I woke up to the sweetest dream the other morning. It was as if I’d come face-to-face with a representative of God and had the experience of seeing how loved and cherished I am. It was like Jacob and his Angel except there was no fight – just expressions of love and cherishing. I held onto the dream, nurturing it all day long, running through a variety of ways to interpret it.

First, I hung out with the initial thoughts and feelings I had after waking up from the dream. Then I took it to my own personal oracle, my beloved husband, who is brilliant at interpreting my dreams. I nurtured his thoughts about it for a good part of the day.

Later, while studying Gestalt theory, I decided to run it through a Gestalt process in a hand written journal and developed the dream even further. Even later in the day, I took all these interpretations, sat down at my computer, typed it all out, and lavished the screen with so much love for and from God, as I conceive God to be.

The last page of the type written journal entry was a love letter full of gratitude and longing to and from God.

That night I woke up in the middle of the night feeling dread and fear. I heard a voice inside inquiring, “Just who do you think you are that God would be that present to you?” I recognized the conversation as my ego attempting to bully me back into submission and self-doubt. It didn’t take too long to go back to sleep but the experience laid a pall on the previous day’s joy.

Preparations for Thanksgiving (without getting behind in homework) were next on the to-do list so I chose to not take the time to deal with the shadow side of my lovely day of loving and feeling loved by God. Once, while cleaning the house, I ran across something that reminded me of the sweet dream and the day that followed and felt embarrassed. I’m not sure why. Did I feel shy about having taken myself and my dream so seriously? Did I feel taunted by the following night’s sabotage? Did I fear I’d ruined the good day by believing the bad night to be more real? All of the above?

Just now I ran across the lavish journal entry from that lovely day and was awed by my expressions of love to the Source of my being – the God who has loved, nurtured, and protected me all these fifty-two years.
As if extending empathy to myself I heard me exclaim, “Aw! It really is a love letter!”

Whether I sourced the dream or whether God still speaks to his creatures through their dreaming,; the dream was a gift and the day that followed it, full of nurturing the dream and experiencing God’s love, was also a gift. And I am grateful to have had the opportunity to remember the gift of the dream, the gift of God’s love, and the gift of being able to express my love in return to the best of my ability.

God is good. Love is true.