I am Alive

Wow, sorry but this has been an emotional and hard day for me today, so as I write this post I do apologise for my state of mind, as it is okay not being okay, if that means anything to you. Well lets start from the beginning shall we...

I had some dreams early morning and it have been these dreams that go progressively stranger as dreams go which has rocked my emotional world today. I am still shaking as I write this.

In the first dream, I found myself with some people by the sacred waters of the Venda people which is called Lake of Fundudzi. I have been there once before in 1987 many moons ago. I don't remember much of the lake but in my dream I was there again. It was dry, hardly any water. The people with me and myself started walking across the dry lake bed. I remember stopping and taking a photo with my cellphone to share later on the internet. As we got towards the other side, the people started wading through water. I didn't want to get wet so I decided to turn around and go back. On my way back, water started flowing back into the lake, so I hesitated. Should I run or wait till the rushing water calmed down? I decided to start moving through the rush of water for safety but as I was wading through the rushing water, I was eventually swept off my feet and found myself swimming for the bank. Thankfully I made it safely but was concerned about my wet phone.

Then came the next dream which somehow faded in. I think I was in Durban, a city from my past. We were finishing up some sort of show or something and I was in this small truck directing the route back home because I knew the city. In front was a much bigger horse and trailer truck. We came to these tunnels, now there are no tunnels for vehicles in Durban but in this dream there was 3 in each direction next to each other. The big truck in front of us got stuck and could not get through so had to turn around. I knew the way, either we go through one of these tunnels or drive across via another route which will take a bit longer. I was sure that our smaller truck would fit through but sadly we could not. A part of the entrance to the tunnel got damaged so while the person that was with me was negotiating with the tunnel authorities, I stood and watched from the side and this is when it all went down...

I felt a hand come round me on my right side. My wallet was in that pocket, thinking someone was trying to pickpocket me, I grabbed the hand and spun around. And I saw her, a woman with this big glowing smile on her familiar face, as she said in the voice that I instantly recognised, "I'm only messing with you". It was my late wife Carol. She looked different, the same yet different. Still not 100% sure I queried, "Carol?" And she replied, "Yes!" Stunned, I answered, "you are dead?" She answered me, "I am alive!" "But you are dead", I said for the second time and she replied the same "I am alive" and added "I told you that it would be alright." I then whipped out my cellphone and asked if I can take a photo. Trust me, this is what I do even in my dreams. Carol replied, "for your blog?", and I answered, "no for Matthew". While taking photos on my cellphone, I again noticed her broad smiling face. She looked so happy. Her hair was brown with silver necklaces around her neck, she never wore jewellery but Carol had a few around her neck. She wore this beautiful dress but it was her smile that caught my eye, her teeth was all fixed and she had this full smiling face. She looked so happy and beautiful.

I awoke suddenly, and just sat bewildered in bed, with emotions raging. What did just happen? The morning light was streaming through the blinds. I got up and walked through to the kitchen to make some coffee. While making the coffee I was thinking about these dreams. It was about 3 weeks ago that I sat in the car with Matthew, speaking to him about his mother, Carol, because Mother's Day was coming up and it would be his first Mother's Day without his mom. I remembered taking Matthew to the hospital on the last Mother's Day to visit his mom and then it dawned on me that it was nearly a year since she passed away. Not quite sure, I found myself sitting back in bed with my coffee, going through my blog to find out exactly when Carol past away and was blown away. It was today, this morning, 1 year ago to the date that Carol crossed over. And now this morning Carol decided to visit me in a dream to show me that she is home and is happy. 

I just sat in bed, emotionally blown away. Surely this was no residual memory. This was not a dream. Believe me I had to check my phone for the photos.

Stormy Dream

A storm is about to break as I write this post. It is not about the storm I want to write about but about a dream. It says in Acts that in the last days, God will pour out his Spirit upon all people, by all that includes me; it goes on to say that the sons and daughters will prophesy. The young men will see visions, and the old men will dream dreams. And by old men that means me. So I had a dream last night, a weird one as dreams go, weird enough for me to write it down. Now before I go any further let me state that I always have dreams but they usually something that is subconsciously on my mind but this one, well it is different. It started off about me being in a residence, which I suppose is in my sub conscience as Matthew is currently staying at the the university's residence so that explains that part but then it got weird, really weird.

Well here goes, and I believe someone out there will be able to interpret this dream...

Well it started with me in this large thin room in a residence. The room had 2 beds, my roommate had an out going personality. After he left, I got into sweeping and exploring the room at the same time. Then the dream changed, I was at this Buddhist ceremony, and a monk called for someone from the community to come forward and represent them in the ceremony. The strange thing, I stood up and went forward. Yes this is when it got weird as I am not a Buddhist and was not from this community, an outsider, and a foreigner in other words. The people were shocked but did not stop me.

I walked up to the main monk, who then took a small piece of hot coal out of a fire with tongs and placed it in my left hand. It was very hot and closed my hand around it; the hot coal was burning slightly, so I shook it in my hand so that it wouldn't stay in one place too long. I then went back down to the people waiting and now I had to choose something to represent the people. I saw a half dead leaf, a longish sort of leaf but it had a brown dead scar in the green of the leaf, big enough to represent about a third of the leaf. In my dream the leaf represented the food crop of the people and I chose the scarred leaf and now had to take the leaf back with my hot coal up to the monks.

As I got back to the top were the monks where supposed to be, I found a large square pool between me and the all the monks who were waiting on the other side. Children were swimming in the pool. I was supposed to go round this pool but I decided to swim through it. As I stepped towards the water's edge all the people urged me not to in but around as the hot coal will get wet and go out but I told them that I can swim with my left hand above water.

I entered the water, and started swimming a one arm breast stroke. I got to the other side and found that the leaf was now tired around my wrist and it wasn't green with this large brown scar any more but transparent, clear without blemish. I walked up to the main monk and gave him the still soldering piece of coal. Everyone was all happy and a joyful celebration started.

Well that is when then I woke up. Yes it was a strange dream, being a Christian I am not sure what to make of it. The dream has been at the end of a strange and horrid week when nearly every day something worse has been added to my life. It is as if my burdens have just increase while I am in freefall mode, last month’s extremely high water bill, my car catching on fire, and then finding out someone has fraudulently opened an account at MTN in my name and a debt order is coming off my account for nearly R900 a month.

So as the ominous clouds gather, I look up to the gathering storm. I look up, so that the tears won’t fall. Oh give me strength to be able to even whisper that it is well with my soul. But right now, oh right now I just can’t.