The Interpretation
I was going to post this as an add-on to my dream post of a moment ago, but I think it deserves to be a post of its own, now:
It was a very spiritual and beautiful dream for me, the whole way through it I felt guided by God, and often felt His power flowing through me. I've had the "flash-of-back-story" thing happen to me several times in my life, or God putting me (sometimes with my foreknowledge of why, sometimes not) in a place where I'm needing, like in my desperate run across the desert to get to the mountain oasis before the girl did. Often when I'm in a state of prayer/close-ness with God, He'll give me a sudden knowledge of what to do, as in the case of healing the young girl of her blindness. I'm not sure what the dream means, but I think it had a lot of spiritual meaning, and I loved it, to be honest. I hope God wants me to be a spirit-led cougar running across the desert! :-3
Right there. That last line. I answered the question, and put to paper something a part of me has known all along, even though it scares me. Here, let's try this from another angle:
I volunteered to be in the church Christmas play, with the understanding that I was to be doing the lights (since I'm still pretty much the only one who knows how to run them). For some reason I will never understand, she gave me a part in the play anyways. A huge one. One of a doctor trying to go on vacation with his wife, but they stuck in airport layovers with a bunch of other people, including a pair of missionaries just returning from a four-year stint at a field hospital in Africa. The missionaries mention how much they need doctors at this and other hospitals all over Africa, and the play focuses on his (not-so-)internal struggles over this, because he was once offered a similar opportunity in Africa, which he turned down in favor of the more profitable job in the city, and he's been fighting about it with himself ever since. After years of trying to ignore the urge to go to Africa, the arrival of the missionaries finally lays his and his wife's real feelings open, and they decide to cut their vacation short and go to Africa, for the first time in many years feeling peace over their decision.
Of course, I protested such a big part in the play, but she told me the best she could do was swap it out for a little one, and that would mean Seth taking my place as the doctor. Now Seth is 13 and has the attention span of a fruit fly, and slightly less sense of commitment. Giving him a small part in the play is a marvelous act of damage control on the part of the director, because he wanted to be in the play and if we didn't let him, he'd be working against us. But because he's only got two lines, he shouldn't be able to ruin it too terribly. :-3 Though I'll have some trouble seeing him as the airport executive, I'd have more believing he was a married and steady-handed doctor. :-3
James (who also has a small part, though not as small as Seth's) volunteered to run the lights if I showed him what to do, and I've analyzed the script: there are only three different lighting scenarios needed, and it should be no problem to code them into the four-button controller behind the stage. So it'll be simply a matter of marking on his script what buttons to push when. :-3
So why did it work out in such a way that I had this particular part, with no way out of it without disappointing a lot of people (especially myself)? Why, of all the 18 characters in this play, am I playing the doctor who is struggling with missionary tendencies? Just reading the script reminded me of something I tend to forget: not all missionaries are bible-waving preachers to the masses who risk their lives in far-off countries on a daily basis.
A number of years ago, I met and became an email pen pal with someone who lived in South Africa. Over the years, we've talked about many things, including missionary work. I was talking about funding college, and he mentioned a mission school near where he lived that cost 6000 Rio a semester (something like $300 USD), but was worth the extra cost. Over the course to the time I knew him, he became a lecturer at the school and a layman pastoral counselor, which is pretty much a non-paid ("lay", versus "clergy") person who visits the sick, in-prisons, etc. in the local community, and helps out especially with conflict resolution. We talked a lot about his mission-field calling (which is what that is, even if you don't leave home), and I always felt a special affinity to him and his calling. Alas, emails to South Africa get lost as easily as letters; I've not heard from him in months, and my emails to him are being returned.
A very dear friend of mine and I talk about traveling all over the world after college. My dream has always been to travel the country (and perhaps further) and take pictures of everywhere I go. Maybe publish them. I've always been fascinated with new cultures and new ideas. When I went to Fairbanks, I kept asking around, looking for Eskimos. Everybody always answered me with laughter and/or weird looks. I eventually found out that a lot of people I had been asking actually were Eskimos! *blushes*
I've been taking mission-relates classes through a local bible college, and have loved every one of them. I recently told a friend of mine who is attending a bible college how jealous of her I am, and I really mean it.
So what does this all lead to? Something I've been struggling with inside me for some time: mission work. I feel like the pastor said he felt when he was a kid: the last place in the world he wanted to be is up in front of a hundred people for any length of time. But here he is, and he says he doesn't mind now, though he still gets stage fright sometimes.
I've been struggling with the mission field. Been wanting and longing after it with a whole lot of me, but fighting it like everything because I'm scared to death of it. But I don't think I can fight it much longer. It's where my heart is. Where? I don't know? How? I don't know. I only know that I'm definitely gonna hafta start taking some steps toward it. God will guide me them in the right direction. The direction He wants them to go.
Jarrardi, scared of commitment cougar, out.
It was a very spiritual and beautiful dream for me, the whole way through it I felt guided by God, and often felt His power flowing through me. I've had the "flash-of-back-story" thing happen to me several times in my life, or God putting me (sometimes with my foreknowledge of why, sometimes not) in a place where I'm needing, like in my desperate run across the desert to get to the mountain oasis before the girl did. Often when I'm in a state of prayer/close-ness with God, He'll give me a sudden knowledge of what to do, as in the case of healing the young girl of her blindness. I'm not sure what the dream means, but I think it had a lot of spiritual meaning, and I loved it, to be honest. I hope God wants me to be a spirit-led cougar running across the desert! :-3
Right there. That last line. I answered the question, and put to paper something a part of me has known all along, even though it scares me. Here, let's try this from another angle:
I volunteered to be in the church Christmas play, with the understanding that I was to be doing the lights (since I'm still pretty much the only one who knows how to run them). For some reason I will never understand, she gave me a part in the play anyways. A huge one. One of a doctor trying to go on vacation with his wife, but they stuck in airport layovers with a bunch of other people, including a pair of missionaries just returning from a four-year stint at a field hospital in Africa. The missionaries mention how much they need doctors at this and other hospitals all over Africa, and the play focuses on his (not-so-)internal struggles over this, because he was once offered a similar opportunity in Africa, which he turned down in favor of the more profitable job in the city, and he's been fighting about it with himself ever since. After years of trying to ignore the urge to go to Africa, the arrival of the missionaries finally lays his and his wife's real feelings open, and they decide to cut their vacation short and go to Africa, for the first time in many years feeling peace over their decision.
Of course, I protested such a big part in the play, but she told me the best she could do was swap it out for a little one, and that would mean Seth taking my place as the doctor. Now Seth is 13 and has the attention span of a fruit fly, and slightly less sense of commitment. Giving him a small part in the play is a marvelous act of damage control on the part of the director, because he wanted to be in the play and if we didn't let him, he'd be working against us. But because he's only got two lines, he shouldn't be able to ruin it too terribly. :-3 Though I'll have some trouble seeing him as the airport executive, I'd have more believing he was a married and steady-handed doctor. :-3
James (who also has a small part, though not as small as Seth's) volunteered to run the lights if I showed him what to do, and I've analyzed the script: there are only three different lighting scenarios needed, and it should be no problem to code them into the four-button controller behind the stage. So it'll be simply a matter of marking on his script what buttons to push when. :-3
So why did it work out in such a way that I had this particular part, with no way out of it without disappointing a lot of people (especially myself)? Why, of all the 18 characters in this play, am I playing the doctor who is struggling with missionary tendencies? Just reading the script reminded me of something I tend to forget: not all missionaries are bible-waving preachers to the masses who risk their lives in far-off countries on a daily basis.
A number of years ago, I met and became an email pen pal with someone who lived in South Africa. Over the years, we've talked about many things, including missionary work. I was talking about funding college, and he mentioned a mission school near where he lived that cost 6000 Rio a semester (something like $300 USD), but was worth the extra cost. Over the course to the time I knew him, he became a lecturer at the school and a layman pastoral counselor, which is pretty much a non-paid ("lay", versus "clergy") person who visits the sick, in-prisons, etc. in the local community, and helps out especially with conflict resolution. We talked a lot about his mission-field calling (which is what that is, even if you don't leave home), and I always felt a special affinity to him and his calling. Alas, emails to South Africa get lost as easily as letters; I've not heard from him in months, and my emails to him are being returned.
A very dear friend of mine and I talk about traveling all over the world after college. My dream has always been to travel the country (and perhaps further) and take pictures of everywhere I go. Maybe publish them. I've always been fascinated with new cultures and new ideas. When I went to Fairbanks, I kept asking around, looking for Eskimos. Everybody always answered me with laughter and/or weird looks. I eventually found out that a lot of people I had been asking actually were Eskimos! *blushes*
I've been taking mission-relates classes through a local bible college, and have loved every one of them. I recently told a friend of mine who is attending a bible college how jealous of her I am, and I really mean it.
So what does this all lead to? Something I've been struggling with inside me for some time: mission work. I feel like the pastor said he felt when he was a kid: the last place in the world he wanted to be is up in front of a hundred people for any length of time. But here he is, and he says he doesn't mind now, though he still gets stage fright sometimes.
I've been struggling with the mission field. Been wanting and longing after it with a whole lot of me, but fighting it like everything because I'm scared to death of it. But I don't think I can fight it much longer. It's where my heart is. Where? I don't know? How? I don't know. I only know that I'm definitely gonna hafta start taking some steps toward it. God will guide me them in the right direction. The direction He wants them to go.
Jarrardi, scared of commitment cougar, out.