itsawonderfilledlife

We can be haunted by things that go bump in the night … not just the noises, but the dreams that awaken us with tears, shivers, cold sweats.

It had been a long time since I was awakened by such things that go bump in the night but it’s impact is still felt days later, as a shiver goes up my spine, and my mood is still there … in a funk.

When I am in such a funk I feel more. I feel the hurts and sorrows of others … I understand what it really feels like to carry the burden of others.

As I was trying to shake this funk, the memories of the dream, the bad news of this week (globally, locally, within the lives of people I love) … I remembered that there must be something in my memory of scriptures that had been buried in my heart (from the post, Whatever). But nothing came to mind.

Then the lyrics of a song I had heard earlier in the day began to sing in my head.

“This is what it is to be loved
And to know that the promise was
That when everything fell, we’d be held”

A rather melancholy song, but not one without hope. I had forgotten about a particular line in the song :

“Why should we be saved from nightmares?”

Nightmares, whether in the form of disastrous life experiences, or things that go bump in the night, happen to us all. They are common human experiences … ones that allow us to share in and understand the sorrow of God. They lead us to him and divine human transaction that is his son … who provides the hope of being held.

“You have to begin to trust that your experience of emptiness is not the final experience, that beyond it is a place where you are being held in love.”
– Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Inner Voice of Love)