The stranger

"What is your name?", the stranger at church asked me. This middle-aged man who had come before me and layed his hand on me just minutes before to pray for me. I had been called to the front, moved by God, hearing His voice as the worship leader had called for all the dreamers to come forward. An invitation to those who still dared to dream despite those dreams not coming true....yet. An invitation for those who were still looking for God to fulfill the dreams of their life.
An invitation that I could not turn down.

As the dreamers all stood at the front of the church, waiting with heads bowed, waiting for prayers from ministers and elders and whomever felt like praying for us, I was already blown away by the invitation to begin with. For my dreams were becoming my enemy. They haunt me at night and wake me up too early in the morning. They are strange and non-specific. They are about people I know but in bizarre places and circumstances. They represent struggling and stress and distrust of my body. The dreams of my sleep project the uncertainty of my life. Under treatment again, I feel that I have fallen off the path and dream that I am lost in a maze of confusion and worry. My sleeping dreams are no where near what my real dreams are. My dreams of freedom and healing and rest and lack of worry; the wind and the water, seas and sunsets, weddings and babies, retirement and everyone released from the tension and drama of this cancer-ridden life.......those dreams are my waking dreams, my praying dreams.....the subject of my focus for the fight. My waking dreams are my hope and I am waiting, always waiting for them to come true.

So to be called to the front of the church as a dreamer was such a God moment already. Then the stranger moved up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and prayed for me. I can't remember what his exact words were the first time he was with me, but they were comforting. He walked away from me for a good five minutes before he returned and asked me my name.

"Kathy." I said. And then, through this man I still do not know, God spoke loud and clear.
I cannot quote the man directly because after his first sentence was out of his mouth, I was a blubbering wreck. Weeping and trying to listen to his words because I knew without a doubt that God was speaking through this stranger. He told me that God wanted me to know that I had a special place in His heart. That God knew I was broken-hearted right now and that He,
God was broken-hearted with me. And that God also wanted me to know that it was all going to be okay. That He was with me, always, and He loved me beyond measure. Suddenly, there was no one in that church but me, the stranger and the Lord. I heard God this time, break His silence of the past month or so, acknowledging my disappointment and weariness, and reaching out to me through a comforting hand of a nameless man on a Sunday morning.

Suddenly I could let go of the questioning. I could let go of trying to figure out where I was going with the direction of my fight. Suddenly I was back on the path and the path was still rocky, but it was straight. Suddenly, the dreams during the night meant nothing....the struggling in my head was ending. The dreams of my days are the dreams of my reality. The dreams during the waking hours are the dreams that will come true. They will happen. I have to believe and be patient. And just when the sleeping dreams threatened to cover my real dreams with a blanket of doubt, disease, and darkness, God spoke to me through a stranger to let me know that nothing is lost...no dream, no hope, no future....nothing is lost. It is all right before me, ever-growing on my horizon like a beautiful sunrise.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1