Patting Hosanna to sleep in her drawer-crib
I didn’t know where I was or who was with me, but they were clear—the woman and her two children. It was equally clear to me that they had needs I was trying to meet.
“May I talk with you?” she asked, indicating with a slight nod of her head that we could go into the other room, away from the children. I followed her there, but so did her little ones, just as if they were her shadow. But unlike that permanent fixture on a sunny day, they agreed to leave us—just for a minute—so we could speak privately.
“I need a friend,” she whispered in a voice choked with tears. It was almost as if her admission had shamed her, yet she continued, “Will you be my friend?”
My heart, overwhelmed with compassion for this unknown woman, propelled me into her arms. Now tears were dampening my own cheeks. “I need a friend, too,” I confessed, suddenly overcome with loneliness, sadness, and my own neediness. “Will you be my friend?”
Then the dream was over—at least I don’t remember any more of it. In fact, I didn’t recall this scene until the next evening. In the midst of a made-for-television movie, I randomly shared it with my family although it had absolutely nothing to do with what we were watching. I have no idea what brought it to mind, but once again my eyes welled and overflowed in two single streams down my face.
What do dreams mean? I’m not an interpreter, nor do I think there is much use in dwelling on these partial scenes that fill the nighttime and occasionally spill over into the day. But I’d been held prisoner by the loneliness that permeated my dream and I couldn’t seem to shake it. It lingered not as the fragrance of a lovely scented candle long after it’s been extinguished, but rather like a persistent headache that, despite medication, is just under the surface and ready to explode into a debilitating migraine at any time.
In the quietness of the darkened room as I patted my granddaughter to sleep last night, the Lord came to me in my thoughts and reminded me not of a dream, but of reality. “My child, have I not promised never to leave you, never to forsake you?” he asked me in the kindest, most loving voice I’ve ever heard. “Why are you so lonely?”
One after another, God then recapped for me the significant ways he had shown me his presence in the past few days alone: through e-mails of concern from many people; through lunch at the home of a friend who greeted me, “You’re looking wonderful!” when I’d been suffering with the unsmiling, tired, way-too-old, way-too-soon face that stared back at me from the mirror; through unsolicited, completely unexpected checks that had arrived to help ease the financial burdens my cancer journey has brought us; through the visit of good friends who, in the midst of their busyness, wanted to say in person, “We’re thinking of you.”
And then, snatches of scripture came to mind. Although I could not recall them fully—I’ve never excelled in Bible verse memorization—enough pieces of the Lord’s message to me were there to be woven into a loosely knit shawl that wrapped itself around my shoulders and swaddled me lovingly in comfort. In that embrace, I prayed for my three-week-old granddaughter to sleep well and soon snuggled in my own bed.
This morning, I found the rest of the message that had consoled and reassured me last night. I’m embarrassed that the words were even highlighted in my Bible:
“Do you not know? Have you not heart? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 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” (Isaiah 40:28-31).
And I? The loneliness I’d not realized had vanished, like a dream at the first hint of dawn. Once again, God had proven his faithfulness.
