Dreams

I had a strange dream last night. To those of you who know me, this is really nothing new, but it had a different quality to it than my normal, run of the mill, someone is trying to kill me dreams. First of all, I was in the Olympics. Which to many of you is not strange at all considering the Olympics are everywhere right now; except, I haven’t seen one second of them. Not because I don’t care, actually the Winter Olympics are my favorite; I just haven’t had the TV on at all in the past week.

I was given a pony, with a saddle that was too small, and my legs were up around my chest. For some reason, I was afraid of the pony (really strange since I grew up on a horse) and then they just sent me out into the snow without any snow clothes. I tried to fix the saddle, but my trainers kept telling me I was doing it wrong. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, or where I was supposed to go, only that I was in a competition and I had better win because all of my team mates were depending on me.

In other words, I was in a race, with the wrong equipment, no protection and no directions – sounds kind of like life and parenting in many respects. How often are we given all of the information before we are required to make life altering decisions? How often do we feel ill-equipped and afraid of the tools we are given? How often do we have other people who supposedly know better, telling us the way we are trying to fix our lives to make it easier or better is the wrong way? How often do we know where we are going? Or how often do we feel the weight of trying to take care of our families, children and everyone else who we have signed up to be in the race with?

I do know that I miss the feeling of being on my horse, running through a field. The sense of freedom. The feeling of the horse’s power underneath me. The feeling of the wind on my face. The smell of the horse and the ground being turned up by her hooves. The sense of just being. When I was riding my horse, I was in the moment. I was relaxed. I was confident. I was happy. I wasn’t striving for someone to like me, or to do it right, or to be successful, or make decisions – I just was.

Joy is my project for this year. Learning to be in the moment, to enjoy every day and every gift God has given me. Not looking to the troubles of tomorrow, but relishing every day. Along with this comes trust. Trusting in God. Learning to trust myself – not spending my time constantly second guessing. Trusting others. And trusting that joy isn’t something that can be taken away.