"We can use what God has given"

I had a really bad dream this morning. I was in some kind of prison, I had no idea why. It wasn't like a prison I know of. It was bright and had a lot of outdoor space, it was out in the country somewhere. We were free to roam around to some extent. But we were tortured. Not with whips and electro-shocks but by the treatment of the guards. We were forced to do things, not terrible things, I don't really remember now, but just the fact that we had to do them - that they were playing with us like a cat plays with a mouse. I can't remember if I knew what would happen if I didn't obey or if I just feared the possibilities and their control over me.

I remember watching a guard cutting up lettuce for us that had gone bad and had some brown, slimy patches. And it really hit me how subtle torture can be and how truly awful something like rotten food could be.

Not too much happened, as I remember, but just being in the presence of these people who hated me and delighted in my suffering, or some who seemed indifferent but who had control of me. It was so powerful and real and horrifying.

I wondered, when I woke up, why I had had that dream? Why dream that?

But as my mind returned to it after my classes and midterm, as I ate cereal and sat on the computer, as it bobbed along some current of my mind, past barges of thought about blogs and home remodels, my heart began going out to those people suffering somewhere. People who are wrongfully imprisoned, or justifiably imprisoned, people who are despised, controlled, hungry, tormented, even just sick to their stomachs. Where is my love for these people? Where is even one thought of them in a million in my waking life?

God answers the prayers of my heart. In being overwhelmed by the hugeness of what I was feeling and thinking all I could do was fall on my face and cry, and meet God there, without words.

I have been wanting an emotional connection with God. I have noticed the formality and coldness of my prayers lately and wondered, as I always inevitably do, When did that happen?

Yesterday I sang to God, "Let the Circle be Unbroken" and cried, and made up the words I didn't know, and thought about the people in Haiti and elsewhere who are all my brothers and sisters. I had been noticing the formality of my hymn singing too lately.

God is calling me back to Him. He hears my heart calling out to Him even when I can ignore it, and He loves me. And He calls me back to Him by directing me to humanity! "Love one another, as I have loved you." Isn't He amazing? His love is amazing.

I want to stay, figuratively, flat on my face before God. Will I? I hardly dare to hope. But that is me trying to count on myself again.

I hope I have loved you a little in this. I do love you. Really.

Really.