I’ve been feeling rather subdued today. It does happen now and again. But today was the result of last nights rather disturbing dream. I don’t often sleep badly, but last night wasn’t good. It was one of those dreams that leave you thinking about the issues that were all tied up with it.

The dream basically consisted of an episode in my grandmothers house. As with lots of dreams, they can be out time-wise, and this one was. In the dream, my grandmother was alive (she died in 1998). The part of the dream which featured her was very disturbing. She seemed to be very mentally disturbed, in torture mentally. She was very violent towards me in the dream, had some awful vacant stares. She didn’t know or recognise anyone and wasn’t selective in who she tried to hurt.

There were quite times when I’d stroke her hair, or hold her hand, and she would be quite for a few moments and then there would be an awful attack with screaming and fear. There were lots and lots of pictures of my aunt (who died recently), wedding pictures, pictures of her as a child etc. And it was clear from what happened next that she had already died in this dream.

On a break from sitting with my grandmother, I went to the kitchen and my bereaved uncle was there. I was talking to him…he seemed to be caring for my grandmother. Yet every know and then as I spoke to him, behind him my aunt…as a much younger woman, in fact as she looked round about the time of her marriage, kept appearing and talking. She was peaceful, smiling and her ‘appearing’ wasn’t at all disturbing.

Now, I don’t really believe that people can reach you from beyond the dead. Nor do I necessarily think that God wants to communicate something to me through this dream (or at least I hope not!). But the thing that it brings back to me personally is simply my own fears and hopes.

After my grandmother died, I often had dreams or visions of her being without Christ in eternity…if you know what I mean. She wasn’t, to my knowledge, a Christian when she died. These visions shaped my faith. My aunt wasn’t a Christian either, but I was able to speak to her about the gospel and pray out loud by her bedside in the hope that she would hear.

It was actually a beautiful thing to see her in that dream as she was. But equally disturbing to dream of my grandmother as she was.

My conclusions from this being at the top of my mind all day:

• no matter how much you feel that you’ve had some sort of healing from things, things can remain in your sub-consious. I still ache from my grandmothers death – my greiving for her has been long and complicated for so many reasons.
• life shapes you, your faith and your perspective
• God is compassionate and so he will judge righteously but without concern with my own preference as to who should get to heaven
• there is a world that needs to be saved
• there is a peace involved in being able to share the gospel with a member of your family

So, sorry for getting all heavy and deep, ever so slightly depressing, but it has been such an unusual day because of this dream that I felt I had to write something down. As I say, I’m not sure God was trying to communicate anything through this nightmare, and I’m not sure it was the enemy either. Neither do I believe that people communicate from beyond death. But I’m just remimded again of my own hopes, my own fears. God grant me grace as I try to deal with them both!

yours

Andrew