When awakening, very early morning, pain per usual tough, I was rather grateful that had I dreamed, I did not recall. Dealt with some brief correspondence, knowing my hibernation status, of being in custody. Fell back asleep after awhile, after as has become my morning inclusion, prayer and happiness for R, thinking of his rising in his transcendence of physical pain, feeding his animals, and heading to his work place where he is in field of helping others with healing or such.
I was in the culmination of a dream when I was awakened by a phone call from a family member, a rare call; we've not seen one another in over 15 years.
I was thankfully rescued from the peak of the dream! Albeit humorous, as some dreams go, though, in the unfolding it was not. Yet this dream was telling, of various layers, and easy enough for me to discern the message--and also to appreciate the humor for which I'm grateful and need.
In the dream, I was being prepped for another spinal surgery. (My actual physical pain was signaling my mind, and the mind was imaging the effects in the dream.) A surgeon came to talk with me, and he was a band director who retired when I was in sixth grade--old then, and even older in the dream (not to mention having passed from this life about forty years ago.
He left, and when I was told was half hour before surgery, a different surgeon came to say the other one could not do the surgery, but he was stepping in. This surgeon who began readying me for surgery, happened to be in life my great-uncle who was also old in the dream, very old, as he had lived to nearly 103 years of age, but has been passed over 15 years now.
With seeing this great-uncle as my surgeon, and with the surgery time nigh, I began to panic with the reality that matters were getting worse for me, not only having to have another spine surgery but that the surgeons had no medical experience and were getting even older in age as they appeared to me. So I called on my phone, trying to reach my parents to get help, as they would know the great-uncle not a surgeon and with in life his heart-stoppages in late years, my fate was in desperate circumstances. But the number was not correct, and I could not reach my parents.
That was when the here-and-now phone call rescued me from the dream. I (in rare prudence for me, but I'm praying and trying to improve) asked the person calling if I could call back, that I was still in dozing mode. That gave me a chance to deal with the dream (we know how dreams can sometimes be stunning or take a bit to shake how real they seem), and to figure out another aspect of it that is of value. I realized the phone number I was calling in the dream, of course was my parents' phone number of decades ago, but it was the phone number of my long-time friend's parents home phone.
Amazing how God allows our memory to access whatever needed through dreams (and often in waking hours or times of crisis, when we are open and needful of help or also soul instruction. More of the dream began making sense to me, as the surgery part was yet another indicator from my physical body that my pain is severe. I considered the two surgeons--the old band director who even back then seemed especially old to an 11-year-old, and the great-uncle who was also elderly for much of the time I knew him, considering he was 50 years my elder already, when I was born.
I did not think of all these aspects immediately, for I tended to calling the family member back after I got a grip on pain, got coffee to help the always-headache, and prepared a bowl of oatmeal to bring back to my bed where I eat reclining. I simply cannot sit with the pain as it is, since surgery. But portions of what the Holy Spirit needs me to recognize and to do what I must do, on my part, in response to the dream messages, have come to me off and on this day.
Not knowing for certain, but knowing with a kind of spiritual nudge, I have apologized to the old band director and to the elderly great-uncle, for anything I may have thought or commented upon, or criticized or judged even in nuance--not knowing for sure or remembering specifics, but with the old band director I did feel intimidated by him as he was stern and a large man, so my child sense then was one of caution for various reasons, a sense I had of wanting to stay clear. But no doubt I may have thought or spoken negatively, or had unnecessarily criticized in my mind.
As to my great-uncle, I have no conscious idea other than when he did pass, I did not go to his visitation or funeral; my mother was very ill, and I was worn out and felt I could not have energy to interact and converse. I remained keeping my mother company in her health care room at a nursing facility. I felt guilty for doing so because this uncle and his children who were my dad's cousins, I dearly love, and he and they had been generous, helpful, and supportive of me and my children when I returned to hometown after accident, divorce, and life-altering back surgery. But I made a choice to not push myself more than what I felt I could manage.
So today I've made my heart-felt apologies for offenses to either of these men in whatever ways; and I pray for them, as well, as prayer is always good when we are reminded of anyone.
And then I dealt with the phone number of my long-time friend's childhood home and on through the parents' long lives. There was a specific reason why that was the number I was calling repeatedly in the dream; the Lord is keeping before me, a reminder of the consequence of having hurt deeply the long-time friend recently, and of which I am accepting of consequences after apologizing.
But that linkage with my friend and reminder of my wrong-doing, my sin, includes the story line of the dream, of my being prepared for yet another back surgery in the dream and the reminder of my rudeness in not going to the great-uncle's funeral. (And perhaps some rudeness or other I committed as a child to the old band director; I will assume some fault of mine, for I was wary for whatever reason, and perhaps unfounded and that is the fault.)
The linkage is of my wrong doing to friend, but also the reality I'm coming to accept, that I am worn out from years of physical pain and years of suffering, and of the various trials that by the grace of God I've lived through, but of the many times I pushed myself beyond pain limits to a point of trying to be or do for others, or even be in conversations or whatever other, when I simply should not have done so. For therein I get myself into trouble, over-invest in other people's lives and business, or do not filter thoughts and feelings in a compassionate or prudent manner.
I asked the Lord to forgive me for that--for pushing myself beyond limits when He does not expect me to, even if it seems rude or selfish of me to not go or do or converse. There is a pride in this, that I have, and so I asked God's forgiveness for my prideful self that somehow has thought I could handle interactions or push myself to do, when in actuality and humility, I most certainly could not. It is when worn down from pain and suffering, that even my inner senses pick up on aspects that stay with me, and grow beyond what is best in intensity, and stay with me for a long time. It is hard to shake off and to also filter or refrain from comment or doing that which causes hurt or upset.
It is not the silent preaching of Christ that is part of my hermit basis, set forth by the Church for consecrated eremites. Even if there are some points of truth or whatever, or a sensing of something or other, such as perhaps picking up on something in the old band director's demeanor or temperament, prayer is best and prudent in any situation. And this is true particularly when my life has been for years formed by pain, suffering, and one trial after another. I am not safe to myself or others unless quite limited physically, for pain opens me up in ways most could not begin to comprehend; and silence of solitude and the Lord's protective custody of me is crucial. I grasp this all the more, even though I have been shown it in the past off and on and reel myself back in.
But I am back to hibernation, and this is what I was told and shown 34 years ago when my maternal grandmother whom I'd called out to for help, appeared to me in a corporeal, waking vision, and told me I would need to learn to "hibernate like a bear" for protection from the world. There is more to that vision, but I've shared it before, I'm pretty sure, and the hibernation and why, is the point, and this morning's dream brings up aspects of what the Holy Spirit is providing in this hibernation. He is digging up, bringing to the surface, persons and themes of past flaws and sins, and allowing me the kindness of time to ask forgiveness and repent.
Plus, I am grasping with this greater level of continuous, bodily pain than ever before, how wrong it is of me to even consider going back, of thinking of taking on more interaction, than what limited amount God brings. I must not tempt myself with reaching back in or pushing myself more, but simply to let go of what is past and done, and not also replace with other interactions. See my pride in thinking I can handle being drawn out into the temporal world even if would seem charitable.
I must attend to managing pain and doing well, handling well the few and brief encounters the Lord brings to me. Learn prudent self-control, such as not talking or trying to go and do when I am, myself, in the condition of "Father forgive me, for I know not what I am doing."
I must prepare my soul for my temporal passing whenever God wills, when Jesus returns to take me with Him. Seek to progress in the spiritual life, devote my life to praise of God and for salvation of the world, pray for all, be penitent, and above all, to love: to love to learn to love as best able. Love God in Himself above all things, and love others and self as God loves. Embrace the grace of suffering the same as I embrace the grace of God's delights.
Embrace being in God's protective custody, hibernating like a bear for protection from the world in my life that is to be a silent preaching of Christ and a hiddenness yet manifesting to everyone the interior aspects of the Church, that is, the personal intimacy of Christ.
The more I grasp and remind myself, the more I write it out, the more I will be subsumed into His will in these matters, and I will better live the Gospel Rule even if in silence of solitude. My spirit, if it remains in Christ and in His love, will greet whomever God brings in spirit, or the few He brings in temporal actuality. I can be with others in the Holy Spirit without effort beyond what my pained, fatigued, and mishap-prone-but-penitent person.
God bless His Real Presence in us! Rejoicing in gratitude in the Holy Trinity!
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