The Dream That Woke Me
I had a dream I went to hell… and my children were with me!
But before I get to that it is important to know some context…
It was a Thursday night and I laid in bed with a hot face. My husband and I had just gotten into an argument. One of those sudden fights over something petty where the thing we fought about wasn’t important but the un-dealt with bigger things emotionalized the conversation.
My last words to my husband had been “well you’re acting like a jerk!”. That shut him up fast but didn’t feel as good as I had imagined. I resented that he now slept soundly… each of his snores spoke to me “he doesn’t care about you”. I huffed and turned the other way giving him the horizontal cold shoulder- where even though I had to sleep with him I would pretend I had this king bed to myself.
I couldn’t take back what I had said or how I responded now… but I knew better. I knew that I did too! I had just spent the previous hours of the day at a Bible study with my friends, talking about marital offenses and the importance of honor. Out of my very own mouth I spoke of the power of Jesus The Forgiver who lives in us to help us. Our pastor had just preached a sermon on forgiveness the previous Sunday. I had memorized Ephesians 4:6, “ …do not let the sun go down on your anger.”
But here I was. The passion of my emotion overruled all of my wisdom and I made the decision that I would wait to forgive. When we could both talk, then I would release the hurt. I went to sleep with that boiling pot of water still in my chest.
…
In my dream I was at some sort of party or gathering with crowds of people that I recognized then but couldn’t recall now. I looked around and saw that my children were being taken care of by my husband and by others so I decided to take a nap. We were in some sort of commercial building or office suite but I found a couch and laid down.
When I woke from this nap the world had been taken over by utter darkness. Apocolyptic status. I knew instinctively that all forms of civilization had been gone a long time and there was no one else out there. I had no clue how long I had been asleep, but the building was now taken over by wildlife. Chairs and tables were tied to the ground by vines with leaves the size of my head. I felt so small. A tiny bug in this new world. Every step I took had to be taken slowly or I might trip over a bulging root in the ground. Windows were broken, by wind or intruders I didn’t know, but glass was everywhere. I could hear the sounds of raging beasts in the background, on the hunt for something to shred and devour. Even though they seemed far off I could feel their loathing towards me in the atmosphere. It was the intensity of this hate, not just around me but directed towards me that I recognized where I was… I was in hell.
As soon as I recognized where I was, I realized that I was not completely alone… my daughter! In a panic I quickly found my two year old, she had not been far off. She seemed happy and not one bit scared, oblivious to the danger around her. I searched and found a baby carrier that I could strap her into. This way she would stay close to me, close to my heart, and my hands would be free to defend us when the inevitable attack came. The carrier was too small for her age but it would do. I struggled to connect the straps and buckles because my adrenaline was so high at this point. It seemed nothing I did could be done quick enough. I knew time was running out. When I finally strapped her in I started searching for weapons in the scattered remnants of human supplies. I found a pocket knife.
Then I heard the coos of my nine month old son! He was farther off and I prayed to God that I could get to him “in time”. He was laughing and singing and I held my breathe hoping that nothing else was also following his voice. The sounds he made were my only signal of where he was. As I searched for him in utter darkness I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of me.
I knew only one thing: I was completely… utterly… one hundred percent ALONE. If I screamed at the top of my lungs NO ONE would hear me and there was NO ONE to help me. The complete burden to protect my children was on my shoulders. I knew that any moment I would be faced with this reality and I knew that the chances of our survival were not good.
It was the emotion of the scariest movie you’ve ever seen at the most suspenseful scene… times a million… and imagine yourself in it. I was hyper alert to every sound, every smell, and every shifting shadow. The feeling of terror and adrenaline running through my body made my personality change. It made me turn animalistic. A mother bear focused on nothing but the protection of her young… but without the strength and intimidation of a bear… more so of a worm!
Suddenly the suspense was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. The loudness of it inferred that something was close but the sound in itself actually contained fear… a fear that woke me up!
The first thing I did when I woke up was check on the children. Looking through the baby monitor I saw that they were peacefully sleeping.
The second thing I did when I woke up was wake my husband… “I’m so sorry I got angry with you! Will you forgive me?!” Half asleep he told me it was OK and held me on his chest.
Eyes wide open I could not shake the reality of what I had just experienced. My insides trembled with an unfamiliar fear… the fear of the Lord.
…
In the days that followed this dream I could not shake off it’s residue. I would think back to it often throughout the day and my stomach would turn to knots. There was a feeling of urgency to it… God was warning me.
He had deposited the fear of the Lord in me and it was now revealing my every wrong thought and every wrong motive. I was now hyper aware of my ill heart toward my spouse. I felt my own ickiness.
I also became hyper aware that there are MANY others in the same situation. I wouldn’t wish for anyone to experience the terror of that dream, but sadly many of us are blindly choosing to live it’s reality. As I did! For this reason it is the burden of my heart to be vulnerable with you…
So what’s the interpretation?
Now is not the time to nap! Now is not the time to coast spiritually. We should be at peace but not asleep. We must always be asking these two questions in regards to ourselves: What is the enemy trying to do right now? And God what are YOU doing right now?? 1 Peter 5 says, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” and Matthew 24:42 says, “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day our Lord is coming.” We must stay alert and awake to what is happening in both kingdoms, the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light.
In my dream I saw that my children and my husband were occupied and I decided that I “deserved some rest”. Many of us, mothers and wives specifically, feel worn out… spent… exhausted… and weary. We wear many different hats and by the time we finish the feeding, cleaning, disciplining, nurturing, errand running, accounting, etc we say “Pray??… I’ll do that tomorrow! My family has been given enough!” We sometimes think of warfare as another act of service that might drain us, but in reality this sort of prayer is crucial to the self care of our hearts.
What atmosphere is brewing in our hearts? Heaven or Hell? It was sort of strange because when I woke up it was almost as though God “pulled me up out of myself”. I don’t really know how to explain it except that even though I had a dream of hell, it wasn’t a nightmare. God, in His grace and goodness, was revealing my condition. Matthew 9:4 says, “And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said ‘Why are you thinking evil things in your hearts?’” The environment of hell was not a picture of where I was going, my salvation is sealed, but rather a picture of what was going on inside of me. Hell was closer at hand than I realized.
Checking the condition of our hearts is important because we are not the only ones affected. The worst part about my dream was that my kids were there. Let me make this clear: I do not believe children go to hell. We are not talking about salvation here but a metaphor for the condition of our hearts. Matthew 15:18 says, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.”
As wives and mothers we are setting the atmospheres of our homes, but we must also pay close attention to the atmospheres of our hearts. According to Jesus, what is in us will be put upon those around us (our spouses and our children) through our words and actions… good or bad! The kitchen is not the “heart of the home”… OUR OWN HEART is the heart of the home!
Lies left unmanaged WILL overgrow. The overgrowth of ferns and vines were all the lies I had allowed to “take root” in my heart. It was my awareness that appeared overnight, not the amazon. Sometimes it’s the little things that trip us up. Let me be vulnerable in my examples. Little lies might sound like this…
“I can’t wait til my husband gets home so that there will finally be a person in this house to SERVE ME.”
OR
“If only I didn’t have to pick up his things along with the kids things I would have more time… and if I had more time I wouldn’t be so spent… and if I wasn’t so spent I would be more fun of a person. It’s HIS FAULT I don’t feel like myself.”
OR
Maybe you don’t think these thoughts but every time you serve your family again and again (folding laundry, cooking dinner, scrubbing dishes, packing lunches, cleaning floors) instead of doing them unto the Lord, the whole time you are racking up points for yourself so that when you ask your spouse for something you have a whole list of “YOU OWE ME’s” ready in your pocket. And if those don’t work you’ll say “well I did birth your children…”
As I write out these examples for you, I can’t believe how ridiculous they are! Yet they were so real in my mind!
These thoughts, no matter how minor or ridiculous, need to be addressed and brought to the Lord or THEY WILL appear in our relationships. It may feel redundant bringing every little thing to the Lord, but I would rather repent often and feel silly in front of God than feel embarrassed in front of my spouse because of my pettiness.
This leads me to one of the biggest lies…
Aside from my children being in the dream in the first place, the second worst detail was that I was alone and the entirety of my children’s well-being was on me. The enemy has convinced many mothers of a false reality that we are alone in our parenting. He has convinced us that the welfare of our children is our sole responsibility and burdened us with pressures that were never meant to be ours. This can be one of the easiest lies to accept when everyday we are faced with new decisions about the well being of our children. We have ads that tell us we could be providing more for them, we have instagram pressuring us to perfect them, and we have endless shelves of books that because we will never have enough time to read we must be incorrectly disciplining them. There have never been so many voices involved in parenting yet it feels so lonely and quiet.
But the Bible says that Jesus Himself is not only with us in our parenting, He is also ready to nurture and lead us! In fact, He cares very deeply about caring for us in this way. He is the Shepherd, not us.
“He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in His arms, holding them close to His heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.” (Isaiah 40:11)
We must take each step slowly and cautiously because there are many traps set in our marriage. One trap that happens when we think we are alone in something is we project our feelings of loneliness onto our spouses. We blame them in settle ways and end up accepting lies that they aren’t “spiritually leading” us or aren’t “investing or being intentional” with our kids. Because our husbands don’t fall to the same message of perfectionism that we do, they therefore must be slacking. This blame game is actually a form of idolatry and interferes with our sight until we are the ones in the dark! The worst thing about deception is you don’t know you’re deceived. Thank God He tries to get our attention even if He has to catch us in our sleep!
Deliberate sin, aka stubbornness and selfishness, cuts us off from the privileges of God. The eery shatters of glass that woke me up in my dream were a reminder that my covenant, with Jesus but to my husband, must not be broken. Forgiveness is not an option to be chosen “later” when it’s convenient.
In the Bible covenant is made by cutting/breaking. At the end of every jewish wedding ceremony there will be a breaking glass ceremony. As the couple stomps on various forms of glass under their feet the statement is “may the marriage we have made with each other never shatter”. Glass is fragile; so are relationships. Jesus knew this, which is why He chose to become broken so that we can be made whole. To choose anything else but wholeness, in our hearts and in our marriages, is to deliberatley deny the privilege God gave us through His Son.
“For if we continue to persist in deliberate sin after we have known and received the truth, there is not another sacrifice for sin to be made for us.” (Hebrews 10:26)
We are the worm!! One aspect of the dream that has stayed with me is how incredibly small I am. I have been blessed to grow up around other believers who remind me who I am in Jesus, but sometimes even these identity affirmations can be clouded by my own pride. YES I am now chosen, royal and holy (1 Peter 2:9) but also submitted out of reverence for Jesus (Ephesians 5:21) and free from all to serve all (1 Corinthians 9:19). If the gospel does not compel me to serve those around me (including my spouse), then it’s not the full gospel.
Although my dream deeply moved me, serving my husband in the days that followed has not been any easier! But every time I find myself irritated at him or exhausted by the kids, I repeat in my head over and over “I am the worm! I am the worm!” while I continue to meet the needs of my spouse and children.
…
So Brittany, if it didn’t get easier why am I still reading?
Dear friend, if you’ve made it to this point and are still reading this longest journal entry ever, it means that the heaviness of this message has resonated with you too. Thank you for your persistence because now we get to discuss the message of hope!
I went to hell in a dream, but Jesus went to hell in reality.. And it was much longer than five minutes!
As Christians we talk about the cross often, but there is equally the most deep picture of love in the grave.
Psalm 22 gives us the diary of Jesus thoughts and inner turmoil as He conquered both the cross and hell. It is at this point the Bible itself can paint you a better picture than I of His intense love.
I have highlighted the phrases which refer to our discussion of my dream, but as you read these verses ask Holy Spirit which parts are specifically for you…
1 God, my God!
Why would you abandon me now?
2 Why do you remain distant,
refusing to answer my tearful cries in the day
and my desperate cries for your help in the night?
I can’t stop sobbing.
Where are you, my God?
…
6 But look at me now; I am like a woeful worm,
crushed, and I’m bleeding crimson.
I don’t even look like a man anymore.
I’ve been abused, despised, and scorned by everyone!
…
9 Lord, you delivered me safely from my mother’s womb.
You are the one who cared for me ever since I was a baby.
10 Since the day I was born, I’ve been placed in your custody.
You’ve cradled me throughout my days.
I’ve trusted in you and you’ve always been my God.
11 So don’t leave me now; stay close to me!
For trouble is all around me and there’s no one else to help me.
12 I’m surrounded by many violent foes;
mighty forces of evil are swirling around me
who want to break me to bits and destroy me.
13 Curses pour from their mouths!
They’re like ravenous, roaring lions tearing their prey.
14 Now I’m completely exhausted; I’m spent.
Every joint of my body has been pulled apart.
My courage has vanished and my inward parts have melted away.
…
16 They have pierced my hands and my feet.
Like a pack of wild dogs they tear at me,
swirling around me with their hatred.
They gather around me like lions to pin my hands and feet.
…
19 Lord, my God, please don’t stay far away.
For you are my only might and strength.
Won’t you come quickly to my rescue?
20 Give me back my life.
Save me from this violent death.
SAVE MY PRECIOUS ONE AND ONLY
from the power of these demons!
…
The responsibility for the well being of God’s children was on one person’s shoulders alone… Jesus.
My children are His precious one and only… the pressure of their perfect protection has always been on Him.
My spouse is His precious one and only… bitterness and unforgiveness keeps me from valuing who is priceless to God.
I am His precious one and only… He conquered hell to capture my heart.
God gave me a dream of hell, so that I could choose the reality of Heaven.
The Lord went to sleep, so that I could wake up.
