I awoke with a start, my heart hammering in my chest. What…? Where am I? I wondered, frantic. It took me a few seconds to get my bearings. Then I felt the soft mattress beneath me, the fluffy pillow behind my head. A dream, it was only a dream, I realized. A nightmare made all the more frightening because it had seemed so real.
I wondered if the bad dream was related to the frantic pace of my life lately. My husband was having some health problems. Our three kids were teenagers and were involved in more activities than ever. My job as a hospice social worker was rewarding but really demanding. The only time I had to squeeze in some prayer was while I was cleaning the house, doing the ironing or driving in my van.
With my schedule so frenzied, sometimes I wondered if I could even hear God’s voice in my life. Was he still guiding me?
I took a few minutes to calm down from my nightmare, then slowly I closed my eyes and finally drifted back to sleep.
A week later, on my way to a work appointment to meet with a family, I took a familiar turn onto Route 305 in Cuba, New York, and headed north. Mine was the only vehicle on that road, until I spotted a paneled pickup truck in the distance, heading south.
Suddenly, as the truck came nearer, I felt chills run down my spine. I had driven this road a thousand times, but now everything seemed a little too familiar. And so vivid. The emptiness of the road, the truck coming toward me…
The pickup got closer. My heart started to thump and my breathing quickened. I gripped the steering wheel and focused on controlling my van as I moved slowly onto the right shoulder, away from the truck. I’m just being silly, I told myself.
Then I fixed my gaze on the back of the pickup, where I saw tall bales of hay stacked. Suddenly the truck hit a bump and the bales shifted. Two of them tumbled off the top of the truck and hit the asphalt, landing right where my van would have been!
Exactly how it had happened in my dream.
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