I had a WEIRD dream last night.
In my dream, I was back in scrubs like the old days when I worked as a nurse. I was in the back room of what I think was Doane’s pharmacy, although the room in my dream seems to be figment of my imagination.
Leah was on some kind of hospital bed with some kind of minor injury that she was needing help with. I was trying to get supplies to help with whatever she had going on, but first, I needed to look into this mirror to see what was happening with my eye.
Earlier in my dream, I had some eye irritation on my left side in the outer corner.
As I looked into the mirror I was shocked and horrified to see something growing out of the outer corner of my left eye. It was a clear and full of fluid (sorry, this is so gross), and it was in the shape of one of those long balloons that a clown would use to make balloon animals.
I immediately panicked and consulted my phone to see what it was I might be dealing with. I found that it was a cyst that would need to be drained.
I had a scalpel of some kind and aggressively began trying to drain it, but when I did, that sucker grew at rapid speed. As I was trying to lance this behemoth and get it off my face, it really picked up the pace with its growth rate and I remember feeling panicked.
What IS this??
As it grew, I doubled down on my efforts to take the sharp blade to it, and get this thing off of my face.
Photo by Wendy Scofield on Unsplash
Fast forward to later on, when I was meeting up with a dear friend, telling her about this horrific experience I had, and my eye was no longer afflicted by what looked like the body of a little ballon-weiner-dog. It was gone, but the memory of that growth that seemed to have a life of its own, remained.
My apologies if you’re reading this in the morning while you’re trying to enjoy a cup of coffee and now find yourself dry-heaving with this disgusting story.
When I was up with Kevin and he was getting ready for work this morning, I told him about this dream, and as I was talking and the wheels were turning in my head, he said what I had already been thinking:
“Sounds like a plank-speck in the eye story”
Yes.
In Matthew 7:5, Jesus says: “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye”
I don’t know if you are like me, and don’t absolutely love when you feel a little called out by the King of the Universe himself, but even though I’m reading this as a correction, I’m thankful for it.
Lately I’ve been feeling so beleaguered by the weight of so many difficult things happening in my own little world, and the world at large. I’ve noticed that I often tend to rush to judgment in order to make sense of what is happening, because somehow that makes me feel more safe; less crazy; and less at fault for any of the darkness I may be contributing to this whole heavy, downtrodden world.
I think it’s interesting that in my dream, while Leah was sitting there waiting for me to help her, I literally could not, until I dealt with this ambitious balloon animal like creature that was growing out of my eye. The mother in me wants to think that the most noble thing to do would be to put aside my own needs and pain entirely and rush to fix my daughter. But the lesson here is that I really could not, when my own vision was becoming so obscured by this metastatic blinder.
It’s like that oxygen mask principle that we’ve all become so familiar with through riding on an airplane; You have to put your own on before you can help your neighbor. And in this case, it was less about donning something new, and rather cutting off something that would prevent me from being able to offer care.
Another thing that’s interesting is that, for the past several days I’ve been in a lot of physical pain. I’ve had another burst of migraines, accompanied by neck and shoulder pain that has been unrelenting. Yesterday I was praying, asking God to show me if this pain was a message; is it someone who is experiencing similar pain that I should be praying for? Am I clinging to something and refusing to let go, and the pain from that is being stored in my body? I think both of these could be true, but surprisingly, this morning I woke up totally pain free.
The pain I was experiencing in my body was on my left side; the eye situation in my dream was on the left side. Now, maybe I’m aggressively over-connecting the dots here, but as someone who believes that we are creatures that are fully integrated in our soul, spirit and body, I’ve been learning to listen to my body more as part of who I *really* am. I’ve often been of the mindset that overspiritualizes things and discounts my body as something that is just a throwaway receptacle for the REALLY important part of me; the part that will live on eternally. But just like Jesus had a body when He walked on earth, and then he had that same body resurrected after his death, I believe all of our bodies will experience the same fate. Like them or not, we will inhabit them forever.
So, in the meantime, I’m learning to listen and pay attention to these cues that offer an insight into what’s going on in my mind, thoughts, and emotions. What many would call the “inner world”.
My “inner world” has been a Judgey McJudgerson lately, and I’m thankful that God gave me this dream to show me the severity of living that way, and the aggressive measures that must be taken to rid myself of the log in my own eye in order to love my neighbors in the way I hope to be able to.
One more thing…when I started trying to cut this thing off, it fought back and grew like crazy. I think our sin can be the same way. Once we are aware and make that first baby step of repentance and distancing ourselves from the thing that is harming us and our ability to love others, the source of our sin (our temptation) usually doubles down and can leave us feeling like it just can’t be beat.
Keep that knife in your hand and don’t stop cutting until it’s all the way gone. You can get rid of it, but it won’t be pretty. You might feel like you are powerless to stop it, but with the right tool, (in my case, the scalpel of humility and self-reflection) you can cut it down. It might try to grow back again, but this won’t be your first rodeo.