Sarah stirred awake as the first pale light filtered through her bedroom curtains. The dream clung to her consciousness with unusual clarity—she was seven years old again, sitting cross-legged on the familiar carpet of Mrs Henderson's second-grade classroom. The smell of chalk dust and apple juice boxes filled the air, but this wasn't a memory of childhood innocence.
The teachers had formed a semicircle around her small desk, their faces grave with adult concern. Mrs Henderson's voice was gentle but firm as she explained what had really happened that day twenty-three years ago—the day Sarah had been suspended for something she hadn't done. In the dream, the truth unfolded like a flower blooming in reverse: her mother hadn't defended her. Instead, she had fabricated stories and painted her own daughter as a problem child to deflect attention from difficulties at home.
Sarah expected to wake with the familiar burn of childhood betrayal, but instead, she felt... relieved. Finally, she knew. The confusion that had shadowed that memory for decades dissolved into clarity.
Without fully understanding why, she reached for her bedside Bible and let it fall open. 2 Chronicles 30:24 seemed to glow on the page: "Hezekiah, king of Judah, provided a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep and goats for the assembly, and the officials provided them with a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep and goats."
She read the passage several times, struck by the image of leaders providing for their people, offering protection through their devotion. There was something about leadership, about the weight of choices, about faithfulness in the face of responsibility.
Her phone buzzed with a news alert at 10:47 AM. Eight government officials died in a helicopter crash. As she scrolled through the initial reports, one detail made her breath catch: the president had been scheduled to board that flight but had chosen instead to attend a church service commemorating fallen soldiers.
Sarah set down her phone and stared out her window at the ordinary Tuesday morning street. A mail carrier walked his route. A neighbour watered her garden. Children waited for the school bus. Everything looked exactly the same as it had an hour ago, yet something fundamental had shifted.
In her dream, she had learnt that truth could emerge decades later, that what seemed like abandonment might actually be revelation. In the scripture, she had read about leaders who provided and protected through their spiritual dedication. In the news, she witnessed a leader whose choice of spiritual observance over convenience had meant the difference between life and death.
Three threads of one tapestry, she realised. All about truth emerging from hiddenness, all about the weight of choices made by those in authority, all about protection found in unexpected places.
She made herself a cup of tea and sat by the window, watching the ordinary world continue its ordinary business while extraordinary patterns wove themselves through the fabric of the day. For the first time in years, Sarah felt herself to be exactly where she was supposed to be, reading exactly what she was supposed to read, understanding exactly what she was supposed to understand.
The morning had become a letter addressed specifically to her, written in the language of dreams and scripture and headlines, telling her something important about the nature of truth, the mystery of timing, and the strange mercy that sometimes operates in a world that usually appears random.
She opened her journal and began to write, knowing that some mornings arrive not as mere collections of hours, but as revelations disguised as coincidence.
Comments
Post a Comment