At the end of December I had a nightmare. I am not usually someone who has dreams of any kind. I sleep like a rock, and don’t usually remember anything that goes on during those blissful hours of sloth-like wonder. My desires for this to change in my life has occurred as my relationship with God has been strengthened in obedience to Him. I now actually pray to have a vivid dreaming life, full of illustrations and visions of what is happening in my King’s heart. So perhaps this was an opening to that. With that I do warn you that Satan will try and tempt and twist anything that you ask from the Lord into something that you will think that He isn’t working through in your life.
Background to this event taking place, there was trouble in paradise within the relationship I had with my boyfriend at the time. I had just come to him in honesty about feelings I had held onto from a pervious relationship/friendship that had resurfaced and told him I had finally decided to give them over to the Lord before coming to him that evening. We were going through lots of ups and downs, which I felt were mostly attributed to me and this situation. I actually drove 2.5 hours, back to the city early from holidays, because I needed to tell him in person right away. Holding onto those feelings was wrong, and I should have submitted them to the Lord months prior, but in my pride and sensitivity to this new relationship I had allowed myself to stew in old comforts I wanted to hold onto.
In this previous relationship I had developed a soul tie with someone (we were not living for the Lord, and had a really intimate relationship outside of marriage), and whom I had reconnected with over the summer. He had broken up with me two years preceding, and we had not seen or talked to each other since. I thought I had dealt with the feelings, gotten over the relationship and moved on. Really all I had done was push the tie down and told myself I had moved on. When he asked to have coffee that summer to apologize for how everything went down, I thought it was amazing. I thought it was God restoring a friendship in my life. In a way it was a blessing, because I have now cut that soul-tie and it no longer plagues my life, and I’m able to think of that person and not feel or think anything towards them except the warmth of what Jesus has planned for them in their life (praise Jesus). But it had not actually done anything good for my next relationship, this false sense of reconciliation in my past. Anyways, so this new boyfriend felt very insecure after I told him about all of this and even though I had submitted it to God, he lost a lot of trust in me that evening. He asked for a week to himself, as a time out, to think about if this relationship was something we should really consider pursuing any longer. At the time, I told him it was fine with me, that I shouldn’t have expected anything different, and that I would wait for his decision.
That was the the night. The worst nightmare of my life. I fell asleep thinking that I was alright, sucking up my hurt from the separation between me and my current companion and trying to place it all in God’s hands instead. In the dream I was in my apartment, and another ex-boyfriend (I really hope that when you think about dating so freely, you take in how uninteresting it is to have a list like mine, save yourself for the one, God will reward you for the wait) knocked at my door. I let him in, because he was familiar and I was used to his presence. He then raped me. I didn’t say anything in the dream, I just let it happen. I woke up thinking that it was my fault what happened in the dream because of my passivity.
“This is why it is said: ‘Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’” Ephesians 5:14
I didn’t have anyone to talk to about the dream. I felt ashamed, and even later that day, when my boyfriend started to talk to me again, I only told him because I felt like it was like lying to him if I kept it hidden in my heart. What I realized God was asking me to do later on, was to rely solely on Him. He wanted me, all of me. I then decided to ask God into the situation, and asked Him to make something beautiful out of the darkness. He willed me to paint.
Creating light out of a dark event isn’t the same as using the darkness to create something that continually reminds you of the trauma you have just experienced. If you write a song, draw a picture, take a photograph that explains all of the angst you just experienced you will likely only be able to make people feel all the negative emotions you felt through that experience. This might initially make you and them feel better, in connecting you to one another, because you have both felt the same things, but it has no lasting fruit. You aren’t showing them what is good. You aren’t showing them how God has worked through that situation in your heart.
Your identity is in Christ. You are not doing it alone. You get to invite Him into every dark crevice to light the way. Whatever He touches will not be able to hide from the love and light that He has to offer. I made a decision that morning to create in light of the love I’ve received from the One most high. He showed me a picture of a girl who has been hiding amongst the flowers, His beloved. He wanted to take me out of that trauma, and He wanted to walk alongside me in the wonder of beauty that has come out of my interest in Him.
Honouring God in our work by focusing on the good is not a naive way of thinking. It lines up with the idea of finding our fulfillment in Him, and Him alone, and it leads others into that salvation as well. It does not meditate on what you have done, or what the sin, and darkness of the earth has done to you. It shines a beam to the way of life. The only way of life.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5
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