dreaming of a past reality. something I’d never really imagine myself doing. maybe dreaming of good days in my childhood or something crazy, but never would’ve thought this would be a thing. waking up from an all too real dream. waking up to literally feeling like my hair being pulled out by kids I used to see everyday, feeling the weight of their bodies to come greet me in the morning. tiny arms wrapped around my neck with the weight of their tiny bodies squeezing against my chest. to wake up and feel that and have an ache I’m not too sure how to describe. an ache where I can feel but not touch, where I can close my eyes and see but open my eyes and see nothing. to hold someone that’s not there except for my own body. It’s weird. i know there’s people who don’t feel like that at all who have come home, who don’t have vivid dreams or have really even thought about the past year, some people just move on. I mean we’ve been home for a bit already so some people are just over it already and that’s cool. some people could still be processing, idk. there are so many days where I’m sure I’ve dug into the last year of my life and really picked it apart and processed and I’m over it ya know. like that seasons over I should be moving on. but then there are moments actually not even moments, seconds where a memory crosses through just real quick and just tugs at my heart a little, moments where I have a dream that is SO RANDOM but I wake up in tears because I’m not where I was. where I had nothing but everything at the same time. and now it’s like I wake up and I have everything but nothing at the same time. it’s the same thing but completely different when you flip it around. but thank God for those moments of time that make me cry and ache something terrible deep inside. to remind me of the life I boldly lived pursuing not only mothers, children, teachers, leaders, friends, and families; but also pursuing and fighting for a deepened relationship with the Lord. to remind me of the deep desires I had to become more like Jesus, to be changed, refined, freed and the things I did to be that.
Since before I got home and since I have been home, I had been asking the Lord to remind me of what I had just done the past year, to keep me on a constant mindset of reminders just so that I could stay present in the best way possible. And I was getting frustrated when I didn’t see any of that happening, when I was catching myself slipping into bad habits that I worked so hard to get out of when I left, or thinking with the same mindset. It was frustrating because I was like why is this happening, like what did I do? Was that 9 months for nothing? Can I even call myself a disciple of the Lord if for 9 months all I did was pursue and fight the good fight and then drop it all like it was nothing when I got home?
And then I was just driving one day. I had a dream about all of the kids from my race and it WRECKED me. Like I was crying all day every time I would think about it or a kid would cross my mind because it was just so real and it was something I realized that I may never experience again let alone see those people or kids. And so I was driving just thinking and then I realized that reminders I had been asking for were the dreams Ive been having and the days where I have to snap myself back into reality, that’s the Lord setting a reminder for me. Made a lot of sense after that. It hurts a lot sometimes (most of the time) when a dream feels so real and I wake up expecting to see or experience whatever or whoever is in my dream but instead I just see pictures of them on the wall. But that’s how it is for right now, its hard and it sucks but it’s okay. It blows my mind when you ask the Lord for things and your’e not necessarily specific because in the moment you don’t really care because you’re desperate for something, but you never know how you’re going to receive what you want and what you ask for until it happens.
