20 October 2011

nightmares

It's 3:28 am, and I am awake because I just had a nightmare. I hate those.

One of the things I hate most about nightmares is that the effects linger. For example, this nightmare was about a vampire. Stupid, right? I don't believe in vampires and I'm not scared of them. But after I wake up from a nightmare about a vampire, I'm terrified. Even though my mind tells me that I won't be scared at all come tomorrow, the fear lingers tonight. I'm by myself, but I think I'd be even more scared if I was with someone, because I'd be scared they were a vampire. Even though I don't believe in vampires.

The other thing I hate most about nightmares, or at least mine, is that they always strike at the deepest chords of what is scary about a thing. For this nightmare about a vampire, it was the idea that a person you love and completely trust would get this weird look in their eyes, lie to you, turn on you, and then try to eat you. Sick, huh? Even though I'm awake now I can't lose the worse image of the nightmare, the moment when that happened.

It seems like every kid goes through a nightmare stage, which is so sad. That would be heartbreaking for me as a parent, because I know nightmares and I know how they're only scary if they happen to you, and then they're paralyzing, no matter how stupid they might sound over breakfast the next morning. I remember when I went through my nightmare stage as a kid, I would pray desperately to God every night that if I trusted him enough to fall asleep and make myself vulnerable to nightmares, he would protect me from evil in my mind while I was sleeping. (Thing number three I hate about nightmares: they jump you when you're vulnerable; there's no way to protect yourself against them.) God was actually really faithful in that in a really sweet way to little kid Megan. God is not a magic formula, but every time I thought to pray and ask for his protection, I was protected.

I've been the recipient lately of a great deal of very sweet, elemental faithfulness from God. The kind where I give up to him a very basic, immediate, even tangible need, and he provides in an obvious way. This has been the case with money, housing, a job, clarity and wisdom, safety, and my car. I feel like a small child being provided for by my father, and I feel both so taken care of by God, and so reassured that God's desire is to take care of me. He does not want to dangle wisdom out in front of me and snatch it away at the last moment. He does not want me to go hungry, or weary, or have nowhere to sleep. I believe those uglinesses about him sometimes, but they are such lies. He is a good God who loves to give good gifts, quickly, to his children.

So with that in mind, I think it's time for me to ask God to come sit in my bed with me and protect me from evil dreams tonight, and I'll go back to sleep.


“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew 7:9-11

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