Let’s Go Home, A Love Story

It’s been two years since I wrote about my Searching Dreams, and how I always wake up from them drained and depleted. I looked it up. I don’t know how many recurrences I’ve had since. They come like clockwork.

Searching Dreams, that’s what I’ve taken to calling the nightly dramas I have so often. It’s almost impossible to explain them to a second party, but this is how I described them to y’all in March of 2013…

My searching dreams always have a destination I urgently need to reach— only I’m unable to make any forward progress because the setting and the circumstances keep changing. I may start out on a bike that morphs into a car, or a motorcycle that becomes a boat, but every vehicle I find myself in will inevitably fail and force me to change modes of transportation about the time the road loops back, detours, or washes out completely, leaving me to find yet another game plan as my destination lies so tantalizing near yet so far out of reach.

These changing but similar scenarios loop throughout the dream, which may be minutes or even seconds, but it feels like hours. I’m always trying to get somewhere I desperately need to be and yet I never have a way to S.O.S family and friends or communicate ahead that I’m in trouble.

Anxiety, pressure, fear and stress, these are the unwelcome companions of my searching dreams. As you might imagine, they wear me out. I used to ask God to take them away but I don’t anymore.

Some time ago, after another long night of getting nowhere fast and waking up exhausted, I decided that instead of asking God to stop the dreams, I’d ask Him for understanding concerning them. There may be a ton hundred of qualified psychologists out there reading these words who would love to take a stab at that, but I want to tell you what I’ve come to believe.

I believe Father allows me to feel in the night, all of the frustration, anxiety, fear, and exhaustion that others feel in the day as they search for satisfaction in this world apart from a relationship with Christ, all that my heart might be burdened for theirs. I say, if these dreams compel me to continue sharing His love and proclaim His goodness with the world, it’s an honor to give up some sleep for the One who gave us His life. Whatever you think you’re searching for, what you need is Jesus.

So, that was then and this is now. I remain resigned to the dreams, but something happened the other night that I need to process through my fingers. It’s the way I think.

I was having another Searching Dream. It was pretty much like all the ones that have come before it. I couldn’t get anywhere. I couldn’t make any progress and I was miles from anyone or anything familiar. I was on foot in a train tunnel of some sort, having long since lost transportation of any kind. To make the situation even more dire, the walls were swaying and crumbling.

Danger surrounding me, uncertainty overwhelming me, and he appeared at my side.

My beloved husband.

I stood rooted to the ground, incredulous that he had managed to find me.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

Phil reached out and took my trembling hand in his. “Let’s go home,” he said. “I came to take you home.”

That’s where the dream ended but I can easily recall the feeling of peace that enveloped me and I’ve found my thoughts returning to that sweet scene again and again during this holy week.

Oh, and I haven’t had a Searching Dream since.

On one hand, I wonder if that was my last one. Time will tell. But here’s what I do know. As I type these words we find ourselves celebrating the grandest rescue story ever told.

One day, many years ago, your Hero and mine stepped into the middle of our sin wrecked world.

Here’s how Ephesians depicts our problem.

“Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Eph. 2:12

We were stranded without God, without hope, when Jesus showed up on earth to reach for our hand and whisper words of love, “I came to take you home.”

No need to worry about recurrences here. Let your sore tired heart hold onto His unfailing love, for this great rescue is final.

Finished.

Done.