I had a dream the other night. It was about losing my only son and youngest daughter. I was in such pain at their loss. In the dream it all seemed so realistic and the pain was more real than I could bear. It caused such grief in me that I woke up crying in the night. Lying next to my husband, he awoke and comforted me. I don’t know if any other 35-year-olds wake up crying anymore, but this wasn’t the first time in my adulthood. I told my husband about the dream and wept some more. I tried to come back to reality. I said, “Please talk to me about something.” I needed to get this dream out of my head. He brought up a subject I was talking to him about several days ago and said, “What are we going to do about Christmas?” But the thought of having Christmas without my darling children pounded in my chest like a heart attack.
He asked what I thought the dream meant. I couldn’t stop fretting and worrying about them. I wanted to get out of bed at 4 AM and make sure they are still in their beds. I had no idea what it would mean. But sometimes we do have dreams that mean something. He suggested that maybe this is how The Father feels when one of his children is lost. He said maybe there is someone coming to the retreat (at Bear Creek Ranch) this weekend who grieves Father that much. Two of them. A man and a woman.
It saddens me to think that God could experience this sort of pain. Could he? He did make the analogy of the shepherd who is willing to do anything to retrieve that one lost sheep. If he were writing that parable to me, he would say, "I am like a mother who has lost one of her dear little children and would go to any length to get them back."
I cannot even begin to imagine the fullness of how parents feel who have actually lost a child. My heart aches for you, whoever you are. <3 My husband and I prayed for those two lost children of His that needed to be found.
