Nightmares and Faith.

I dreamt about Elizabeth Smart the other night. I don't know why can't fathom how that dream came to me but it did. It was vivid, scary, sad and far more than I ever wished to dream. I woke up shaken and relieved to find all my children safe in their beds.

The next day I started reading the The Lovely Bones. A literary masterpiece but terrifying when you have a fourteen year old daughter. The book was moving of course but more than that it echoed in my mind all the people my family has lost. Especially Damon's mother who was lost to violence we'll never understand.

The day after that a strange man approached my daughter outside our home. She was waiting for her sisters bus. He was in his mid 20's to 30's and had a very large dog with him. Shyanne is fourteen. He had no earthly reason to talk to her. Nor, did he have any reason to ask her if this was her home, what was her name, and on. Eventually he walked off only to come back around after my other daughters bus had arrived. Shyanne told the bus driver she was scared and thank god he told her he would wait while she locked the gate and until he saw them go in the house. I will be thanking him in person today.

This strange man scared her, she was visibly shaken when I got home. She called me and I came as quickly home as I could. She said he made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck and that all the dogs in the neighborhood freaked out even more than normal. At one point she almost apologized for making a big deal. I made sure to point out to her a grown man has no business trying to make friends with a young girl, alone at all for any reason.

I still haven't recovered. I don't think she has either. Last night as I lay awake in bed with a blazing headache that hasn't left me yet I put these three seemingly random things together. Elizabeth Smart, The Lovely Bones and a stranger approaching my 14 year old. I swear for a moment I couldn't breathe.

I was raised Catholic devout at that, my husband was raised Jehovah's witness. from the beginning we agreed on a neutral sort of faith. I had lost my true faith years before for reasons I don't care to share. He never lost his just grown out of what he'd known. I thought that a life with God in the periphery was good enough. I prayed but I also questioned all things related to God. As an adult I haven't understood "blind faith" believing just for believing. I believe in logic. The things that made sense and can be explained I clung to. Logic has kept me safe more than a few times.

Lately Damon and I have been talking about finding our way back to faith. Me far more than him. Little by little I find it's getting easier to believe that God is watching over us. I firmly believe he was watching over my daughter yesterday. I believe he sent me a message in the only way I would understand a dream and a book. He was saying watch a little more closely, never become complacent and perhaps, to slow down a little.

I'm listening. It's still work to remember that faith isn't easy, that for me acceptance is work but I'm getting closer.