“Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will move mountains.” unknown

It all started with my dreams. I don’t mean my faith, as I was raised to be a Christian, but my journey towards my relationship with Christ. This is crucial, because what so many people don’t realize, is true Christianity isn’t about religion; it’s about a relationship.

My dreams were what inspired me, moved me into searching for meaning in my life—that meaning was always Him.

You ever wake up and feel like a brand new person? Sleep has a phenomenal power over us! In the Bible, Elijah wished for his own death. You know what God said? Eat something and take a nap! He went from wishing he was dead to arriving at God’s mountain. I cannot tell you how many times I have just thrown in the towel on a crummy day. I’ll wash the day off, eat, and then curl up in bed with my cat. Somehow, it’s all better after that.

Something kind of magical happens when we sleep. Through this unconscious process, we are able to restore our bodies, our minds, our souls. One of the ways in which these things take place is through dreaming.

I love dreaming. I find them extremely fascinating, and I love keeping a journal of my favorites. I believe this is a line of communication between God and I. Truthfully, I believe this line of communication has the potential to be hijacked by the devil himself or even by my own subconscious. Let me explain. I believe wishful thinking has the potential to influence our dreams in a big way! If I have a dream about another man, for instance, that doesn’t necessarily mean God has plans for us to be together. Likewise, if I have a dream about someone having bad intentions, it does not mean that they do. It could be a fear of mine reproducing itself with my memory storage and creating a particular subconscious vision, i.e. a dream. If I have a dream that sticks out in my mind, I like to pray about it before giving it very much thought.

Despite not all dreams being from God, many are! The Bible tells us this—I speak to them in dreams. (Numbers 12:6) Thus, we must pray for discernment between wishful thinking, our selfish ambition, fear, random mental clutter, and God’s true voice.

One of the most telling ways to determine if it’s from God is to see if it aligns with Scripture. Is there a lesson to be learned? A message that so happens to align with God’s Word? These teaching-types of dreams are the easiest to discern. Satan doesn’t like to teach us anything good, so it’s pretty clear these dreams aren’t from him. I remember a very vivid, very picturesque, and insightful dream I had back in 2016.

“I Found Money, but I Left With Treasure” 7/2016 (an entry from my dream journal) My soulmate and I were exploring in the woods together when we stumbled on a briefcase filled with money. I felt so excited and immediately began to talk about all the things we could do with the money. I noticed my soulmate was sad, and disappointment filled his eyes. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He then said that the money wasn’t ours, and whoever left it there would be looking for it. Then, he turned around and walked away. I chased him all the way to his car where he got inside and drove away. I continued to run after him as tears ran down my face and yelling, “Please don’t go. You were right. I’m sorry!” but he was already gone.

The next day, my mom found five thousand dollars in my dad’s pants pocket as she gathered all of his clothes to donate, shortly after he passed away. That money saved her as it came at a time she desperately needed it.

I like to think God sent me that dream to teach me the value of treating others the way we would treat our own family, because everyone is someone’s family, and more importantly, everyone is a child of God. If we had taken that briefcase full of money in my dream, we would have potentially hurt someone who really needed it. If we had taken the money, that would have been equivalent to taking that five thousand dollars from my dad’s pants pocket had I been the one to find it first!

Sometimes, I believe, God will send us a dream for creative purposes. I’ve made Instagram posts, Reddit posts, dream journal entries, and now a blog post with a few of my most memorable and insightful dreams.

I believe God will also send us dreams to comfort us. I remember a particular dream I had very shortly after losing my dad. This was a dream I believe to have been a tiny glimpse of Heaven. It’s a dream I cherish, and it still brings me much joy to think about even to this day.

“Heaven or Something Like it” 12/3/16 (an entry from my dream journal)
I watched from a place where I could see my friends and family pulling into a parking garage one by one. I saw Daddy pulling in like a bat out of hell in his junky old Mercury. Daddy always drove too fast. I was waiting in a grassy area filled with kittens and Pomeranian puppies. I just laid down right there and let them run all over me, laughing as I thought about how Daddy hated cats but would surely turn into a puddle of love once he saw us all lying there. Daddy’s heart was so big. I can only imagine this was Heaven… or something like it.

My dream world was very active in 2016, and my dream journal is filled with entries from that particular year. This was a time before I truly came to know the Lord. I’ve always loved God, but I wasn’t studying scripture, my prayer life was lacking, and I didn’t have a church home. This was a time in my life I was completely alone, and I needed God more than ever. I like to think my dream life was a way God chose to communicate with me, as He knew that was the one time I had no choice but to hear Him out. Thus, at that time, it became my main source of communication with God. He will still give me dreams from time to time, but not nearly as often as He did back then. Why? Because I don’t need my dreams anymore to communicate with God. I talk to Him all the time, about everything. I don’t need to go to sleep anymore to hear His voice. In a way, I guess you could say it was my dreams that led me to Him—my true love, my dream come true.

All we are is what we remember and what we imagine; our dreams are all we are. The choices we make is the skin we shed, the footprints we leave behind. All we imagine and all we remember is all we love and all we fear. All we love and all we fear is all we create, the destiny that lay before us.

And when I wake, You are still with me. (Psalm 139:18)