Today, on the day we proclaim our Thanksgiving, I woke up melencholy--Not feeling very thankful at all. It frustrates me when my emotions don't feel what I want them to feel. Does that ever frustrate you? Feeling sad when you want to be happy, or feeling afraid when you know perfectly well that you are safe.
Dreams have a way of crippling us with fear when we are completely safe, tucked in bed. When I was in elementary school, I was plagued with horrible, terrifying nightmares for a season. I can remember exactly what they were too. Even now as I sit here, some 28 years later, I can see them. What made them so horrible wasn't what was going on in the nightmare, because that was actually very benign (I'll explain in a sec). What rocked me to the core was the emotion that was connected to the dream.
In my nightmares, I was usually being chased. My attacker usually wanted to kill me. Sometimes, I was chased by scarely people but mostly I was chased by Yosemite Sam from the Bugs Bunny cartoons. [See, isn't that benign?] Watching those cartoons, I was never afraid of Yosemite Sam, ever. Yosemite Sam isn't really scary. For some reason in my dream, I was terrified of being chased by him.
I would wake up and creep to my door. Then, still gripped by the fear from the dream, would look both ways out my hallway praying that Yosemite Sam wouldn't be there. I would sit there for what felt like hours, but was probably more like seconds.
Sometimes, I would see him down at the end of the hallway with guns drawn ready to shoot me if I ran across to my parents room. My heart would beat so hard, I thought he would hear it. Eventually, I would work up enough courage to crawl very fast to my parents room and colapse on their floor knowing my dad would protect me from Yosemite Sam.
As time went on, my parents grew weary of night after night, me crawling into their room and falling asleep on their floor. I could never bring myself to tell them what the dreams were about because I knew that I wasn't being chased by Yosemite Sam. I knew he wasn't at the end of the hallway night after night, ready to shoot me. I knew I was safe.
It was so frustrating to me that my emotions weren't lining up with reality. My mom did end up taking me to our pastor to discuss my fears and he guided me to pray that God would protect me when I would have a bad dream and eventually the dreams faded and Yosemite Sam gave up the chase.
Why would I tell you all this story on Thanksgiving? There were no pilgrims or indians present at all. Just a crazy kid who had a wild imagination that seemed to go into overdrive at night. Well, I know there are many of you who have mismatched emotions. You are fearful even though you are perfectly safe gripped in the Father's hand.
There are many of us that from time to time don't have emotions that line up with reality. Reality is the Truth that is in the scriptures, and not my circumstances. I don't want my emotions to line up with my circumstances, that would be bad news for me. No, I want my emotions to line up with the Truth that is present in the Word of God.
But, what do we do when we are having one of those "off" days? When we don't see the Truth only our bleak circumstances?
For me, it is to praise the Maker of the Universe-- to adore His name. I don't ask Him for anything, I don't "vent" my circumstances to Him. Rather, I praise Him for all He is. I praise Him for being a good God. and full of loving kindness. I meditate on Isaiah 6, the imagery of the throne room. He brings my emotions back in line to His reality. Then no matter the circumstance, I can sit in the truth of the Word of God.
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