At the end of each year, I review my journal notes from the previous 12 months. In the first post dated January 1, 2023, I wrote about an unusual dream where I was walking and found myself in a deep canyon. It was wide, but the walls were very steep. The walls and the ground were solid, a smooth, reddish, rust-colored slate. As I walked part way up the middle where the land was sloped, I met a woman. She seemed glad to see me and said “What are you doing here?” I said that I was going for a walk. Looking up to where the walls touched the blue sky, I asked, “Is it far to the other side?” She said, “Yes.” I couldn’t believe I had walked so far, but it looked like I had a long ways to go. I woke up.
Then in December 2023, I began reading Zane Grey’s The Desert Crucible in which the author describes the painted desert from innumerable vantage points. The main character was on a quest to save a young girl and an older couple locked in a canyon by an avalanche. I had totally forgotten about this dream.
“We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9, NKJV)
Have you ever been hit by an avalanche? An avalanche of medical bills due to a car accident or an unexpected illness or your refrigerator breaking down two days after the warranties expires? An avalanche of people needing your help beyond your strength and stamina to provide or an avalanche of relationship breakups, work or personal or both? An avalanche of rules and expectations that keep you hemmed in?
What my dream seems to be telling me is that there is a way up and out of the canyon of adversity. The “walls” may be steep and the journey long, but there is a way out. Maybe the woman in the dream was an angel, not a “fairy tale” angel, but one who spoke the truth when I needed it. She didn’t sugar coat the answer to my question.
Overall, I’d say the canyon dream was a good picture of my life in 2023, especially considering the legal issues we are facing. Often the challenges have seemed insurmountable, but there has always been someone on my path and we cheered each other on.
“So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without His unfolding grace.” (2 Corinthians 4:16, The Message)
As we step over the threshold into 2024, may God’s angels surround us!
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