Maybe it’s All Just a Dream

Maybe it’s all just a bad dream like the moment they told me that my son’s heart was no longer beating.  Or the moment that he came out of my body with a quiet dignity.  A strong presence that even I cannot describe.  Or maybe it was a good dream the moment that I found out that I was pregnant with him, enjoying each month as the pregnancy progressed until it abruptly ended.  Maybe this is just a dream, a hope that the things I desire for will become a reality.  Or will it stop here?  Like when the dream turns into a nightmare like the moment the penny is dropped with one single metal sound echoing around the room, the moment you know there is no turning back.  He was dead.  I was alive.

Have you ever felt in life like there is a cross between your reality and your dreams?  The dreams and the goals you are working towards.  A reality you don’t actually want to be in.  Sometimes you just want to press the fast forward button like you do when watching movies or going through music clips and get to the place you actually want to be.  Wouldn’t it be a great invention to be able to press the fast forward button to get to the place you want to be in?  The moment where your dreams and the reality you are in merge together and become what you want it to be.  I want to fast forward the months.  I don’t want to be in the month of August nor the month of September.  I kind of want to be in October.  But if we fast forward I guess we will be skipping vital life lessons that God wants to teach you all about.  So there is no fast forward ticket to where you want to be.  It is simply this.  You have to wait patiently.  You have to work towards your goal patiently and if you really want it to happen, then make it happen.  Subsequently working towards that goal and planting your feet firmly on the ground, and making each step count towards the future that you want.

Except sometimes it doesn’t work that way.  Sometimes God has different plans for you.  Does it mean that sometimes you have to let go of a certain dream for another dream to take its place?  I suppose yes.  Like two years ago I had dreams and hopes for a future that I planned for my son and me.  I was planning to be the best mommy I could ever be for him.  I was planning to get a really good job so that I could support my son.  I was planning to get our own place to live.  I was planning so much, for only that dream to crash so fast that I landed upside down not knowing how to move away from this nightmare.  It was a nightmare that suddenly befell my world.  How do you move away from a dream that unfolded into a nightmare?  A nightmare that you didn’t even want to live in.  But in the end it was God’s good plan.  He was/is preparing me for something big.

But then there were the dreams I had when I was pregnant and the nightmares.  The nightmares that were quickly brushed underneath the carpet.  The nightmares that I didn’t want to know about.  The nightmares that could quickly turn into an unnecessary reality.  Nightmares. Simply nightmares.  I remember so clearly two dreams whilst I was pregnant:

One dream where I physically handed over my son to Jesus.  I remember seeing it clearly.  I was in a hospital room in a foreign country, with all this foreign ancient equipment surrounding me.  My mum in the same room as I gave birth to a BIG BOOMING silence.  I gave birth to my son in that dream and I physically handed him over to Jesus and said Jesus, here is my son Sebastian.  Please look after him.  And that was it.  That was the end.

The other dream was where God showed me that I would be ministering to thousands of people who have lost babies, children, who are broken.  I remember sitting in a living room together with unknown man ministering to this family who had lost a baby but had a bouncing toddler on their knee. 

I suppose God was trying to show me that even after death occurred that something big could happen.  He was simply preparing me for what was to come, and I didn’t heed the warnings.  I ignored the warnings.  I remember one more dream:

A year before I gave birth to my son, I think it was exactly a year before that I had this dream.  I was weeping uncontrollable inconsolable sobs and I was sitting on top of the mountain with God wrapping his arms around me as I was taking in the breath-taking beauty of his creation.  God spoke to me then.  ‘I love you Hannah.  You are forgiven.  You are my child.  All is well.  It will be ok.’  And I was weeping and weeping.  I couldn’t stop.

But I remember waking up from that dream with a warm fuzzy feeling.  Knowing that God was my Lord and my savior and that whatever happened/happens in my life that he would be there for me.  Holding me up when I fall.  Carrying me through the darkness.  I knew that I wouldn’t have to face the darkness on my own.  All I had to do was let God in to my heart, and His spirit would live within me and be my strength both in the good and the bad times.

So, I am wondering right now.  Am I working towards the goal that God has planned out all along for me?  Will it become a true story?  A reality. It has certainly become a desire in my heart now to want to serve others, to share my testimony.  To give hope.  To be able to share my testimony of restoration and hope even after losing my son.  That there can be hope. I am still walking through the wilderness.  But I have made progress.  Will it become a reality that my book will be published one day soon and that I will be promoting it in seven months’ time?  It all seems impossible. It seems like it won’t happen.  But it will happen.  I just have to keep trusting God, believing God that this will happen.  That this desire will bear fruit and that it will happen for the glory of God’s kingdom.  God will make a way where there seems to be no way.  I know that because He is already opening doors where I thought the door was closed shut.  Last summer I put my book on the bottom of my book shelf to let it collect dust.  I wasn’t going to publish it anymore.  I was not going to even look at it anymore.  Until of course I met a musician (Jules Riding – now my friend) who has also written a book and details his journey through deep human suffering as I have done.  He encouraged me to get my book published because he saw potential in my words.  He saw that I had a potential to be able to minster to other people who have gone through similar loss and trauma as I have.  Did I believe?  No, I still don’t quite believe that I have potential to impact people.  That Sebastian’s story can impact people.  But somehow it can.

My son gave me hope when I had no hope left.  And the reason why that is, is because God is love and God brought him into my world to show that love still exists in this very, very broken world.

We dream to give ourselves hope.  Being hopeless means living in darkness.  Having hope means living in light.  To have hope means the Holy Spirit has planted a seed, a desire inside of you that may one day be released and become a true story. But for that do you have the courage to pursue your dreams?  Do you have courage to follow God’s good plan?  To trust him, to believe in Him that he will work everything out for your future.  After all God is in control of your life, and when God is in control of your life all is well and nothing is impossible.