Lead Me

In the dream, my father and I walk out of the thick forest to a huge clearing. All around the clearing stand tall trees that are so thick it is scary to try to look past them as there is nothing but a black abyss. My father and I start walking across the field, holding hands. He is leading me. I am scared; we are all alone in this clearing with scary forests all around. We get close to the other end of the clearing when we spot three huge deer. The deer aren’t really deer, though. They are deer to us, but they look like over-sized dogs. They walk right up to us, not in a friendly way, but I feel okay about it. I notice then that there are carcasses nearby, the skull of a huge animal along with a dead bird of some sort.

We are approaching the side of the clearing and the forest is in front of us. We spot an opening on the side where someone has made a trail, so my father leads me in that direction. However, we also spot two mountain lions in the thick. My father motions for me to be quiet as we enter the brush, heading in the opposite direction from where we spotted the cats. A snap from a branch. The cats turn toward us – we have been spotted. They expose their sharp, white, gleaming teeth. “They know we’re here,” he says; I can tell that this man that is scared of nothing is frightened. I wake up.

I don’t know why I had this dream last night, but I know it means something. While my dreams don’t always mean something, I feel strange about this one. I don’t know if it is the fact that I’m nearing something that I have no idea about in my life – the birth of my firstborn child – or if there is something I am subconsciously scared about that I just don’t realize. I know my father can stand for a variety of things in this dream. He has always been a safety net for me, a strong warrior, scared of nothing. But he is also my father, my second father, as I have another one that leads me throughout my fears as well in a different fashion. Perhaps there can be a spiritual lesson applied to this dream that I had last night – there is a scary, unknown, time ahead, but I am being led by my Father, whom I feel safe with despite the fear, whom I know will lead me in the right direction, away from harm, to safety.

This dream is probably the result of s t r e s s….stress in the form of finances, of my final MBA course, of my husband beginning his MBA, of feeling more exhausted each day as I get bigger, of family issues, of sadness for a friend and what she has been through lately, of excitement and fear regarding the birth of Emory. Of the unknown that lay ahead. Of the events that have led up to this point. Of what could happen…of the way the cards could fall.

The dream is a reminder that I can’t worry about these things. It reminds me of a hymn I can recite by heart that we sing occasionally on Sundays.

Lead me, Lord…Lead me in thy righteousness
Make thy way plain before my face
For it is thou, Lord…thou, Lord only
That makest me dwell in safety.

25 weeks…


Psalms 18:36
"Thou has enlarged my steps under me, that my feed did not slip."