Overflowing Dream

 

Before all of the details escape my mind, I want to flesh them out.  Friday night, 5/24, I had a dream.  The dream was very vivid.  Here is what I can recall now that I am writing it down four days later:

I find myself in my own home.  The home is in my opinion a Dutch or English style home made from round, cobblestone rocks or stones.  The house is two stories tall with a basement overlooking a vast expansive countryside.  The house seems simple and square.

While I’m in my home, it starts to rain.  The rain seems soft and comforting at first but then the rain picks up.  I don’t recall any wind or thunder, just lots of rain.  I am walking around my home when I notice that near the ceiling in one of the upper rooms, there is a small growing stain.  A closer examination reveals that the stain is due to water.  The stain is damp indicating it is recent.

As I gaze upon the leak, my heart begins to sink with the feeling that my beautiful home is damaged and that the water will only increase the damage.  I begin thinking of ways to repair the leak and the cost that repair might incur.  I soon begin to investigate further to determine what actually the issue is.  To my surprise and delight, I find that the home has a unique drainage system akin to the drainage system on a submarine. This system is quite complicated with many parts.  It’s a system that took quite a bit of engineering and time to accomplish.

 The roof gutters did not drain directly towards the ground.  Instead they drain inward to piping interior to the walls.  Unfortunately, the piping is not continuous.  I imagine that one, the nice interior walls were not there during the original installation and two, the non-continuous piping allows for de-clogging of sections as necessary without engaging the entire drainage system.  Furthermore, each collection funnel is actually collecting runoff from more than one drain.  This means that there are probably a dozen or so gutter drains on the roof and two or more will collect in one funnel.  This specific location is handling the water just fine with minimal splatter.  The splatter however is what I am seeing.  I make a mental note to install a splash guard once the rain stops.

Sometime later, I find myself in a lower room in a stressful situation again.  This time, I know something is wrong.  I am in a carpeted room on the lower floor and not only is the floor wet but the wet spot is visibly growing at a rate that would cover the entire room in a matter of minutes.  Instantly I am fearful that my home is about to be flooded.

I am not sure what to think about this new information.  I don’t remember the history on this house however I have that sinking dreadful feeling of loss as I see the cost of repairing whatever has gone wrong.  I go to investigate in the basement as my rational mind attempts to take over in finding a solution to the problem.

The basement of this home resembles a submarine bilge or a large building’s boiler room.  The main structure of the room is a concrete lined valley that leads towards a large open grate that appeared to drain away from the home towards a creek.  The entire room contained various grating and catwalks for passage around the boiler, pump and drainage components contained in the basement.  As I walk into the basement, I immediately know what the issue is.  The rain was heavier than I could see or imagine.  The funnel draining system was ineffective in the fact that each upstream funnel was flowing at its maximum capacity.  Several maximum capacity drains filling one funnel had caused it to overflow.  All of the funnels in the walls and in the lower level were over flowing.  The water buildup I’d seen in the bedroom was the overflow from one of these funnels running right onto the wall next to it, under the wall and into the room, showing on the carpet.  As each of these funnels, and there seemed to be dozens and dozens, overflowed, there came a buildup of water in the valley floor section as the water became more than the drain at the end of the room could handle.

In the midst of viewing what appears to be the beginning of a disastrous situation, I suddenly am struck with a vision from my past.  I remember this room.  It is the room that stays hidden from everyone.  In this room, I’d spent lots of time bringing in wheel barrow load after wheel barrow load of dirt.  I’d taken the dirt and I’d placed it all over the room.  The vision showed that the loads of dirt were small at first, only a shovel full or two.  Then later the loads had gotten so large that it would take days to bring in all of the dirt.  As the vision of this memory fades, reality fades back in and I am back in the basement watching the new story unfold.  Each of the overflowing funnels is washing away the dirt that is packed into all of the nooks and crannies of the room.  While the water is building up, the dirt is quickly and easily washed away.  The backing up of water is in no way due to the dirt but it due to the sheer abundance of water.

At this point, I wake up from my dream.  I don’t really have an ending to my dream, just that I woke up.  As I ponder the dream, knowing that God frequently speaks to people in the form of dreams, I feel like God is trying to tell me something.  My family has been in a dry season.  Oh there has been rain.  Enough to keep the crops alive, but not enough for them really to flourish.  I think the simplistic home in my dream resembles the simplistic life that my family leads.  My home has many rooms and is two stories tall.  Within the walls was an intricate labyrinth of drainage funnels.  I think this home represents the preparation that my family and I have taken to ensure that our lives can handle the storms that come our way, though little of that preparation involves finances.  I believe the rain represents the blessings that the Father is pouring out on my family.  I believe that the overflowing funnels represents the abundance of blessing that the Lord will pour out on my family.  A shower that is more than our most intricate engineering design can contain.  I think the basement represents our secret place of hiding.  It is the place we hide lies, sin, debt and shame.  It is the place that we’ve slowly filled up with the things we want to hang onto but know that we shouldn’t and somehow can’t seem to clear away.  The part of this dream that brings tears to my eyes when I think about it is the part where the waters that are overflowing wash away all of the dirt that has built up in the basement.  To me this shows that despite my hardest efforts to hang onto the things I know I shouldn’t hold onto, God is going to cleanse me.  He is going to wash it all away and still pour out his mercy, grace and blessing. 

I’m both scared and excited about the potential of this dream.  I am scared because the bible constantly talks about dying to this and burning away at that.  Like the dream, I am stressed and fearful of the damage that the water is doing to my home.  I know my life will most likely receive perceived damage as cleansing occurs.  I am excited because I’ve always wanted to be an active part of God’s will.  A part that I could see.  Not that I want to take any glory however I long for the biblical days of miracles and visual signs and wonders.  I don’t need proof to follow God, I just want to see it.  If I am in God’s will and receiving an outpouring of his blessing that overflows my “highly engineered” drainage system, then this is something that cannot be hidden even if I wanted to hide it.