Dreams and Prophecy

I love dreams; recording them, remembering them, interpreting them.

Every so often, I will have a really vivid dream that will have a huge impact on my life. Throughout my teens and while I was at university, I had a recurring dream about going into labour. In this dream, I wouldn't know I was pregnant until shortly before going into labour. Aside from the world ending, labour was my biggest fear when I was younger (funny how life turns out!), so this dream was really a nightmare. I would go into labour, but never have the baby.

My first counsellor thought this dream was about putting a lot of effort into something but not getting anything out. This made a lot of sense to me, as I would get it when I was particularly stressed about academic work. Generally in my life when I was younger, I would put a lot of effort into things but not see results, because I would get so stressed out that I'd stop functioning.

I had the same dream summer 2011 (I haven't had it since, and hadn't had it in a few years), but in the dream I had the baby. The feeling from the dream was one of immense relief. I took that as reassurance that it was indeed time to go back to studying. And studying did go so much better than at any time in my life before - my grades were so much better, and I found it easy generally to actually finish assignments.

But then, in the spring, I started to get the same feeling - stressing out too much to actually get any work done, and I realised I based so much of how I saw myself on being able to finish my degree and on the grades I got. And it was like a prison.

And then of course in August the Lord spoke to me about letting go of it. And doing so has brought so much joy and freedom into my life.

I don't think I was wrong about the dream last summer. I think it was time to go back - I was ready to learn the lesson I needed to.

But the subject matter of the dream - the struggle to give birth to a baby - seems basically prophetic about the real struggle of my early adulthood. And it seems, looking back, that while I associated the dream with academic struggle, really the dream is telling me to focus on something else, and what my journey would be.

Last night hubby and I both dreamt of babies being born. My husband is dreaming fairly often about babies at the moment. These dreams, last night, are the first dreams I can think of in which names have been given to babies, and in which that has been the focus of the dream. For both of us to dream of baby names at the same time seems really significant!

He dreamt we had a baby boy and called it 'Rex'. Apparently it was born red and I said it looked like my little brother when born (he was also born red - cooked too long!). 'Rex' means 'King', which is so reassuring: reminding me that the Lord is the Lord of birth, and that He is king over this whole area of our life.

I dreamt that one of my bridesmaids (who got engaged this year) and her other half had a baby boy and called him 'Graeme'. In the dream I was jealous that she was the first of our uni house (she and I lived with another girl) to have a baby, but it was also what I expected, as she has been with her OH so long and is such a down-to-earth and homely person. Our other uni housemate and I went to see the baby, we were both on our way somewhere. And I talked to her about her labour, which was three days (but she carried on as normal for all but the last day - dream world is great!), and for pain relief she had a shot of pethidine. I can't think why that labour stuff is significant, but it was there in the dream so I thought I best write it down.

I googled 'Graeme', and apparently it means 'gravel' or 'grey homestead'.

'Grey' has been a bit of a theme for me this week; I already looked it up in my dream book ('Keys to Unlock Your Dreams', Barbara Claassen) for a picture I had at small group last Wednesday: it means  'confusion', 'uncertainty', 'vague', 'hidden'. And I'm thinking this dream is about confusion in all kinds of areas of my life: will I have a job and/or a baby; and where are we going to live, and when? I'm also confused about prophecy: I'm not sure where the various pictures and words around IVF and babies we have had through our journey are going to take us, and I'm not sure whether I can trust my ability to hear God, and deep down I am not sure whether I can trust God, and I feel that is really being put to the test through this trial.

I looked up 'gravel', and it has a positive and a negative meaning:

Positive - to lay a strong foundation in a ministry or a person's life.
Negative - bitterness, without joy; gravel is a symbol of something that is bitter or unpleasant. ('Keys to Unlock Your Dreams', Barbara Claassen.)

This speaks to me about everything I have been feeling about this situation we are in of being infertile and choosing IVF: I can approach it with bitterness and without joy, or I can allow it to form a strong foundation in my life and try to joyfully accept the lessons the Lord teaches me through it.

In the book, there is also a verse alongside 'gravel'; Luke 3:16:

John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

And that comforts me that the Holy Spirit is working in me at the moment, and it also speaks to me of this 'trial by fire' we are in at the moment: fire burns off what is unnecessary, it refines. Sometimes things are really painful, but it is all Jesus.

My dream speaks to me about this being a really confusing time - for our home, for our family - and also about the choice I have to make within that confusion. It reminds me that I don't have to worry; Jesus is 'more powerful than I': I am not fit to untie his shoelaces. It speaks of the importance of this time, it's testing and refining nature, and the 'strong foundation' it will lay in my life. I had a dream about a gravelly path earlier this year; that was about not doing things in my own strength; and this dream seems to link in with that.

My hubby's dream also reminds us that we don't have to worry: this may be a time of confusion, but it will pass, because He is King of all, and of this really intimate moment in our lives. It speaks also of Jesus's power and kingship over the situation. All will come good.