Casting Fruit and Don Knotts Dream

I should be blogging more. I gotta share this dream.

A little back story before I start: I hate lakes. I think they are nasty, still water, full of bird poop that never moves. Also, all those nasty lake fish/creatures totally freak me out, and I have had bad dreams about them.

The dream begins with me on a lake. I'm in a canoe with two men, and we are casting fruit on the water to see what will eat it. We keep moving around the lake, not waiting to see if the fruit is even taken up.

At one point, I fall out of the canoe, but I just keep casting fruit, and swim from one side of the lake to the other. The men soon jump out of the canoe also, and we're all throwing fruit and swimming.

I realize that I'm not afraid of the lake. I wait to become afraid once I remember my fear, but the fear never comes. I think about lake creatures, but I still feel fine. I keep casting fruit, but am getting tired of staying afloat in the lake.

I eventually wash up on the shore of the lake. I am so tired that I am unaware of what the other men are doing. I lie on my stomach, and let my body sink into the sand. I think, "Finally, I can rest."

I wake from my dream in my bed. I get up, and I see Don Knotts sitting by my bookshelf. He has his arm stuck all the way in the bottom shelf, so his hand is touching the wall on the other side. It's a peculiar position to be in.

I ask Don Knotts what he is doing here, and he addresses the end of my dream, when I was at rest on the shore.

He says, "In life, we go to a lot of places and do a lot of things, but we can not find rest. These may be great things that we are doing, and we may be happy wherever we are, but it will mean nothing until we can rest. The purpose of life is to find a place where we can be at rest, and you can't stay in the same place until you find it."

I woke up for real this time, and realized why a lot of things in my life had recently come to an end, or hadn't worked out. It was because these things weren't a place where I could rest.

I went over to my bookshelf, and stuck my hand behind the bottom shelf. The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers was stuck behind the books, having fallen off of a higher shelf.  I laughed, remembering my dream of Fred Rogers coming to visit me, and knew that I was on the right path to eventually find my place to rest. It was also nice to know that I didn't need to be at rest yet, because I'm not, and sometimes there is pressure to be so calm and peaceful. Like, we aren't having a good relationship with Jesus if we aren't.  But that isn't true. My relationship with Jesus is bringing me to my rest, and it does provide hope in my journey, but I'm not there yet.