Living The Dream Part 2

Click here for Part 1

When I woke up from the school bus dream it was early and dark out, still a few hours before I needed to be awake. I fell asleep again and had a few sporadic dreams until I re-awoke to my alarm. The school bus and children running along telephone wires were as fresh in my mind as if I’d lived the experience rather than dreamed it. 

It is madness to wear ladies' straw' hats
and velvet hats to church..."

As I pulled my clothes on for the day and tidied my dreads, I asked Dad to interpret the dream for me. As quiet as I could commit my mind to be, I waited for a response. I waited and waited as I drifted through the menial tasks of the morning, until my mind wandered and I forgot I was listening. 

Instead, I started thinking about a conversation I had with my sister, Brittany. One of her teammates was sick with tonsillitis. “Go out and heal the sick,” Jesus says. And I wanted to heal this teammate. But she’d been left at the hotel the day before, in too much pain to watch her team play. I’d yet to see her. 

As I walked downstairs to meet my family, I was determined to find this girl and lay hands. With plenty of time to kill before the day’s games started, we ate slowly and played a story game until Brittany had to join her team for study hall. 

It wasn’t until my parents and I were about to leave the hotel that I recalled my determination to heal Brittany’s teammate. I marched quickly back to the lobby where Brittany was knee deep in Facebook while her gathered teammates worked on homework. “Hey!” I said, loudly enough to prompt Brittany to take off her headphones. “Where’s that girl with tonsillitis? Carmen, right?” I’d go to the room she’d been quarantined in, if I had to. 

“She’s right there,” Brittany replied with a gesture over her shoulder. Carmen sat on a giant beanbag with a blanket and a text book. Though she looked miserable, both she and my sister seemed amused by the interruption of their study session. 

“Do you want healed?” I asked Carmen as I walked toward her. 

“Yes!” She said, completely sick of being sick. Several girls glanced up, curious. But if they continued to watch, I didn’t notice.

“Great.” I sat down next to her, double checked that her throat was the location of her pain, then placed my hand on the right side of her neck. On a scale of 1-10, she said the pain was a 6. After a few minutes of prayer I asked if she felt any change in her pain level, but it remained a stubborn 6. 

I prayed again. “What do you feel?” I asked this time. 

“I feel really calm.”

 Calm. That could only be the Holy Spirit at work, so I prayed one more time. Once again, I asked what she felt and if the pain had changed. “Still a 6,” she said. “But I feel super calm.”

“Are you coming to the gym today?” She was. Certain that she was experiencing the peace of Dad’s presence, I decided to let Dad continue to love on her and leave more prayer for later in the day. Dad is a far better minister than I am. “Let yourself soak in that calm as long as possible,” I suggested. “I’ll check in with you and see how you’re feeling.”

Our team’s first game of the day was at noon. Again, I found myself in the bleachers surrounded by parents. Just as frustrated as yesterday by attitudes and conduct, I wanted to rant. I used to play volleyball until I hurt my knee, I imagined my rant beginning. They do not need your negative energy. The moment this thought crossed my mind, Dad took my back to my dream. 

I used to do this until I hurt my knee, my dream self had claimed. Instantly, Dad interpreted the dream for my spirit. I couldn’t rationally understand all I suddenly knew, but two solid details were sure. First, the school bus dream was portraying this moment. I’m in my dream, I kept thinking. Second, I couldn’t rant at anyone. I’d already seen the results, and they were no good. 

As I mulled over the dream, my spirit slowly explained the details to my flustered mind. I recalled the bus ride, and the school we pulled up to. Full of screaming, happy children, each physically twisted, stunted, and otherwise deformed. The next solid understanding I came to was that the children in my dream depicted the spiritual state of the people in the gym. The bus driver and duty from my dream perhaps demonstrated that I had some help, but I suddenly felt overwhelmed. I can’t rant or rationalize at spiritually broken children. I can't possibly heal them all. 

Not wanting to cry there in the bleachers, I walked away and found a spot on the wall to lean against and watch the game. Our team, whose record was 22-5 for the season, was losing to a team whose record was 4-23. No one was very happy. But there seemed to be nothing I could do. Unlike in my little coffee shop, I couldn’t control the atmosphere in this gym full of people. 

"...We should all be wearing crash helmets."

Take it one person at a time, Dad said. But I looked over to my sister’s team, where Carmen sat on the bench. She was wrapped in a blanket, pain and exhaustion painted plain on her face, with an ice pack against her neck. The right side of her neck, I noticed. The same side I’d instinctually laid a hand on. “WTF Dad?” I asked, though I wasn’t listening for a response.

By the time the match ended, I’d talked the dream over with Jeremiah (that’s the husband, for any new readers) and was feeling more calm. Our team won in four games, and I no longer felt on the verge of tears. I’d had an opportunity to do what I love, heal the sick. Between games, I’d go find Carmen and lay hands one more time to get her good and healed. Dad’s been teaching about persistence. Fine. Dandy. I can be persistent. 

But when I found Carmen, she was sleeping in the unused gym where teams were keeping their gear. Jeremiah and I had to leave before the next game, and I hadn’t found a chance to lay hands on her again. 

“What a bunch of crap,” I told Dad. “You can’t tell me to heal the sick, and not back me up when I try.” I said a few more things, but they’re not nearly as polite so I’ll let your imagination fill in the blanks. 

That evening, Brittany’s team took second place in the tournament. They lost the championship match in five games. A well fought loss, my dad described. I sent Britt a congratulations text. She’s always been a gifted encourager, and this was no exception. 

“I’m so glad I got to see you and Jeremiah!” she wrote. “Thanks for coming this weekend (: And Carmen thinks your really cool. And right when you left this morning she was like, that was awesome. I feel so relaxed now...”

Instantly, a weight lifted from my shoulders and the fog surrounding me dissolved. “Go out and heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons,” Jesus told us. With a simple text, Britt healed my heart and cast aside the demons I’d let ride home with me from the gym. 

"Lol that's awesome!" I texted back. "Glad I didn't creep her out :p"

"Haha not at all. She loved you!"

With newfound clarity, I could see Dad had backed me up. Of course he had. Of course he wouldn’t give me a command without also giving me the authority and power necessary to carry the command out. 

I’ve had little glimpses of revelation from the school bus dream and the volleyball gym experience all week. Just yesterday, I realized the root of my turmoil at the gym. The dream showed me the current spiritual state of the people surrounding me. What I failed to see was that it also showed me the state Dad is calling them into. They’re called to be whole, complete, fearless; joyfully running up and down telephone wires with their friends, demonstrating the Kingdom to inspire and empower those watching to join them. 

I’m called to see people as Dad sees them. Not just who they are now, but who they were created to be. To see broken children is not a bad thing, unless I don’t take the next step and see whole children. It’s from a vision of a person’s wholeness that I want to approach healing, not a vision of brokenness. 

If you've read through both parts of this post, I congratulate and thank you. It was no breezy read, I know. I hope you feel inspired to step out of your comfort zone, knowing that regardless of what you're eyes tell you, Dad's got your back. Every single time we make an effort to walk out Matthew 10:8, something happens. Don't doubt yourself. Don't doubt your Dad. You are mightier than you can know. The creator of the universe dwells in you; the power to change the world is yours. 

"One the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playin on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preserves and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." - Annie Dillard, Teaching a stone to Talk