I had a dream about Grant the other night. Everything was normal, the old normal. We were talking on the phone, him telling me a story about something that had happened at work. We were laughing. Then, as it happens in dreams, the next moment we were together sharing breakfast at the little Farmer’s Market a few blocks from his old apartment. We sat there catching up on life, people watching, and talking about what we wanted to do that day. And then it happened. I woke up. As I laid there in that twilight stage between asleep and reality, I had to wrap my brain around the fact that it was just a dream and I was waking up into the nightmare. It’s awful and gut wrenching as my mind absorbs again the reality.
Mornings, after dreams of Grant, make me so incredibly grateful that there is a day coming that I will close my eyes and wake up into the dream. Everything horrible I’ve experienced here, will be nothing more than a nightmare, a bad dream. And the nightmare will only serve to increase my joy, as I wake to the dream of eternity.
Christ bought us the possibility of an afterlife without pain and suffering, no more nightmares. Revelation 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore…
But we tend to judge God by the time we spend here on Earth. We judge critically if all of our dreams fail to come true. But who would complain to God if He allowed one nightmare in a lifetime of dreams? And yet we bitterly complain about the nightmare when in reality it’s one nightmare in an eternity of dreams.
Lord, when I awake from a dream into the nightmare, remind me that there is a day coming that all of this will be reversed. I will one day close my eyes and wake to the dream, eternity’s dream. And when I look back to the nightmare from eternity’s perspective, I will not be impressed by its length, horror, or fear. In eternity, it will be nothing more than a bad dream in the distant past I can hardly even recall.
grieving with hope 
Oh, dear friend-I-don’t-know: I ran into your blog quite randomly and just now cried my way through nearly every entry. You are writing my heart out in so many ways. I’m so sorry for the loss of your precious son. My grieving is for my dear husband who was diagnosed with ALS two years ago (we are still walking through the shadowy valley) but it is also with hope as God sustains us through the darkest days. Reading your posts from the beginning is like watching a painter add colors and lines to a portrait and slowly, surely, it begins to take shape…I don’t know how it will look in the end, I only know it will be beautiful. Thank you for your willingness to let others into the suffering space. It makes me feel not alone in mine and I’m grateful.
Oh, Precious Bo, your message made me cry and I wish I could give you a hug. I wish we could have coffee and encourage one another, cry together, pray together, fight for joy and faith together. You are not alone. There are many of us that God has asked to walk this road called suffering. But we do not have to walk alone. We have the Lord, who knows our suffering intimately, and we have each other. I am humbled that you are willing to walk this road with me, and so grateful. More than words can express. Thank you again for your beautiful and encouraging words. And know, that I am praying for you and will continue to pray for you daily. Hugs