Graham Cooke was talking about his place of rest, where the enemy can't touch him. His is a little shower-curtain-of-elvenkind in the plains of LoTR, where the orcs on wargs can't see him and unwittingly ride past. Hearing his story, I wondered what mine could be like - a Tardis? Just a police box that I could duck into and find myself in an impregnable space much larger on the inside than outside? That would be cool, but that was just my mind thinking up a place. I wanted to go to a place of rest like that, to have a place to duck into and remain untouchable for a moment of instant refreshment.
I don't have my place yet, but I just experienced one that is unworldly.
Last night, I had one of those demonically-induced dreams that are so horrific that I must wake up out of self preservation. Always grotesque, this one culminated with me wandering down a street littered with bloated blood-jellied bodies of friends who'd fallen to the pavement as the hot air balloon they were in crashed, and me trying to vomit but choking on my own tongue, suffocating.
I woke, but didn't wake. Better to say, I broke from the dream - but was unable to open my eyes. I could move my eyes around under my eyelids, but my eyelids themselves were stuck shut. I saw a white room, filled with white objects - everything solid but uncolored, like a 3d model phong shaded white. I tried to look left and right, but moving my eyes didn't shift my view. What I was seeing stayed stuck in front of me. Look left, but the perspective doesn't move left - just static right there in front of me. A strange change in perception, for certain.
I hadn't been in a place like this before. Not a dream. Not awake. Not a physical place. Not a mental image of a place, or a mentally-imaged place - my mind was in this place, this place was not in my mind - and my mind was trying to comprehend what and where.
I had to focus on what I was seeing - took me a moment to realize that this was a crib with a mobile hanging over it… CC's old crib, tucked into the back corner of a matte white version of her old bedroom in the back of the house.
I don't really understand how success is measured. I know the world looks at a lot of externals to gauge success. I know that God looks more at internals, and is less concerned with what we do or what we've done, than with the who we are and the who we are becoming. I do think, in this moment, God was taking me to a moment of success for me in the Spirit.
When CC was tiny, she suffered from ear infections. She didn't sleep much, and screamed and cried much more. This moment hearked-back to those nights when I'd hold her hand and lay on the crib bars, tired and uncomfortable, "wasting" my free evening in the dark and silence with nothing to do but pray for her, and sing as prettily and as gently as I could, and speak blessing into her future until she'd nod off into a sleep deep enough that I could sneak out of the room without reawakening her.
I thought it was tiring time away from the bigger life I was trying to lead. A father's duty. But here I am in this white room, reminded that this is/was a holy moment - one in which I was like the Father, abiding with the needful child. A moment where I was doing kingdom work simply by praying and singing and blessing and wasting myself in unselfish care.
Back in my bed, I reached over with my real hand and held an imaginary CC's hand through the crib bars. She's been in an unhealthy place these last few weeks. In this spiritual place, I prayed for her and blessed her and watched over her for a little, like the old days.
This may not be my place of rest, for personal use in abiding. But I will use it when I intercede for CC, as my place for her when I watch over her as a father should. A place that is a landmark reminder that I have nothing better to do than to be in a spiritual place of rest for my child.
