I had a dream last night in which I walked in the dark wilderness alone. The air was cool, the ground scattered with rocks, and the fat conifers around me gave the air a rich, woodsy aroma. After a time I came to a round clearing, in the center of which was a large, roaring campfire. Beside the campfire sat an old Indian woman, aged and weathered a thousand millennia, with wisdom of her years that was almost tangible in the air around her. She looked up from the campfire, her eyes met mine, and she smiled warmly as if she had known me all my life.
She told me to sit next to her. As I sat, her smile faded and she gazed sadly upon me. She said to me sternly, "The weight of the loved ones you've lost lays heavy on your heart. You try to carry their responsibilities - and the responsibilities of others - in addition to your own and it is weighing you down heavily. Free yourself, child. Let them go. No one can bear this burden. Take care of yourself and be free." In the dream I felt a tear escape the corner of my eye and I simply said, "I can't. I must do what I know is right." The old Indian woman looked at me skeptically and said, "You don't have the strength to carry such a burden." I thought for a moment and said, "No, alone I do not, but with the hands of the Great Spirit under theirs, even a small child can support the weight of the world."
She looked at me and smiled the warm smile again that had greeted me before, a smile that by itself made every worry and concern that I had melt away, and the dream was gone.
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Lessons learned from this dream:
#1: Doing the right thing is never easy (that's why it's called sacrifice), but is almost always more rewarding. In the dream I could have chosen to free myself, get up and walk away from all the other responsibilities, but I would have missed that warm smile at the end of the dream. That would have been a shame, for that warm smile was truly rewarding.
#2:
Trials and tribulations require us to lean on God and others, and in
leaning on God and others we have the opportunity to see and feel their
love for us and thus we realize that we are not alone in our struggles
through life - which, if you look at it in this perspective, makes even
bad things/times an opportunity to draw closer to those you love and who
love you.
#4: Bearing these burdens requires faith, and while I may not always feel like my faith is strong enough, somewhere deep in the depths of my heart, I know it is.
