Dreaming of Death
Awake, Awake Oh Sleeper
I awoke at about 2am this morning after a series of very vivid and disturbing dreams. In each of the four sequences of the dream, I was a different person at different times in modern history. In each sequence I began having a conversation or engaging a person, only to find that I was dead and the other person was the spouse that I had left behind. Each sequence was reliving the memory of how we met or a favorite date and the spouse was always lonely and also reliving the same situation. It’s as if the spiritual self I was in and the widow were meeting to celebrate some profound mutual memory of a landmark time in our relationship. It was so real and so painful, that I’m tearing up, even as I write this.
During my dream, after awaking and even now five hours later while writing this, I felt the vivid pain of being both the widowed spouse and the frustrated lover that couldn’t comfort the person that had been left behind. The pain was not for myself, but because in each sequence I couldn’t convey to the widow that I was in a better place and I was deeply sorry for their continued pain.
The thing most interesting to me about the times of reflection in each sequence – the times that the four couples were recalling were not wedding days, expensive cruises or elaborately planned holidays. The most impactful monuments being recognized in the sequences were holding hands and gazing upon one another at a quite restaurant, the first corny pickup line at a social event, holding each other during a benign movie and walking in the rain at a park. These are the times when each couple felt the strongest connection and most peace in their relationships.
I’m glancing around my living room now and wondering what random movie, conversation or trinket would stir such profound sorrow in me, should anything happen to my wife. I have a blessed marriage – an incredible gift from God – that I daily take for granted. I’m sure to tell her how much I love her and to spend as much time pursuing her as humanly possible – I would be loss without her. It’s not always been this way, and that makes me even more grateful for what we’ve been given.
Referred Pain
I have no real understanding of what it feels like to lose a close love one. I’ve faced the pain of others that have. The closest I came was in 1986 when a favored grandmother passed away, but I was too young to truly appreciate the value of life and still was comforted by the thought of an angelic patriarch looking over me. I’ve never faced the loss of an immediately family member. Even my dog is 16 years old and seems to have no will to sleep eternally.
My theology is such that I do not believe we’ll be floating around as ghosts after we’re dead, looking for ways to fix our loved one’s lives. I feel that Bible is clear on this issue that you will end up in one place or another. So, I feel the dream was symbolic or instructive. Rarely do I have such full-color, vivid and emotional dreams. This meant something more.
I assume that this is tied in to my upcoming missions trip to Haiti, where we’ll be running a medical clinic and taking time to counsel the survivors of the tragedy. I’ve been studying the country, culture, history and time since January’s devastating earthquake. These are a people who have suffered much since their existence. They aren’t strangers to pain and suffering, but this magnitude is so pervasive. All I can do is pray for our team to be able to provide some comfort. I’ve never been to the country, but I know that in the practice of medical care that providers can sometimes forget about the non-physical pain that others are going through.
Even outside of going to another country, there should be an ongoing effort in our daily lives to identify and be sympathetic to non-medial pain…
The Pain of a Savior
I can’t help but think of the unbearable pain of Christ as I write this. I got just a glimpse of four lives torn apart by loss in my dreams last night and only that glimpse has given me profound sorrow.
I Peter 2:24 – 24 He took our sins on himself, giving his body to be nailed on the tree, so that we, being dead to sin, might have a new life in righteousness, and by his wounds we have been made well.
It reminded me that in my daily life, in my struggles and in my times of frustration that Christ is there. He is present during my pain and wishes more than anything, that I would know that it’s going to be ok and His comfort is like no other.
