Dreams

June 24, 2012
Last night as I laid down to go to sleep, my mind was consumed with thoughts about trying on clothes and shopping at Plato’s Closet. I had to stop myself and ask God to capture my thoughts. Then I started to meditate on a certain scripture – but my mind kept wandering off to “things”.

I finally fell asleep and I woke up this morning to the weirdest dream.

I was riding in a van full of people. We were in New Orleans and taking a left turn onto the freeway, but we turned too fast and went over the ledge and ended up in a swamp. (That’s how I knew we were in New Orleans.) The coolest part of the dream was that I was praying for safety as we were falling in slow motion. That’s always super cool when I am praying in my dreams. Anyways, I knew there were alligators in the water so I wouldn’t let anyone out of the van. It was just floating along in the water. But I got out and waded through the swamp to push the van to a big concrete ramp. So everyone unloaded, then the van kept floating till it got stuck in some mud. I was telling the driver to call a tow truck, but she said she was just going to leave it. And I freaked out cause my makeup bag and purse was in the van. So I start trucking it over to the van… in the alligator infested swamp… to get my makeup bag! I ended up wading too deep and had to swim towards the van and I was scared.

So as I’m thinking about this dream today, there are 2 things that stood out to me.
1. I thought I had to be the one to save everyone. Even thought I prayed, I still took it upon myself to keep everyone in the van. Now some might say this was a noble thing to do. I might have said the same thing before I knew I was a codependent and that is a big trait of codependency. Thinking I have to be the one to save someone.

The 2nd thing in the dream is that I was getting back into alligator infested waters to get my stuff! This was a huge eye opener for me. Two things that will get me in trouble are trying to save people and worrying about materialistic things.

I have to always remember that God is the One Who saves and He will supply all my needs.
Today, my Secret of the Vine devotional I’ve been reading talks about the “leaves” that we let crowd our vine. The leaves can be bad, but sometimes they are good, but they drown out the fruit in our lives. This is where the pruning comes in. When He prunes the unnecessary foliage, although leaves are flourishing, it means more sap can go to the fruit.

This ties right in with my dream about my stuff last night. I cannot let trying on clothes be a priority in my thoughts.

Although I don’t think I am materialistic like I used to be, I still have to guard my heart in this area as well. Because I do still like nice things. But I want to work for them instead of have them whenever I want.

There are just some lessons I will have to learn when I leave this place. Although my budget is teaching a smaller version of this lesson already. I know there needs to be deeper tests in this area.