Dream World

I read somewhere that if you want to remember your dreams you simply need to remind yourself to do so as you're falling asleep. I don't know for sure if that really works, but I do know that of late I've been remembering more dreams. Mostly it's fun to contemplate the places my mind wanders while my body sleeps. The night before last I dreamed I was in the mountains at a resort where the surrounding scenery looked suspiciously like the opening scene in the movie The Sound of Music. I looked up at the mountains and realized I felt chilled, so I buttoned my sweater up around my neck. As I twirled around soaking up the cold, I commented to a woman sitting at one of the outdoor tables that it was good to feel cold after living in the heat of the Texas summer.

Then I looked up at the glaciers frozen high in the crags of the mountains and realized they were melting just like the snow used to melt in the sun when I was a little girl growing up in Kansas City. Or perhaps the water I saw raining down was tears for all that is melting and changing in a world that seems to be growing ever hotter. We're only at mid-July here in Central Texas, so August, traditionally the hottest month is still to come. It's been over 100 degrees every day for so many days that the promised high-90s for the weekend is called a cold wave. Maybe it's no wonder that I'm seeking out the cold in my sleep!

I pray God's blessing upon our children and their children and their children's children because if the scientists are right about the consequences of global warming, our descendants will need all the help God can provide. And I pray that we will find the courage and the political will to make the changes we must to alleviate our contribution to the growing warmth--before it's too late.

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue

Heartsong

I have been given a new lease on life, and the answer to a prayer I wrote in January at our church's women's conference. For the last many months I've struggled with a racing heart beat that has been at times very irregular. My doctor had increased the one heart medicine I was taking, but the problems continued. So I went to see the heart electrician. He prescribed a second medicine and told me to come back in a month. I saw him again today and told him he had given me my life back. I didn't realize how long I'd been feeling badly until the medicine fixed the problem. Now I'm back to exercising regularly and have something like my old energy and enthusiasm for daily life. I'm so grateful to God and to the doctors as well as to those who invented this magic medicine I'm now taking.

It's funny how I never spent a lot of time worrying about my heart until it started misfiring. It simply sang along to its regular beat, and I never paid any attention. Too often I'm guilty of taking the most important things in my life for granted, until something happens and I notice their absence. So I'm trying to be more thoughtful of my husband, and more grateful to God for all of my many blessings, too numerous to count. One of those is a heart that's been beating since my birth almost 60 years ago now. I'm glad it's no longer stumbling, and I hope it will continue to beat for a few more years so that I can find ways to continue to serve God.

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue