"I Like You For Being My Daddy"

I had another dream last night.

This one was more vivid and detailed than any I've had in a long time. I woke up in tears of joy and came running out of the bedroom to tell Erica. She couldn't believe it either but knew how much it had meant to me as I sat in the chair telling her while the tears were falling from my eyes.

Here goes...

I dreamed we were at my house and in our living room was Erica, myself, dad, mom, George (my brother), Cayla (my sister) and Emily. This is kind of weird if you know my family because my parents are divorced, but dreams have no rules I'm told so back to the dream...

I was sitting in the rocking chair and dad, mom and Erica were on the couch. Emily was being held by Erica and was perfectly content.

We were just sitting around laughing and joking (typical us) when I asked, "What are we going to eat?" (Again, typical us)

We couldn't think of something right away and got lost in conversation and jokes once again when out of the blue I blurted out, "How about chicken nuggets?" Dad chimed in and said, "yeah, KFC does sound good, let's do chicken from KFC."

With that he took a box of, I think it was Spree candy, and poured a handful of purple and green candies (yeah, my dream was THAT detailed!) in his hand. If you know my dad you know that he likes to show off in a playful way sometimes. When he eats ice or candy he can crunch it so hard and loud sometimes that it can be annoying if you allow it to be, but we mostly just laugh when he does it. Well when he put the candy in his mouth in my dream he started crunching it very loudly trying to playfully show off.

Mom turned around and looked at him and said, "you're going to break another tooth and have to go back to the dentist if you don't quit that!'

Now here's where the dream takes an awesome turn...

Emily, like I said, was sitting content in Erica's lap. In my dream she was still the same age and size as she is now. But in my dream she had the ability to talk "baby talk". You know, gibberish or whatever it is that babies do at that age when trying to learn to talk.

Emily in my dream, after mom said that to dad, turned around and looked at my dad and unloaded a long line of "gibberish" at him for being so careless with his teeth! It was a long line too. It was something that really sounded as though she was scolding him and letting him have it!

We were all amazed that she'd done this! So I jumped up out of the rocking chair and came over in front of her and sat on the floor and reached out my hands to her hoping she would know that I wanted to hold her.

Pause

(This would be the moment for a Kleenex if you are like me and get emotional. Sorry, but at least you've been warned!) Now back to the dream...

I reached out my hands hoping Emily would take the hint and let me hold her and love on her for her amazing new accomplishment. When all of a sudden...

She looked at me and she clearly said to me...

"I LIKE YOU FOR BEING MY DADDY"!!!

What?!?!

My heart was overjoyed! I couldn't believe she said that! I looked around to see if the others had heard what she just said and they indicated that they too had heard it! I instantly started crying.

I woke up from my dream and real tears were streaming down my face. I was crying in my dream AND I was really crying in reality as well. I just laid there in bed for a minute or two thinking about it over and over again wanting so badly for it to have been real. Oh how I would have given anything for that moment to have been reality, but I THANK GOD that he allowed me to have this dream where my daughter looked at me and said those words that now mean so much to me, "I LIKE YOU FOR BEING MY DADDY."

I stumbled out of bed and walked out into the living room where Erica was holding Emily and I told her all about the dream. She couldn't believe it either. And I noticed she was holding back tears of joy as well. She also said she couldn't believe how detailed and vivid this dream was.

I still can't believe it. I still can't believe that for a small minute I got to hear my daughter tell me that she "LIKED" me.

I don't know what it is about this gift I have with dreams. I don't know what it is that makes them so vivid and detail oriented that it really seems like reality. Sometimes when I dream I think of it as a curse when it's a bad dream. It's dreams like this one though that I know it is a gift. And right now I'm thanking God for one of the best gifts I've been given in a long time. I'm thanking God that he allows my daughter to talk to me in my dreams!

Be Blessed!
Joe

A Loaf Of Bread

I'm the type of person that has all sorts of dreams.

Some of them have been very crazy and irrelevant and some of them have been very spiritual. My dreams almost always tend to be on the spiritual side.

My mom named me Joseph. Yeah THAT Joseph, the one in the Bible who could interpret dreams. Ironic huh? (At least I didn't have a bunch of brothers that could try and throw me in a pit and sell me off.)

Anyway, as I stated, I have lots of spiritual dreams and if you are close to me I might have shared some of them with you already. I had one last night. A very vivid and detailed dream.

Here goes...

I dreamed I was preaching again back at a church I used to go to in eastern Kentucky. The small church wasn't packed with people, I'd say it was about half full.

I was about to start preaching when all of a sudden I noticed a loaf of bread that was sitting on the table just below the pulpit. I stepped down and onto the floor where the front seats were and noticed my dad was in one of the seats. I sat down next to him and as soon as I did he started reaching out to try and touch the loaf of bread. He tried and tried and just couldn't seem to reach it enough to touch it.

I then tried to help him reach it I guess by trying to reach it myself but I just couldn't seem to help him get it. He was sad and I was sad but then I stood back up and started preaching the most passionate sermon I could have ever preached! I was soo into it too. I was sweating and emphasizing certain points and really putting all of my heart into it. For some reason I was on fire for God and I was determined to preach a message that would stick with the people. But for some reason they all looked confused. They looked at me like I was speaking a totally different language! And that just set me on fire that much more! I was more determined to try and reach those people than ever before.

I suddenly woke up. And when I did the dream seemed so real I thought I was sweating and eventually realized I wasn't. Once I figured out where I was and that it was just a dream I had this thought; Why in the world was there a loaf of bread in the middle of church? And secondly, why was my dad trying to touch it?

I finally fell back asleep until it was time for me to get up and get ready for work.

On my way in to work this morning I kept thinking about that dream and why in the world there was a loaf of bread in the middle of church? I was almost at my desk when all of a sudden it struck me...

Jesus said, "I am the bread of life"!!!

And just as soon as that thought occurred to me my stomach fell and I had cold chills all over my body. My dad was trying to touch Jesus!! But more importantly my dad was trying to touch Jesus and I couldn't help him. For some reason I just couldn't help him reach the loaf of bread. I tried my hardest, I really tried hard to help him touch it but it just wouldn't work.

And when I seen that he was trying to touch the loaf of bread (Jesus) then that gave me a passion to preach the word of God that I'd never had before! I put my heart and soul into trying to preach to those lost people but they still didn't get it. They still looked at me like I wasn't speaking their language.

Although I figured out that the loaf of bread symbolized Jesus I still can't figure out exactly what it means. I haven't been able to shake it all morning. But I do know this, usually when I have those dreams I don't know what they mean right away. I will sometimes be driving down the road a few days later and then all of a sudden the answer hits me and the meaning is clear. For now I have to hold on to the fact that it will come to me later.

So see what I mean? I almost always have spiritual dreams like this. And now that I am making my blog more personal I look forward to sharing more and more of these dreams with you. Maybe you can tell me what you think about it. I would like that.

Just don't go knitting me a coat of many colors. }:~)

Be Blessed!
Joe