur.  

My dreams now are different each night but always with the same theme.  In each and every one I am stuck in some unsafe or scary POTS scenario.  It can be out in the heat while shopping, or driving and getting dizzy, or in a crowd and I can’t keep my balance, or I’m passing out and I see everything going black and feel myself falling. 

But that’s not the crazy part of the repeated dreams.  The crazy part is that each time I’m looking to Greg to help me and every time he is either oblivious to the situation, or he flat out doesn’t care.

Yup, TMI.  And now we need marriage counselling.  Not really.  (At least not for the dreams anyway.)

In real, awake life Greg isn’t ignoring me.  He does care when something goes wrong.  Okay, yeah, he is often oblivious, but he is a man after all, so I’ve gotta give him a little slack on that front.  Yet after each dream I wake up frustrated, upset and feeling alone in this struggle. 

At first, I wondered why I’m so afraid of him not being there, of him not supporting me.  I suppose everyone with a chronic condition has this underlying fear that the person they love will just get so sick of dealing with the sick.  We are stuck with this life, but they actually do have a choice.  So perhaps some of this is normal.

But what stands out to me as I ponder my bizarro nights is that I am always looking to Greg in the first place.  Never in my dreams am I calling out to God.  Never am I even praying for help in the scary situations I find myself in.  I just look for Greg’s help.  A human’s help.  And so, naturally, I am let down.

Greg works hard and tries hard.  But he can’t be everything for me—he can’t be everywhere and take care of all my needs.  I thought I’d learned to look to God first and learned that He alone is enough.  However, my dreams reveal I still have a way to go.

What about you?  Who (or what) are you looking to for help?  Who do you instinctively turn to when you’re afraid or life gets rough?  Our friends and family are great blessings from God.  They are.  And they should be there to support us and vice versa.

But first. 

First, we need to look to God.  Our hearts need to turn to Him instinctively without even having to stop and think about it … much like you do in a dream.  But that isn’t going to happen by dreaming and wishing for it.  It happens when moment by moment we are keenly aware of our need for Him—either due to circumstances beyond our control or because we are attempting things with Him we could never ever do in our own strength.  In essence, dreaming with Him. 

Dream dreams with Him while you are awake.  What does HE want for you?  How does HE want to use you and your unique passions and gifts?  How does HE want to use your pain?  Your heartache?

Nothing has made me trust God more than living with chronic illness.  But partnering with God in accomplishing HIS dreams for my life—that just knocks it out of the park.  

At least it does while I’m awake … but I’m certain my nighttime dreams will eventually catch on as well.

Don’t worry sweet chinchilla.  We’ll be back on our motorcycle in no time.