Dream #496 (March 26, 2013) The Daughter

Wow.


I was inside the sanctuary  of Koontz Lake Missionary Church where my father was delivering a message to a packed congregation.  I was sitting in a different pew than I normally sat growing up (I was in the front row, but clear off to the right of the stage).  As my dad spoke, everyone in the congregation was standing and listening, even the elderly.

Mid-service, a skinny young woman with long brown hair, leading a brown-haired 5-year-old girl, walked in from the back of the sanctuary.  She came right to me and handed me the child, without saying a word.  I wasn't sure what to do when she walked out of the sanctuary.  Apparently I was now a parent.  I knew the child was not of my loins, but for some reason the child had become mine.

I ran with the child out to the dark parking lot and caught up with the girl.  We began to walk down a large hill that led into the houses of Koontz Lake (that doesn't exist in real life).  I started asking her why she was leaving me her child.  She wouldn't respond.  I tried again and again.  Nothing.

I looked up and noticed that she had lead me to a large and strange sort of carnival that was going on.  It was lit by old oil lamps.  Then the 5-year-old asked me if I would take her through the carnival.  I agreed.

We entered an extremely long log cabin that had been constructed in the center of the carnival.  It was a sort of museum/I Spy activity (I used to get those books often from the school library as a child).  The girl was having a wonderful time, asking me questions about everything she was seeing.  I enjoyed explaining things to her, for she seemed incredibly sharp for her age.  The first stage of the cabin looked like an old grocery store.  The second stage more resembled a pawn shop.  In this room I somehow entered into the mind of the little girl and could see things from her perspective.  Every object was fascinating, and I had to touch everything so that I could know it better.

The third stage was a mostly black room with a only a few odd brown pieces of furniture in it.  When I stepped into it, I immediately left the girl's mind and reentered my own mind.  I discovered that I had left the 5-year-old in the cabin by herself, for I was standing in the grass outside, staring at the ferris wheels, one red and one blue, spinning in opposite directions.

I felt terribly guilty, and it was made worse when several people began to gather around me and ask me where my daughter was.  I couldn't answer.

I rushed back into the cabin and found the girl in the third room.  She was sitting alone next to a wall, so I joined her.  She asked me why I wasn't with her.  She sounded deeply saddened by my absence, so sad that I began to cry.  I told her that I would not always be able to be with her, and though that was sad, it was for the best.  I tried to explain to her how somebody could still love another person, even when they aren't together.  I told her to put her hand in mine, and she did.  I said, "Even though I am now letting go of your hand, I am still grasping it in my heart.  We are connected."  She smiled and asked if we could go home, and I said yes.

I took her to my house (a house that I don't recognize in real life).  She was my daughter, and I loved her as if she had always been, knowing she always would be.  I had a fireplace that we started up.  I sat with her and made up a story about a great bearded fisherman who was always searching for a creature he once dreamt about as a child.  She loved the story.


Then I awoke.  Where in the world did that come from?