Living the Dream?

I had a crazy dream last night...usually Im known for them. I have learned that the unexpected weird dream often has subliminal meaning....for example, that dream we have all experienced about our teeth falling out will often mean we are afraid of losing control of a situation...weird, I know. But for me, it rings unbelieveably true...

I am a control freak. I make lists upon lists, I do my budget 3 weeks out, I create plans for work, and if I don't have tabs on myself and those around me, I feel the slightest bit insane...The myriad of post it's covering my work monitor are only testimony to my need to balance everything. I remember after I first had our son, I wouldnt take any help offered, out of the need to do it myself. Asking for help would be a weakness, right? and that meant I was a bad mom? After a few days, I waved the white flag of surrender and gradually opened myself to accept the help of loved ones.

Last night's dream seemed to define for me how I feel life is going. There are days I don't feel like Im living, I feel like Im surviving...In this dream, all around me Im walking. The scenery constantly changes, but its mostly me, walking and carrying this ever increasing pile of stuff...in the dream Im almost toppling over at the balance of everything, struggling not to drop anything as though my life depended on it. Then, to my side in the dream, this person appears...I think he was a man, but not anyone I knew...not my husband or a family member or anything like that, and yet I had a familiarity to him. He kept offering me his help, begging to let me give him some of the weight I was struggling with. I remember he was someone whom I had a fondness towards, almost a love, but did not want to put all of my "baggage" on him...Didn't want him to feel my burdens, or know just how "heavy" things had become. Most of the dream after that point was me, tripping and falling and stumbling, but clinging to the weight of my "stuff", while this person never left my side, and never stopped offering his help and support.

It was only after I woke up that I realized what the significance of the dream was...The stuff in my hands was everything I try to balance by myself in life...schedules, finances, relationships, healthy, beauty, friendships old and new, housekeeping, work...work...more work..., worries, fears...I think my fears were the biggest boxes in my hands. I firmly believe the person by my side was representative of a Christ figure in my dream, always by my side, but I had to be willing to share my burden with him, so he could make it light. He would never force me to give it over, but wanted me to know He was there.

Carrying these burdens in life is something we all do. We struggle and stumble and, like me, fail to ask for help, for fear of being seen as a failure or as weak. We think we can manage and do it all on our own, and the truth is, we can't. But that is when He comes alongside of us, supporting us, and helping us carry the weight.

It is only when we rest our struggle in Him, that we stop stumbling and start walking again.