It Must Be the {Lack of} Caffeine

Why am I so tired this evening?  We had a scrumptious early {really early...about 3:45 PM!} dinner at a Japanese steakhouse where they cook your food in front of you and add all sorts of tricks to the cooking process today.  We only eat there when Jeff's mom is here; every time she visits, we pick one day and she treats us to dinner there.  The food is great; but the best part, hands-down, is watching the faces of the boys as they see fire come out of an onion volcano or an egg go flying onto the top of the chef's hat or a lemon get speared in mid-air by his fork.  So much fun!  (Except for when Tobin got scared by the fire today and was literally trembling in fear; but after he was reassured, it was all fun!)  :)

Anyway, after we got home, I dragged around and tried to get inspired to do something; but all I managed to accomplish was putting away some things that had piled up on my grandparents' old chair beside my bed.  Usually I'm looking forward to the time for writing that I have after the boys are in bed; usually I'm rarin' to go when I think about my blog.  But tonight, I felt so drained that I could hardly muster up any energy or desire to write.  

So I did the only thing that sounded like fun:  I went Christmas shopping.  Oh, not "real" Christmas shopping, that requires getting in the car and going somewhere.  I did the kind of Christmas shopping I could do at home on a night when I had no energy:  online shopping.  Perfect for tonight!

When I think back to Christmas last year, I have so many really good, sweet memories of that time.  The whole Christmas/winter season of last year sort of makes my heart ache because it was so precious.  But here is the part that wasn't so precious--staying up until after midnight on Christmas Eve wrapping presents for the boys.  I do NOT want to repeat that; in fact, this Christmas Eve, I want to go to sleep on the couch in the living room with Josiah and David, not be fumbling around with gift bags and tissue paper and tape and bows.  I'm hopeful that with my early start to Christmas shopping, I'll be the one snoring on the couch this Christmas Eve.  ;-)

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Encounter #5

Sometimes God speaks through dreams.

I don't always remember my dreams; and when I do, it rarely seems to me that they are a message from God (because God is a god of order, but my dreams are not orderly!).  But once in a while, a dream will seem to have a fairly clear spiritual application; and I'm grateful for the inspiration that can come to me in that way.  

No other dream, however, contained as vivid a spiritual message as the one I'm about to describe.

I must have been a teenager, journeying down the path of spiritual awakening and questioning and am-I-going-to-make-my-parents'-faith-my-own?  I had times of doubt; and looking back, I see how completely normal and even necessary that was.  At the time, however, the earth felt a little shaky under my feet.  Would I keep my faith in God?  Could I?  Did I want to?  How did I know He even existed, after all?

And then one night, I had the dream.

In the dream, I was sitting, for some reason, in a pasture by the S-turn on Silver Lake Road that goes to Dayton.  In the odd manner of dreams, I somehow had a seat belt on, even though I was sitting on the ground in a field.  Then a voice spoke a short, simple sentence.  No, it didn't "speak" it.  It boomed it.  Whose voice was it?  I'm not sure.  But it was deep and powerful, the kind of voice that echoes around in the head and heart even after the initial sound has died away, the kind of voice that brings confidence and erases doubt.  The words it uttered were simply, "JESUS IS LORD."  

That's it.  No long discourse, no lengthy utterance, just a statement of truth that immediately brought peace to my heart and that stayed with me, comfortingly, as I continued my path through spiritual questioning and inner turmoil.  That moment, that dream, that voice was an encounter that helped to shape the future direction of my life; and for that, I am very grateful.