Trust Your Own Story

Early Saturday morning I woke up dreaming. I knew the symbols were significant so by the light of the digital watch I keep on the nightstand I wrote in my journal:

Dream

Am sliding head-first down a piece of card stock to show a friend she can “trust your own story/writing….”

My scribbled note was at the bottom of a page, so I flipped to the next sheet and crawled back into bed. At 8:38 am my cell phone rang in the great room. The call, from a Michigan State police trooper, had gone to voice mail before I got there, so I returned the call. The news was quite upsetting, and I apologize for needing to mention having gotten the call without sharing the details of the information in the call. My upset state of mind is what is most relevant, and that I forgot about having had the dream….

I am grateful Stacey was available to talk with me about the call, and thankful we genuinely affirmed for one another the importance of taking things as they come. I calmed down enough to go out for a bike ride.

Making a right turn off one road and onto another, there was a very attractive young woman (well-dressed) with a little white pug-faced dog on a leash in the yard. I didn’t think anything about it until I came around the corner and the dog ran to the end of the leash and W-H-O-O-S-H was off the leash and chasing me down the street!

A car was driving toward us at a pretty fast clip and showed no sign of slowing down. The dog’s owner was running hard, desperately trying to catch the dog. I knew she was terrified the dog was going to run out in front of the car. I kept moving to stay between the dog and the car.

I’ve been bitten by a dog, so I don’t have a lot of confidence when I am being chased. As the dog caught up to me I stopped peddling, began coasting, and raised my feet up so that the dog wouldn’t have access to my feet or legs. After the car passed and the owner yelled, “PLEASE STOP!” I stopped and she caught the dog.

I was sooooooo aware of all of the aspects: I didn’t want to get bitten by the dog, I didn’t want the dog to cause me to fall of my bike onto the pavement, I didn’t want the dog to get hit by the car, I didn’t want the driver of the car to hit the dog…. Each of these aspects of things I didn’t want pointed to the vital truth: I truly wanted the best possible outcome for all.

The owner and I apologized to one another. She did not realize I had kept riding to keep the bike between her dog and the car. We shared a few tears mingled with the stress and the relief. She kept saying she could not understand how the dog got off the lease; that had never happened. With shaking legs but a grateful heart, I rode on.

All I wrote in my journal that morning was that I had gotten the call from the trooper with the upsetting news and “Dog got off leash and chased me.”

Sunday morning I went for another easy ride. It was one of the most pleasant early morning rides in weeks because the temperature was mild and the wind was calm. After I got home I touched base with a dear Michigan friend, Linda Higbee, (another snow-bird) who just had back surgery here in Cape Coral. A headache had her still in the hospital, lying flat.

She wrote: “The nursing assistant, Kristin, came up with getting me high protein ice cream. It’s sticks to the spoon and l can eat it lying down 😋 . I’ve been able to rest well and ask for some spirit help. Stepping back to see both the positive and negative happening is very introspective and kind of calming too.”

The dream flashed into my mind! I could totally see how this had played out with my experience of having been chased by the dog. I wrote back to her, “All good news…. and I’m sharing that awe and calming of seeing both the positive and the negative (maybe it’s more accurate to say both the pleasant and the unpleasant) at the same time. I’ll write up and share my experience of having been chased by a dog on my bike today!”

I hope you are able to see with me how my dream was a gift from Holy Spirit. The symbol was speaking to me about the phone call from the trooper AND speaking to my friend about her recuperation.

An unpleasant experience does not have to be labeled as negative. As Morgan Harper Nichols is quoted by Gratefulness.org, “Peace is an invitation in daily life to breathe deep, right here, in the uncertainty.”

You are able to “Trust Your Own Story,” right here, in the uncertainty.