What a Nightmare

Remembering my dreams on a regular basis is a pretty new occurrence for me. When I was a teenager, I could go months without recalling even a moment of these nightly subconscious visions. Lately, though, it seems like at least once or twice a week I have a dream that sticks with me after I wake up. Sometimes they're pleasant, like the black-and-white one I had last week; the plot line evades me now, but it had something to do with dancing in the rain. More often than not, unfortunately, it's nightmares that interrupt my sleep and have me waking in a cold sweat.

For example, last night's dream involved me walking in on my husband with another woman. Specific words and actions are blurry, but I woke up weeping into my pillow and sick to my stomach. Of course I felt incredibly relieved when I discovered that none of it was real, but like all dreams do, it made me think. Nightmares like that draw my own insecurities and issues to the surface; sometimes I choose to pray over them and deal with them, and sometimes I squelch them back down because I'm not ready yet.

I have been less than confident in my own abilities to properly maintain a relationship in the past, and I think this dream shows that it's a more deeply seated fear than I thought. I love my husband, but I worry over whether he's satisfied with me as a wife. Logical Becca knows that he loves me deeply and would never do anything to intentionally hurt me; Insecure Becca sees only her faults and wonders why he would choose me over someone else. Someone better.

I try to come across as confident and positive, and I usually succeed by remembering that Christ loves me, even with all my emotional baggage. I've gotten a lot better at putting that thought at the forefront of my mind and letting it rule my decisions and reactions. Yet under the surface, buried so deep that only my subconscious really understands it, is a scared, anxious young woman with a lot of self-hatred. The star of my nightmares.

But the morning after, when I'm shaken and filled with doubt, one passage always helps me remember that, while unworthy, I am loved by my Creator. Offensive as I am, His arms are always open.

Psalm 139

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens,you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
    Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
    your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
    and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
    I count them my enemies.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.