I’m honored to be a contributing author to 365 Soulful Messages: The Right Guidance at the Right Time, a book of inspiring and uplifting true life stories. My piece describes a profoundly impactful dream that I’d like to share with you to give you a taste of what awaits you in this book.
I sat on the window seat and reached for the weathered book. Its title, An Autobiography of a Christian Mystic, was barely visible. The spine cracked as I opened it, and mustiness filled my nostrils. The sun’s rays danced across the page, highlighting a single sentence:
“I sought to know a gracious loving presence.”
The words lingered as I read them aloud and looked at my parents’ smiling faces. My heart filled with love and appreciation for them as never before.
As I relished the moment, I heard Karen Drucker singing, “I am healed, whole, and healthy. I am well.” I sat upright, dazed yet acutely aware of every nuance of that dream.
Then, in a flash of insight, I understood
that my parents and I wanted the same thing: to know the gracious, loving presence of God. Suddenly, the difference in our approaches didn’t matter. Those few seconds transformed my relationship with my parents.
I stopped judging them and started sharing myself more authentically, even though I expected them to judge me. But they never did. Then I realized that the judgment I experienced in our relationship mostly came from me.
Every day, I also began to affirm, “I want to know the gracious, loving presence,”
and those words filled me with joy. When I shared the dream with a friend, she said emphatically, “You are the gracious, loving presence you seek to know.”
That shocked me, and I protested, “I’m not that gracious or loving.” But I decided to do a test and created a new mantra: “I am a gracious, loving presence.”
I encountered internal resistance but affirmed it anyway. To my surprise, I became more gracious and loving toward myself and others.
This one dream dissolved the volumes of judgment I’d held
toward myself and my parents. It also enabled me to know myself as a gracious, loving presence and to know them as the kind, generous, loving people they are.
What an amazing gift from the only dream I can remember in years.
For more heartwarming stories, please visit https://www.jodichapman.com/365soulfulmessages/.