Photo from www.flickr.com, courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

These past few weeks have been extremely busy for the Haynie household. My day job has been that way for the past month, but then my husband and I decided last weekend was the time to complete the refurbishment of the fireplace.  The workers had installed the firebox in September, and now we had to complete the tiling of the hearth and surround.

As with all do-it-yourself projects, the imagined and actual timelines varied widely. By Sunday night, we hadn’t even finished the surround and still had the hearth to go.  My back hurt.  My knee hurt.  My head hurt.

I started flipping out. A good drink and a hot bath later, I finally crawled into bed.

I dreamed.

In my dream, I was a nurse whose schedule had changed without her knowledge. When I arrived at the hospital, I realized I had no idea of where I should be, when I should be there, and what I should be doing.  Then I showed up on a ward where the windows started about halfway up the wall and took up the entire upper half.  I looked outside.  There, slithering through the forest that pressed close to the windows, was a gigantic anaconda.  I looked again, and an even bigger eagle had shown up.

The dream got me to thinking. What did those things tell me?  I’m no Joseph from ancient Egypt, but this is what I think my brain was trying to process.

My being a nurse. I’m not a nurse by trade.  Not even close.  I think my occupation in my dream showed how out of my element I was.  I’ve never done tiling before.  Subconsciously, I most likely worried that I was out of my depth.

My not knowing when I was supposed to be working. The element of time showed up here.  We were supposed to host friends for supper on Saturday.  We were running out of time.  Now, we’ve moved the party to a few weeks later.

The forest outside. I think I felt like (and still do) that the journey through a lot of unknowns remains.  It does.  My day job evolves by the moment.  So does my stepping into the field of writing.  And let’s not forget doing something completely new like tiling.

The anaconda. I’m not a snake lover, especially of those that are huge.  This one was larger than life.  I was feeling squeezed from all sides.

The eagle. God sees our struggles.  He’s omniscient, after all.  He speaks to us in different ways as well.  I think He spoke to me Sunday night via that dream.  The prophet Isaiah said it well when he wrote “but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary.  They will walk and not be faint” (Isa. 40:31, NIV).

As I’ve thought about the dream, I’ve realized one thing. God wants us, in our very busy lives where we may feel overwhelmed with the demands of work, home, and family, to turn to Him for our strength.  Only He can make us soar like eagles.

Question: What has been a recent dream of yours, and how did you interpret it?

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version^®, NIV^®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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