Faith & Living

Am I Dreaming?

admin — Wed, 01 May 1985 13:22:00 -0500

With our four little children and two visiting nieces to tuck in, bedtime that night took a long time. Over each drowsy child I said a prayer, asking God to watch over them.

Later, when my husband and I went to bed, I lay on the edge of sleep, lulled by the innocent noises drifting down the hallway: deep-sleep sighs, the mumbled words of dreamy conversations.

5 Things I Learned From My Family

admin — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 11:38:00 -0500

Home is where the heart is, and I've been fortunate to be surrounded by big hearts all my life. From my grandmother to my siblings, they've taught me a lot about who I am and what it takes to succeed.

1. Position yourself for success.
Be ready when opportunity calls. As a boy, my dad dreamed of flying planes. People said he was crazy (in the 1930s, blacks weren't pilots). Dad didn't listen. He joined the military and guess what? He became one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the first black pilots in the U.S. military.

A Mother's Hope

admin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:53:02 -0500

Something was wrong with my son David. He was a big kid, eight years old, 150 pounds, but he had lost his appetite. He'd stopped telling jokes, too, stopped being his usual happy-go-lucky self. His jaw hurt for no discernible reason. He began throwing up.

"She's the One"

admin — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 07:39:00 -0600

Mom was a fixer. Whether it was as simple as sewing a button back on a pair of faded overalls for one of her eight children, or repairing a broken tractor on the farm she ran single-handedly while holding down a full-time job, there was nothing she couldn't fix. And that included people, too. I'd often come home from school in the afternoons to find her sitting with a stranger at the kitchen table, sipping the cup of coffee that was forever in her hand.

Dreams from the Front

jbloustein — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:12:27 -0500

Books, knickknacks and memorabilia crowded Grandpa’s cellar. Old newspapers and magazines stacked waist high.

My father and I worked in the thick of it. We’d come from Grandpa’s funeral that morning, as good a time as any, we thought, to sort through his things.

I’d hoped the job would make me feel close to him. But instead Grandpa had never felt so far away.

Dad sifted through a pile of papers. I couldn’t focus. “Is everything all right, David?” Dad asked.

Message in a Dream

admin — Thu, 01 Jun 1989 07:41:00 -0500

I've always been impressed by the way men and women in the Bible were guided by dreams—from the angels climbing Jacob's ladder to the dream warning Joseph to flee with his family to Egypt. I've always known such things were possible, but it was only in 1978 that I received such a dream myself.

A dear friend had a terminal illness and yearned to see her son again. The young man led a nomadic life. He didn't keep in touch very closely and, when he telephoned, he rarely told her where he was.

Mystery Dream

admin — Wed, 01 Oct 1986 12:01:00 -0500

In that mysterious Chapter 2 of the Book of Daniel, God saves Daniel's life by revealing to him the content of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream. I'd long been awed by this story, for it spoke of a dimension of the Spirit that was strange to me.

Then one stormy night my wife, Elizabeth, and I sat in front of a fire with our friends Len LeSourd and his wife, Catherine Marshall. After an hour of prayer, we took a break. Catherine made cocoa and our talk turned to the subject of dreams.

The 3 Gifts of the Dream

admin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:44:00 -0600

When I first met dream therapist Marc Bregman, my intellectual concerns were with religion and spirituality. But my dreams showed me wandering, lost in strange cities. What did such dreams have to do with God or soul?

On the face of it, nothing. But I've found that dreams open you to inner depth. They show you how to shift from being driven by emotions and external events to being centered on your soul or psyche.

This is the great promise of the descent into dreams:

1. To learn how to go deep within yourself, relying on what happens at night

All Mine

admin — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:18:45 -0500

"Marion, why don't you get another cat?" a friend suggested one day last spring. "You loved Minnie."

"That's exactly why I don't want another one now," I said. "That cat broke my heart. I'm not ready to go through something like that again."

Doctor in Waiting

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:57:13 -0500

The empty armchair in a public library in Raleigh, North Carolina, beckoned invitingly. I'll just rest here for a few minutes, I thought. But the warmth of the building made me drowsy, and I fell into a fitful sleep.