Mary's dream

When Mary was growing up, wonderful woods grew near her house, filled with trees, creeks, and paths. In those days, children could play safely in the clear water creeks. Her father showed her one creek she was not to go near because it was too dangerous.

Years later, married and with children of her own, Mary dreamed about walking in those woods. She heard screams from the creek that was dangerous. In her dream Mary ran to investigate, and found a couple of people sinking into quicksand in this creek.

Desperate to help them, Mary prayed. Yes, even in her dream. It occurred to her to push on and bend a nearby tree so that the people in the quicksand could grab hold of it, and be pulled out. She felt God gave her the strength to push the tree over far enough.

Before the people could grab hold of the tree, however, Mary’s husband shook her because she had been calling out, and he realized she was having a troubling dream. However, Mary pulled a pillow over her eyes and tried to get back into the dream so she could complete the rescue.

Her husband helped her wake up completely. She was covered with perspiration, and her heart was pounding, so intense and real had the dream been. Once she was awake, of course, Mary realized she didn’t have to go back to rescue anyone. Nobody was caught in quicksand. None of the drama had been true.

There are neat lessons to be gleaned from this. Crises can feel very real, very frightening. Yet if we can pray in a dream (and we can –Mary did, and I have too), we can also pray for guidance during a real-life crisis.

Another lesson is that none of this rescue activity was physical – it was entirely mental. Yet Mary was as hot and out of breath, as though she had really been running through the woods and pushing trees over. What does this say about the effect of our thoughts on our bodies?

Another lesson is Mary’s desire to help. She was eager to find a safe way to help those in need. Yet even as she awoke and understood intellectually that the crisis was not real, her emotions tried to pull her back into the dream, to make her personally responsible for the rescue.

Prayer that turns to an ever-present caring and wise God is always a good way to find out how to help, especially when we are wide awake and facing an urgent need.

And we can expect to find solutions. Sometimes that solution might be someone else who is better able to help. Our job is to be willing to turn to that Source bigger than ourselves, and then do our highest sense of right.