(A blog I was writing just before I found out that Alex Dlouhy was killed in a car accident on Saturday morning. It was unfinished on my computer screen when I opened it this morning...)
Isaiah 54:17 - "No weapon that is formed against you will prosper."
Have you ever woken up and felt like you were fighting all night inside your dreams?
That was my morning. Every dream I had was one of suspense. I was running from someone who wanted to kill me. I was banding together with other people to stop a group of people planting bombs in a mall-like structure only to fail and watch bombs detonating all around me and people dying left and right. I woke in the midst of that tragedy half feeling as if it actually happened, half relieved that it was just a dream as I came to my senses. I splash water on my face and brush my teeth and take a shower, but for some reason the residue of restlessness remains. I can't shake the feeling that I'm under attack, besieged by an enemy that is booth illusive and illusional...or is it an illusion. This is what I wonder about.
It's easy to run to a cup a coffee and busy yourself in an effort to forget the "flight or fight" emotions you were feeling as you woke up in a sweat. You tell yourself that it wasn't real, that it was only a dream born out of random ruminations and bizarre brain waves. But those attempts to rationalize it away aren't as convincing on certain days. It almost feels like more is happening than just unrelated subconscious nonsense...like it actually is attack and it's meant to stall me or stop me. Meant to confuse me and unnerve me. Meant to make me look around me differently than I did yesterday, filled with a suspense and suspicion...nursing conspiracy theories about myself and others. It feels like I'm at war.
This verse from Isaiah came to mind...
(This is where I stopped writing on Saturday morning when I found out (via text from his mother, Patti) that Alex Dlouhy, a senior in high school who attends our church with his family, was killed in a head on collision. Coincidence or Providence? I'm going with the latter.)
"God, place your hands on the Dlouhy family and put your heart in the Dlouhy household. Be who no one else can be and do what no one else can do in this valley of the shadow of death."
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