Just a Dream

I had this dream the other night.  There was a daddy hawk and a baby hawk.  Dad was out teaching the little one to hunt.  The little hawk had managed to swoop up a baby squirrel on his first attempt.  My first instinct was horror, but since nature doesn't seem to have the same values, I swept that aside and was proud of the little hawk.  He was doing exactly what he was made to do-living as a hawk.  After his lunch, the little hawk rested as his dad flew off a little ahead of him.

The stillness and rightness of the moment was interrupted by a scrambling from a bush to the right.  Erupting ferociously and attacking the young hawk was the mother squirrel.  She was larger than the little one and angry.  She stunned me by picking up the hawk.  Then she turned him upside down and slammed him to the ground breaking his neck in a dreadful crunching sound. 

The feeling of horror washed over me again.  This time, I couldn't shake it.  It wasn't right.  Mama squirrel marched triumphantly away as I gazed sadly at the young hawk, now empty and still.

Then I woke up.

My wise husband soothed me, "It's just a dream," but that hasn't lessened the sting.  It didn't lessen the pull that maybe there is something there for me to think about.   While I don't usually give much weight to dreams, perhaps it is because the last couple weeks have been so heavy that I am paying attention to more things around me.  Perhaps even looking for answers.

Sometimes there are waking dreams.  I imagine myself to be a cheerful, easy going, forgiving person.  I'm not.  I am a brooder.  My function is to be useful.  So I will be.  But then something breaks and there is betrayal.  Like lately.  I feel like I don't matter.  I am taken for granted.  Of course, I am polite so I will try not to bother you with my heart.  I may not ever talk about it.  I stuff it down, to be mature.  And then it all comes flooding back like bile, like an infant's lunch.

I have allowed this sense of betrayal to solidify into resentments.  And resentments seem to self replicate. 

Mad at someone at work?  Great, maybe I will continue to be indignant at home.  Now I have a resentment against my husband who hates my new wave music.  Looking at my facebook page to ignore him, I see no one liked my amazing comment, so I cop a resentment against some idiot who has more likes than me......and on it goes.

This morning my back pain kept waking me up.  Since sleep apparently wasn't happening, I decided to pray.  And some how, in some way, a light bulb went off.

Idolatry.

As I have struggled with grief and uncertainty, I have wrestled with God's sovereignty. I'll admit it. Some people struggle well. I struggle messy. And when God gets smaller, I take up His job or give it to other people or things.

I forget who I am & whose I am.  Either I am god or the approval of my job is my god or my relationship is my god.  I am either an angry empress of the universe whose will must be obeyed, or a sullen servant of these false gods whose fortune changes with the favor of my friends, boss, or family.  I want a different burden, a different life, a different job, a different degree, a different....whatever God has blessed me with is inadequate or wrong.  There is no gratitude.  Because I am coveting other idols.

Really?  C'mon.  Haven't I grown?  Is this really all the farther that I have come in this journey?

Yep.  But I can identify the mess now.  I can see the abscess of sin growing, infecting the tissue around it.  And I know the remedy-seek forgiveness and grant forgiveness.

Easy?  Not for me. 

I still don't know what the dream meant.  The hawk was in God's will and the squirrel wasn't?  I am the mother squirrel?  Cartoon animals don't belong in the forest?  The strawberry pie didn't sit well?  I suppose it doesn't matter.  It really was just a dream.