Monday 1 July 2013

Dreams

I have always dreamed a lot. My husband said I lived a double life, but usually my dreams fade away as morning mist and I struggle in vain to hold on to them.

But occasionally I have a dream which seems to have some significance. Many years ago, I had been having night mares. I asked God to give me a happy dream. That night I dreamed I was dancing before the Lord. I awoke full of joy, and I believed from then on that one day I would do it in reality. Wonderfully this came true when I was in Ghana, but that is another story. 

This week I had a dream which did not fade away and somehow seemed to be very real. It concerned one of our precious ‘Bubbles’ as we call our toddlers group. Each of our children is loved and special, but this little lad won my heart when his mother suggested he gave Auntie Pauline a kiss. Willingly he trotted over, solemnly took my hand and kissed it.

In my dream he was appealing to me, his little eyes full of tears. ‘They say I am too little, but I really do love her. I am not too little.’

I assured him that he was not too little. I suggested he drew a picture to express his love and give it to the fortunate person. But I couldn’t get it out of my mind, the grief of this child at being told that he was too little.

Can you imagine my great joy when his mother told me that this little one had come to her with his great desire, not for some unknown person, but for the one worthy of all our love and devotion. Thank God, this wise mother knew he was not too little, and with great joy she helped him to express his love, and to welcome our Lord Jesus into his heart and life.

I had thought my dream might have been inspiration to write a romantic story, but it was to point me to the greatest love story of all time. What a privilege we have to teach the children that they are never too young. If they are not too young to sin, then they are not too young to need a Saviour. They can give as much as they understand of themselves to as much as they understand of the Lord.

A few weeks ago I was invited attend a service where a very special young man was to be ordained as an elder. Related to my husband, he was in his mother’s arms when we first moved to Porthcawl. A few years later he had gone out, with his older sister, to receive Jesus as his Saviour. We had no doubts about his older sister, but had he really understood? His consistent walk with his Saviour through these long years has proved that he had. What a very special invitation this was for me, to see his faithful life of Christian service acknowledged.    

It was because they had heard the children praising that the lame and the blind had come to Jesus in the temple and had been healed, and Jesus had had to remind the disapproving priests that ‘From the lips of children and infants God has ordained praise.’

No, they are not too little, and we older ones need to remember that unless we humble ourselves and have the faith of a little child that we will have no place in God’s kingdom.