My Name is Joseph

Coming to Terms Part 3

"Jonathan?" I said, quietly, so as not to wake anyone in the bus who was asleep.

His eyes popped open and he turned his head slightly towards me as he smiled cheekily, "Done pretending to be asleep?" he teased.

I would normally have rolled my eyes, but I was feeling too serious, "I was thinking."

Jonathan's smile turned into a serious and thoughtful look when I did not tease him back, "Yeah? What about?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, "About God."

Jonathan's eyebrows went up, but he did not say anything, merely nodding.

"I haven't ever told you this about myself, but I rarely dream."

Jonathan quirked his eyebrow in question, and when I continued pausing, said, "Okay...?"

I looked down, thinking intently, "Four times in my life I've had a dream. Only four. The two first times, what happened in the dream happened a few days later exactly as I had seen them. The third time I had a dream happened right before," I gulped, "the tragedy in my family."

Jonathan's eyes were wide again, and he nodded for me to continue, face full of interest.

"That time the dream was not literal. But it seems that some things were signaled in it, or it was more of an allegory, or something. Not everything in it has happened yet."

When Owyn muttered and changed positions, I looked up, then back at Jonathan, "The fourth time was last night."

Jonathan's eyes snapped to attention at this, and he sat forward in his seat, "And what was the dream?"

I took a deep breath, "It was the same as the one before I wa--the tragedy in my family, except for when I saw myself this time I was a lot older," I paused, "But at the end, I saw one more thing. Something that was not in the third dream."

Jonathan nodded gripping his knees with his hands, "Yeah, what was it?"

I closed my eyes so that I could re-see it, "I was suddenly in a very white place. All I could see is complete white. So white that after a few seconds I had to close my eyes--they were smarting."

Jonathan nodded.

"Then I heard a voice," my throat tightened as I replayed the scene in my mind, "It said, 'It will come true. I always keep my promises. Always. You can trust me.' Then I woke up. The first thing that came into my head was the verse from the Bible you had told me to read last night." I took a deep breath, "You know I've been thinking about God the last few weeks. But I can't seem to get to the place where I am ready to trust him, or forgive the people who caused me pain. But in the dream, well, it seemed like God was trying to tell me something." I humphed, "So I don't know what to do know."

"Is that it?" Jonathan asked, his face looking quite funny, filled with incredulity. 

I looked up at him, confused, "Uh, yeah?"

He smiled slightly, "That's easy, Alex. God was telling you something. That you can really trust him. That he is in control. That he was with you even in the hard times. That he wont let you down. He just wants you to be with him. Because if you don't put everything in his hands, you have not given him permission to help you or change situations or circumstances around you." He paused and thought again, "And it seems that he was telling you that whatever happened in that dream will come true sometime in the future, if that means anything to you."

I nodded slowly, yes, but I had already come to these conclusions before asking Jonathan. I realized now that the only thing I was struggling with is what I would do with it. I was about to say something, but Jonathan got to it first, "Now all you have to do is decide how you are going to respond to that."