I had a dream last night. I'm sharing it because I feel like the Lord spoke to me through this dream. First, before I share the dream, let me open up a bit and say something about myself that some might not know. Knowing this may help you understand me and the dream better. Over the course of my life, I have had a few dreams like this, and I know the difference between a psychological dump, and a spiritual dream. I COULD just say that I had this dream because of a book I'm currently reading, BUT I prayed and asked the Lord to help me receive this book with the same significant weight as one other one I read years ago. I have faith that God answers prayers, and that the answer is usually dispatched even before we pray. I since have taught many bible studies off of that original book, and it has shaped much of my ministry up to this point, but that's because it changed my life entirely. I sense this one that I'm reading now has a message as significant to my spiritual journey as the other has. But my mind is so rattled right now that I know I need the Lord's help to calm down and focus to get out of it what the Holy Spirit wants me to learn.
I have a hyperactive brain. I was diagnosed as a child back in the late 70's with being highly hyperactive. My parents were concerned that I was mentally disabled because I would constantly make a lot of odd noises. It was almost like stymieing for those who are familiar that. That isn't what it was. I'm a singer who has lived with hearing impairment all of my life. We do things differently, and they figured that out later on. Dad told me years later that he didn't know it then, but I was just warming up my voice. The doctors gave me an IQ test and found that I had a very high IQ for a child. I'm positive that has leveled out since then. ;) So the diagnosis was that I was fine, not mentally challenged, so nah nah nah nah nah, but they did find another issue, particularly once I started school. They had not yet coined the acronym ADHD, instead children would be labeled hyperactive and placed on medication, but they went as far as saying that that was what I had at least by definition. I was placed on Ritalin, but my mom stopped that after about a month because she hated the way it turned me into a zombie that was losing weight far too quickly than a growing child should. I'm glad she did. I could not sit still in class, and would find more productive things to do, like clean out and organize my desk, or start up a conversation with the kid beside me, often. Mom often argued with my teacher about putting me on medication. On one occasion, as my teacher walked me to the office, and we often took walks together to visit the school principal, I observed through a large window a room where mentally challenged children were playing with awesome toys. I said, "That looks fun! I want to go be in that class!" Mrs. Brown said, "You probably belong in that class." At the time, I thought, "Great! Maybe I'll get to go in there." Now as an adult who still works through these issues, I realize she really was just a mean-spirited woman. I thank my mother for advocating for me. To be fair, Mrs. Brown was not equipped to handle children like me, though picking me up by my shirt in front of the class and screaming, "Shut up!" was probably the wrong way to handle me. Now, Mrs. Tolston in 2nd grade knew exactly how to handle me. She was one of the most loving, kind-natured, nurturing teachers I ever had. We remember our teachers for many reasons, don't we?
So this way of existing, with ADHD even as an adult, is different. It isn't that I can't focus, I can focus extremely well actually, it's that I grasp things quickly and move on when they become boring. And most things become boring quickly. Perhaps you can imagine how that might be an obstacle for someone, but it has also been of benefit as well, which is what makes it all the more dangerous. You fix it so you can use it, but you sure can lose it. I constantly remind myself in conversations not to speak over people, of which I am guilty at times. I get excited about what they are saying and chime in like a chorus, singing in beautiful harmony, only it's rude, and no one likes that. So I remind myself, "Julie, don't do that!!" Everyone takes so long to say what they want to say, including myself! Patience is not a virtue I was given a great deal of, even patience with myself. I especially don't have patience with myself. But I know that patience is a fruit of the Spirit, so it has to be worn and practiced. I do that, intentionally, not always successfully. Anyone who has known me well, could tell you I am a type-A personality. I am an INFJ in the Myers-Briggs personality test, and it fits me to a capital T. I am constantly in motion, and a highly productive type of person. I'm always moving from one project to the next, a lifetime of projects all strung together. And I'm happy this way. It's cathartic, and it's not something I have ever viewed as a burden, but a kind of superpower that comes with a considerable amount of dopamine. I breathe caffeinated air, and I like it. There is a downside to this type of personality though. When I slow down to rest, my own mind tells me to constantly get moving, I'm wasting time. And I know rest is important, so I resist it, but it's a pressure that does not end. God highly-esteems rest. He commanded it. It's completely necessary for us to learn. But I have something my mom always called "freight train brain", and I'm certain others know what I mean by that. You either are this way or you know someone like this. Bless your soul if you are married to one. I don't lie awake at night because by the time I go to bed, I'm truly mentally exhausted everyday. I fall asleep about as soon as my head hits the pillow. Meditating by clearing my mind is nearly impossible. I haven't been able to clear my mind in years, not even for more than a minute, literally. I have tried many times, I'm just in 5 places at once. Up to this point in my life, it's been something I've embraced and used to a benefit, but now, I'm older, and I'm deeply exhausted. Mentally and emotionally exhausted, and this does not do well for a healthy spirit. Eventually it will wear you down physically. I have crashed and burned before, but not like this. Usually after a couple weeks, I'm brand new and ready to roll, but it's been three months, and that's not what's happening now. The Holy Spirit is yearning to get something out of me, and I'm looking for it. I know I'm moving toward it, and I'll get it, but this is so different. I'm not sure what I'll be dealing with, but I know it's all about me. Ugh, I hate those words as I type them, "It's all about me." But the Holy Spirit corrects me by saying, "We need to do it." I just hope it's not too late an hour in my life to get here, and I sense that the Lord knows this worry of mine, and that's why this dream meant so much to me. I was surprised with myself to cry when I told my husband my dream this morning and I cried as I wrote it down too. I know what it means, and I'm so thankful for it.
God knows exactly how and when to reach into our hearts and touch the places that need Him so much. How comforting it is to know that about Him!
So now, after all of that, this is the dream....
I was managing an office for an older woman in a school. Perhaps she was the principal or someone of that nature, and she was preparing to take a large number of kids on a field trip. She asked me for a copy of a signed agreement between the host of the field trip location and the school to take with her. She then texted me a copy of the form she wanted so I could recall what I was looking for. I knew what she was asking for, and I had filed it, so I went to the file cabinet to locate it. I couldn't easily find it. I felt like the clock was pressuring me to hurry up and find it. I could see the woman at her desk from my desk in the other room, patiently waiting for the form, and I lifted my head to say to her, "Could you email me that form instead of text it? Better yet, just send it to the printer, and I will quickly fill out a fresh copy. When she looked at me I recognized her as my grandmother. She has been with the Lord for many years now. I never dream about her, but I do think of her once in awhile. I thought of her just this last week. It's always a tiny thing that causes me to remember her. Scraping out a tin can while cooking dinner, certain pieces of art or a set of expensive curtains. She was a gifted woman. She could paint, sew, knit and she lived through the depression. She often told me stories and read to me about it. Scraping the tin can bare was a habit she picked up from the depression. In the dream, when I noticed that the lady in the office with me was my grandmother, I recall that she had a business suit on and looked professional, a style of dress I'd never seen her wear before in real life. Regardless, she was dressed for the part in my dream. She smiled and sent the form to the printer, but as I turned around in my swivel chair to the printer, I saw that the printer was printing out a shredded mess. There had been a stack of items on top of it, including an old gift bag that had been dragged into the printer, and it was coming out like it had gone through a paper shredder. The printer was jammed so I started to pull everything out and clear the jam so I could get it to print. Oddly, the printer was slowly transforming in my dream from printer, to typewriter, to eventually an odd sewing machine. At that moment, my grandmother was suddenly sitting in a chair right beside me, overseeing me frantically try to clean out the sewing machine/printer. There was tangled red thread in strange places, and the more I touched it the worse it tangled. I was frustrated because all she needed was this form. I did all of this work already, but now, when we needed it, I couldn't pull it up! This was turning into a bigger mess, and worst of all, I was wasting her time! I was wasting her time, yet she didn't seem to be concerned with time at all. At no time was she ever frustrated, impatient, or disappointed. I was the one pressuring myself, not her. She side-eyed me with a big broad smile as she watched me flustering over this printer. At this point in the dream, what she said was very impactful to me. She smiled this big broad smile, not in any hurry, and said, "I have to go on ahead, so when you get it sorted out, just bring it with you when you come." I replied, "It really won't take but a second, hang on, I'll get it." She smiled watching me, and I said, "You still have an hour before you have to leave with the kids. I'll have it in just a second", but she smiled at me that big all-knowing kind of smile, a smile like I imagine Jesus Himself would have, and she said, "No, I have to go on ahead now, but you'll figure this out. I'll see you when you get there." She got up to leave....
These images from the dream are haunting me. The lateness of the hour, her calmness, her lack of judgement, her certainty that everything was right on time, her taking the kids early, but telling me we'd meet up again soon. Her faith in me. His faith in me even though I'm a bumbling idiot.
I slowly began to open my eyes and those words hung heavily in the quiet air of my bedroom in the early morning. "You'll figure this out, I'll see you when you there."
As certain as I am awake right now, Jesus spoke those words to me in this dream, and He did it as someone I have often said that I can't wait to see in heaven when I get there, my grandmother. I've had genuine concerns in this current season of life, especially when I look in the mirror and see the silver hair I'm finally letting grow in. Have I done enough? Have I wasted my life? How far behind am I really? But nothing is news to Jesus. He isn't worried about me, or about time, and He isn't in a hurry.
If you take anything from this, know that everything happens right on time with Jesus. There's still plenty of time for what matters because time is in His hand. It's His good work to finish what He began in you, and He's not slow or slack.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He hath made every thing beautiful in His time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."
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