Dream Messages
Dreams mean a lot. Dreams are Heavenly messages. Sometimes they are ideas from the past; sometimes forebodings of the future and sometimes communications for the present. Dreams are the closest we can get to prophetic visions and revelations (Danziger, 2012). This writer has convincing personal experience with these kinds of dreams, in which messages have been transmitted and acted out in real life to their fulfillment.
It happened one night in my home in Cleveland, Ohio. Shaking, shivering and breaking out in a sweat, I awoke with a vivid nightmare clear in my mind. While my heart was pounding loudly I recalled the details of the fearsome scene of my dream. My precious four-year-old was there in front of me just a few moments ago and then suddenly he had fallen into a place where his life was in danger. I had been desperately trying to reach for him. I struggled, I panicked; I continued searching with my hand, but I couldn’t reach him. I didn’t feel him. I continued pulling and waving my hand to feel for him. Where was he? I kept on feeling for him; my precious child. The gift I had been granted four years prior. The gorgeous sparkling eyes that spoke volumes, the vivacious little boy who was full of life, joy and passion had seemed to disappear. Fear and desperation overwhelmed me. Suddenly, for a split second, my hand made contact with him. Screaming, with my eyes then wide open, I sat up drenched in sweat, shaking from fear. It was a nightmare, “a frightening dream which can awaken an individual from REM sleep,” as described by Dr. Michael Breus (Breus, 2010). Something told me, though, it was more than just that. “Do the will of The Creator who granted you this gift,” my inner voice spoke to me. “Provide merit and learn from the teachings of Proverbs 10:2, which states: ‘Charity saves from death’” (Scherman, 1996). I decided in the thick of the night that I had a mission to fulfill. I would write out checks to charitable organizations and in my heart pray that my precious boy should live and be well.
The next morning things went as a typical morning would. Several of my young children were preparing to go to school. The children, all close in age, needed to be dressed, fed, packed up with lunch and snacks and ready for their car pool by eight thirty in the morning. This did not take much for a multi-talented mom like me. As the darling little ones scurried about and got themselves together, they all made their way to the door to join those waiting for them in the car. The routine rush was typical of every morning until my four year old, whom I dreamed about the night before, made an about face, and turned to me while dashing out the door. He looked me straight in the eye and sang, “Charity saves from death,” turned back around and continued his dash to the car. He evidently learned the song in school but had never before shared it with me until that morning.
Feeling an even stronger sense of mission while writing out the checks to charity, my mind could not help but wander back to the scene of my nightmare and to the message my little one had given me that morning. I whispered words pleading for mercy from The One Above.
That afternoon, my four-year-old returned home very happily from school. The skip in his walk, the song on his lips, the joy in his heart were always a delight. I gave him a snack to eat after a hard day of play in school all morning. While eating his juicy orange, he suddenly ran over to me flapping his arms, pointing to his mouth and not breathing. He was choking on a section of the orange he was eating. His color started to change as I flipped him upside down and began administering back blows between his shoulder blades, as per Red Cross instructions (Conscious choking, 2007). The orange had not been dislodged and he was turning blue. I grabbed the phone, punched in 911 and continued the back blows crying out to The One Above, for only He is the giver of life.
His gasping