Dreams I Dream for You

While on vacation, I was 100% successful in mixing up my days and nights. Happens to me every time I have more than just a weekend away from the office. LOVE IT. But please explain to me why they don't switch back with equal ease? I'm still trying to sort it out.

Sunday was actually my first day to be out of bed before 11 for most of the vacation. And though I had grand intentions of making it a trial "real day," my eyelids were heavy by 2 p.m. and I was out on the couch.

I don't mean a little naplet.

I mean I didn't even HEAR the movie that was playing (at normal volume) on my TV. (And it was a Lifetime movie, so you know there was excessive drama.) Occasionally I would stir on the couch but I couldn't even bring myself to open my eyes. Once I wasn't even sure I remembered how to open my eyes. It was that deep a sleep.

In fact, while asleep, I had a dream. A long, vivid dream with real people and real places. I won't go into the details, but it was one of those dreams I wished desperately to escape, but it was so real I didn't know it was a dream and I thought I was stuck in it.

When I did wake up, I was still trying to make sense of how to open my eyes...and shift...and tell time...and as I worked on those things, these words flashed through my mind: Let the old dreams die, like stars that fade from view. And take the cup I offer and drink deeply of the dreams I dream for you.

Those lyrics come from a vintage Avalon song that I'd not heard or even thought of in weeks. Months, even. I may not have had the presence of mind to tell time, but I did have the presence of mind to recognize God sending me a word.

The night before last, I had another dream that lasted the entire night. It had different people and circumstances but was no less vivid and no less frustrating to me as I found myself faced again, even in sleep, with things that I knew needed to be gone from my life. When I woke up, I said, "God, why did I have to dream that?" And again...the words to this song drifted through my mind and His gentle Voice prodded me to offer up my dreams in exchange for His.

These first few days of 2011 have been full of Him teaching me to reframe what's in front of me. And the people in both my dreams were people that need to fade from view. My literal and figurative dreams...are past now. Time to look forward. The dreams HE has...are going to blow my mind.