Snakes In My Bed

Every once in a while I dream of snakes. They slither in my home, tormenting me in my sleep. They invade my most sacred and private places—my bedroom and my subconscious. In my dream, I jump atop the bed, screaming in ominous terror and high kicking in place, trying in futile desperation to escape my nightmares. All the while, even though I cannot see their faces or hear their thoughts, I know they mock me. No height will protect me should they choose to creep up the skirt of my bed, onto the sheets, and up my bare feet.

In real life, I hate snakes. I even distrust small harmless garden snakes. While hiking or walking my dog, I keep my eyes trained on the ground, looking for the predator lurking in the overgrown grass, planning his moment to strike. I will ruthlessly kill any creature who dares to hurt my four-legged baby girl, even if that monster acted from a fear of his own. 

In real life, I have a common snake phobia. In my dreams, my ordinary trepidation morphs into demonic paranoia. In past dreams, a savior rescues me by either removing me from the room or removing the snake from my presence before it gets to me. I wake with a jolt, tuck my feet and arms back underneath the safety of the covers, and wait for my heartbeat to slow before falling back into a more peaceful sleep.  

In my most recent dream, no matter how helpful my saviors hoped to be, no one could protect me from the snakes in my bed. Unbeknownst to me, a pair mated and hibernated inside the warmth of the house. After their period of rest ended, the female gave birth to a plethora of tiny slithering babies. I knew, even if we ridded the room of mother and father, we could not hope to capture every harmless offspring. In time, they would grow and mate and birth, and then their young would grow and mate and birth. We were helpless to stop the cycle.

These little ones crawled in my bed and on my body. Although smaller than worms and no more harmful than a gnat, knowing what their future meant for me ignited a panic unquenchable by any words of reassurance from those who vowed to protect me. I picked these lecherous babies from my body and tossed them out the door, but, as one disappeared into oblivion, another one took its place.

The following morning, during my prayer time, I asked for an interpretation. I believe dreams serve a purpose, especially those with recurring themes. To my relief, God did not hold back His lesson.  One of the reasons I hate snakes is because they remind me of Satan, the lying serpent from Genesis. I have always believed my snake dreams represented Satan and evil somehow, but I never thought enough about them to stop and question their meaning. That is, not until the serpents crawled into my bed.

The snakes represent sin. I fear sin consuming me. In former dreams, the snake/sin remains distant enough. Once I see it, I immediately recognize it for the evil it is and cry out for help. My Savior, Jesus Christ, hears my pleas and comes to rescue me. I am safe in His presence.

The baby snakes crawling in my bed and on my body represent sin when I allow it into my life. It may start out small, but if left unchecked, it will fester and grow and take on a life of its own until it becomes too big to cast out.

My Savior told me not to worry. He assured me He would take care of me, just as He did every other time I cried out to Him. This time, however, I took my eyes off my Savoir and focused on the snakes/sin. After losing sight of Him, fear consumed my heart and this fear permitted the snakes to take the rightful place of my Savior. He looked on with sorrow in His eyes, watching as I lost myself to unnecessary suffering while salvation stood ready and waiting for me to trust in Him.  

In my real life, I have been struggling with anxiety. Things have been going much better, but for whatever reason, I still feel tension in my jaw. I know unrelieved stress is causing this pain. I pray for relief every day, but I fail to ask God to reveal to me why the pain is there in the first place and to help me overcome the cause.

Through my dream and interpretation, He gave me the answer. I have taken my eyes off Him. I have not trusted Him to take care of me. Instead, I have been focusing on my to-do list all this list requires of my time and energy. My to-do list has become my focal point. It has become my god. I place unsurmountable pressure on myself when I fail to complete a task. I have lost balance and lost trust in Him to get me where I need to go. I have begun working for me and asking Him to step in line with my wants, rather than aligning my life with His will.  

I have lost focus and allowed snakes into my bed. Thank you God, for the unique ways in which you communicate with me. Thank you for bringing this sin to my attention and for forgiving me of this sin. Help me to refocus my life and to learn to trust you more.

Pieces of a Puzzle

Every Christmas and sometimes during other family vacations, my sister purchases a puzzle. My nephew, my mother, and I spend time putting the puzzle together. Sometimes, my other nephew, sister, and father assist. What started as a fun family activity became a therapeutic tool for me. I discovered the stress relieving quality of puzzles. They take my mind off whatever else is going on in life as I focus all my attention on fitting together one piece at a time

While grocery shopping at Walmart one day, some marketing genius set up a puzzle display in the middle of the walkway between the toy section and home decor section.  A peaceful portrait of a cabin by a lake in the woods greeted me in the middle of my path from toiletries to edibles. I imagined myself in the picture—snuggling up by a fire inside the cabin or taking the canoe on a solitary adventure. I added the 1,000 piece puzzle to my shopping cart. 

I never completed a puzzle by myself and knew nothing about those little idiosyncrasies necessary to be successful, such as the challenge of completing a puzzle without stark contrasts of colors or shapes. The subtle shade variation of the scene I chose was going to demand more from me than mere patient endurance.

Step one –completing the border—simple enough. I managed to finish this step in short time. After an easy inauguration, however, I spent several hours in a futile attempt to make sense of the plethora of tiny pieces stacked in front of me. Unable to connect more than one or two interior pieces during this time, I left the puzzle sitting atop the table for six months or more.   

My sister’s family, along with my brother-in-law’s parents, came to visit for Thanksgiving. My brother-in-law’s father, a puzzle enthusiast, entertained himself by working on my puzzle. Even he, a practiced puzzle solver, commented more than once on the complexity of my choice. My younger nephew, the one who spends the most time helping with the holiday puzzle pictures, gave up rather quickly and pursued more leisurely forms of entertainment.

During this time of year, seasonal depression begins to manifest in me. This particular year, additional life stressors thrust me into a terrible fit of anxiety that I could not pray away. As I sat at the table to join in tackling the sky, the puzzle became an unspoken symbol for my life.  My co-puzzlers appeared to match pieces with relative ease while I sat in silence inept to find even one. I confronted my pathetic life-failures as I held two matchless pieces, one in either hand.

My heart shouted out to God, an unspoken plea for reassurance, “If I’m going to be okay, I need you RIGHT NOW! Let me find a piece.” The next piece I picked up fit. 

After that remarkable answer to prayer, I commenced work on the puzzle, giving it an hour or two of my due diligence from time to time. It was no longer a gut wrenching chore, but rather, a relaxing pastime. I learned tricks to making the process less stressful, such as separating like colors and like shapes. I enjoyed watching as the picture took shape. The closer I got to completion, the fewer pieces I had to work with, the easier the task became.

Almost three months after that Thanksgiving holiday, I finished the puzzle, minus two missing pieces. As I admired my handiwork, I remembered that appeal to God in the beginning and the completed (or nearly completed) puzzle became a symbol for my life once again. In the beginning, the task seemed overwhelming, undoable. I felt like a lost and helpless looser. Now, looking at my masterpiece, I felt accomplished and proud.

My life mirrors the puzzle. If I focus on the big picture, my hopes and dreams seem unattainable. If I take a step back, invite God in and enjoy the process, make a plan and take my time, focus on one piece of the puzzle at a time, I will eventually see the fruits of my labor. I will eventually see my masterpiece as God intended.

Like those two missing pieces, my work is never quite complete. While I have breath, I will always have work left to do. The most important first step, though, is to ask God to partner with me. Without Him, I will never complete the puzzle.

 

Cross In My Window

God speaks. What He speaks is as unique as the way He chooses to speak.

I strive to begin my days in quiet solitude with God. Where I start my day varies on the weather and my mood. Most of  the time, I sit at my desk. On particularly nice days, I sit outside. 

On occasion, I spend my quiet prayer time sitting in a recliner angled so that I look out an east facing window. If I wake up early enough, I get to see the rays of the rising sun shining through the trees in the shape of a cross.                

Witnessing this phenomenon is like God greeting me each morning. I look forward to that special reception. It’s an exchange between the two of us, a language all our own. It’s personal. It’s sweet. It’s special. It’s just for me.

 “Good morning, Renee. “

“Good morning, Daddy!”

And so the conversation begins, different every day.

And so my day begins, with a cross in my window.

And So I Hid

Sin—knowing what is not right and doing it anyway.

Results of sin—separation from God

            Adam and Eve hid from God after sinning. As I read this narrative, I imagine a game of hide and seek between an energetic toddler and a doting grownup. The toddler believes in the success of her strategy as long as her chosen place of concealment shields her eyes from her seeker. All the while, her seeker knows exactly where she hides.

            Unlike an innocent game, however, our naïve first mother and father allowed guilt to trick them into ignoring God and hoping their futile attempts at camouflage would cover their shame.

            I always found this behavior a bit foolish. They were intimately connected to God. They knew they could not hide from their Master Creator. So why did they even try? I suppose their act of willful disobedience triggered irrational thoughts.

            Their behavior, no matter how illogical, is no worse than the way sin causes us to respond to God today. We may not hide behind a tree the way story book illustrations portray Adam and Eve, but we hide nonetheless. Don’t we?

            Lent snuck up on me this year. Before I knew it, I came face-to-face with an annual dilemma—what to give up, if anything, or what to add in my life as my penitence in remembrance of the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert enduring the temptation of Satan.

            I chose to give up the drug most consuming me—sugar—in the form of sweets, treats, and regular sodas. Once I made this decision, I spent my remaining pre-Lentin days in a gluttonous escapade, acting as if I intended to give up my favorite vices for life. My insatiable appetite mirrored an addict in the days and hours before checking into rehab.  

            We even celebrate our fall from grace and call it Fat Tuesday, making gluttony socially acceptable, even for those of us who call ourselves Christians. Now, I am not calling Fat Tuesday sinful or accusing those who participate in it sinners.

            Enjoying those things we choose to live without for a season is not necessarily a sin. Giving in or not giving in on Sundays during Lent is not necessarily a sin. Falling off the wagon during Lent is not necessarily a sin. Not participating in this tradition is not necessarily a sin.

            What is sinful is when I make any of it more important than my Savior and my relationship with my Savior as I did the days leading up to Ash Wednesday.

            As the days progressed and my greedy hunger for sugar swelled, my prayer time became more forced and lethargic. My eyes rolled to the back of my head when I attempted to read the Bible. My mind wandered each time I attempted to talk to God. Even journaling, the one activity sure to center my thoughts proved fruitless. I blamed a restless sleep or the normal ebb and flow of prayer. I concluded I must simply need or want for nothing.

            I never considered that my overindulgence in ice cream and chocolate and Coca Cola could have played a more active role in my declining prayer time other than simply causing a sugar and/or carb crash. That is, not until I picked up the book, Masterpiece by Susie Shellenberger and Billy Huddleston, and began reading chapter eleven about forgiveness.

The paralytic—Jesus calls him son—tells paralytic his sins are forgiven—from creation—ate what they knew not to eat.

            Like most God talk, these sporadic words and phrases spoke of my current dilemma. Fatigue did not cause my flagging prayer life. Sin caused it. Like Adam and Eve, who tried in vain to hide from God after doing what they knew not to do, I, too, hid from God after over indulging in sin.

            I knew my behavior was, indeed, gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. I knew the upcoming Lentin season offered no sound justification for my actions. Yet, I did it anyway, purposely polluting my body, the temple of God. How can I spend time with God and ask for forgiveness when I know I am going to sin again later that same day?

            I am not referring to general sin; asking forgiveness for sin I never intended to commit or never realized I committed. I am referring to purposeful, willful giving into the temporary satisfaction of sin. I am incapable of remaining in God’s presence when I know I fully intend to turn my back on Him after “amen” and sin again.

            This realization, however, failed to shame me in the way Satan would prefer. Instead, I remembered God’s first word to the paralytic; “son.” I knew He still loved me as daughter. I knew He would not take the time to speak to me through the words of Susie and Billy had He not loved me. With a gleeful heart, I asked for genuine forgiveness and restoration, and guess what? Like the paralytic, not only did He forgive my sins, but He restored me as well.

            Easter is my favorite time of year. I enjoy celebrating with Lent because I see this season as a time of rebirth and renewal. I come out of the worst part of my year, when I suffer and fight through seasonal depression, my less productive months. My physical and spiritual stamina returns. Lent, for me, is a loving act of re-planting so that God can grow radiant spring flowers in me. I hold on to 1 Corinthians 10:13 and remember that Jesus is the way. It leads up to the most precious of Christian holidays, Resurrection Sunday.

            So, on this Ash Wednesday, the official start of Lent, let us all glory in the fact that God forgives us our sins and leads us out of temptation. Let us rejoice that no matter what, God, our Daddy, loves us and calls us His sons and daughters.  There is no greater gift.

1 Corinthians 10:13 New International Version

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.