The time before...

you wake up is often the most fertile for dreams and this morning's dream was interesting.

I was back in Lindsborg, Kansas, and the normally small town in the center of the state was larger, changed, with hills and many shops. I sensed my family was with me, including my father who has been asleep in the Lord for over 15 years. My quest was to get to First Baptist Church where I had served and get inside.

Like many dreams the task was frustrating. I knew where the building was but kept weaving in and out of streets and shops. Lindsborg is a tourist town that celebrates its Swedish heritage and so I was traveling through one gift shop to another trying to find my way. Normally I would have awoken from sleep somewhere short of the goal but this time I made it.

The church itself had changed, there were additions to the building and as I walked up the stairs I noticed the name had been changed to Grace Church and the change must have been recent because the new sign was on the top of the stairs and next to it were icons in that sort of Greek / Catholic style so prominent years ago.

I made it inside and found that everything had changed but there were two older ladies left from the church that I knew. I asked them about what had changed but they made no reply. And while I was speaking with them and watching the service I woke up.

Now I know what some of it means. I had a hard time at First Baptist Lindsborg and I've had dreams about getting to the church and getting inside. That was about trying to make peace with what happened there. But the presence of my father, has he been praying for me in these past years that I would find healing and rest from those days? I think I know what the name is all about and the icons. I already had an icon of St. John the Forerunner with me in Kansas and it calls to mind the journey God had planned for me because it was in those days that I began to search in earnest for the Church.

There's more to contemplate, of course, but I wonder why this and why now? Perhaps, after all these years, I am being released.