Bad Dreams

It’s about 1:00 in the morning.  I hear the baby rolling around in his bed so I get up to check on him, sure enough he has wiggled out from under his covers and is cold.  Quickly I cover him up and climb back into my own bed and pray that the elusiveness of sleep will soon find me.  Yes, I admit it….I should not have taken that late afternoon nap.  I have been wide awake since, well since forever, and I am in bed listening to my husband snore softly and the baby whimper in his dreams.  Suddenly I hear the patter of footsteps across the house.  My bedroom door is flung open and quickly shut back.  Two sleepy sad looking eyes are staring at me: “Mama, I had a bad dream.”

Bad dreams aren’t uncommon in our house.  They have gotten less frequent which is a blessing, but they still happen.  Even I have an occasional bad dream or two.  Like the night I dreamt that I was grocery shopping and could not find meats anywhere only laundry piled in the aisles.  Oh wait, this isn’t about me or my bad dreams.  Sorry!  On this night Ethan climbs over his Daddy, snuggles up close to him, yawns a few times, and then feeling safe in the arms of his Daddy that he loves and that he knows loves him; quickly falls back to sleep.  Robert keeps him snuggled close for about an hour until he can no longer stand the little hands and feet jabbing him and gets up and carries him back into his bed.  Ethan never wakes up.  He is totally safe in his daddy’s arms. 

As I lay in bed watching this I tell myself that I need to share this.  It is a perfect picture of God’s love for us.  God doesn’t complain when we have bad dreams or run to him hurting.  Just like we do with our own children, he pulls back the covers and lets us climb into his arms.  The only difference is that oftentimes we as mature responsible grownups don’t want to run to our Heavenly Father the way that our little ones run to us.  Perhaps this is what God meant when He said we had to have the faith of a child. I like how the New Living Translation of the Bible words it. “But Jesus said, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children." (Matthew 19:14).  Did you see that, the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are as innocent and trusting as little children.

Bad dreams can be scary.  The good news is that I can run to my Heavenly Father with my bad dreams, snuggle down, and be restored and comforted.  I love these reminders in my life, even when they happen at 1:00 in the morning.