On Dreams

Halfway through the night I woke up really cold. My problem solving skills were not quite acute enough to close the window, but they did remember I had a load of laundry in the dryer. I stumbled downstairs, grabbed my laundry, and stumbled back upstairs to wrap my bare legs in skirts and blouses. The clothes were still warm from drying! I fell asleep thinking I’d never been so comfortable in my life.

Just a few hours later, I heard the cleaners come. As I was half awake, half asleep, listening to them chatting gleefully in Spanish, I tried to think of an excuse to tell them if they discovered me sleeping in the room. I noticed that the clothes covering my legs had all morphed into a single long black dress I left in China. It was much warmer than the stack of summer clothes I’d fallen asleep under.

A knock. I moaned and stumbled to the door thinking, oh no! I What will I do? Well, just…tell them the truth, I guess.

But the person who stood beyond the door was not a vindictive housing manager come up to evict the squatter. It was just my friend, who’d promised to wake me for breakfast. And the first sight I saw when I opened my eyes was not that delicious black dress, but this:

How odd that we only have one word for the weird doodles of a sleeping brain and for one’s deepest wish! It’s the same in Chinese.  I am working on training myself to remember my asleep-at-night kind of dreams, and I’m also wondering if having the other kind is any good.

It seems like most people believe dreams are a good thing to have. But what are they basing that assumption on? I had a dream to do theatre after college. That dream had some doors slammed in its face, and then puttered slowly into death as what actually happened in my life turned out to be ever so much more real. The reality of life consumed me, and when I heard friends talk of their dreams for the future I felt like they were speaking a different language. 

How on earth do you know what you’ll want 10 years from now? How can you chose a city, a job, a spouse – unless you rely on someone who actually knows what’s best? 

Dreaming ahead just didn’t make any sense. I felt like I was stuck somewhere in the beginning of Genesis 12, called by God to move but not told where to go or what to do. I just had to walk, and knowing I’d eventually get stopped and told, “Here,” And then, “Move!” when it was time to go on.

I’m still just walking and listening, but I’ve also recently stumbled into a dream of my own. After sitting for many hours and listening to one of my former freshman’s recent struggles, I felt my usual paralysis. I had nothing to say, no hope to offer. Then I thought deeper into that paralysis, and I fell face down into a realization of one place where my passion and the needs of the world collide.

I realized that the reason I feel I can’t help the people who tell me their fears and sadnesses is that I don’t see any real help in those strategies I learned in my peer counseling courses and trainings. And I don’t see much actual hope in the techniques I’ve learned through books and trying out a therapist myself. The only real help I see is Christ.

Suddenly, all the things I’ve chosen to read this past year (books on theology, on psychology, on trauma, on how to help) and the way I know I love best to spend my time (listening to friends who are struggling and trying, usually very badly, to help) and even the way I deal with being me (by constantly striving towards self-discovery and fighting to know God and His joy) — all of these things seemed to tell me that what I want is to do the work of a biblical counselor. Maybe in campus ministry, or in church sponsored social work, or….well, anywhere.

But, and here’s where I’m going to need your prayers, I’m not in a place right now where I can throw myself wholeheartedly at this dream. I’ve got some teaching to do in a small desert city near Kyrgyzstan. But I’ve got good biblical company. Moses was in the desert for 40 years before he started to fulfill his big call – bringing the Israelites out of Egypt into the Promised Land. And what he did during those 40 years sure didn’t look very productive for the Israelites. He had a family, some kids, learned to do manual labor under his father-in-law. But those 40 “unproductive” years were essential to the growth of Moses’ character.

I’ve got a feeling Moses asked God a few times, “Am I ready now? Can I go save my people yet?” I think I’ll be asking that question too. But I really hope it won’t stop me from tasting reality, which will be much more flavorful than any dream. In all the flavors: bitter, sour, salty, sweet and spicy. Mmmmmm, yes. Spicy lamb kebabs.

And I also pray I can stay aware, very aware, that this little dream I have may not resemble my actual future at all.