Not In Charge

As a general rule, I don't assume my dreams have any particular meaning for me unless something really smacks me in the face for some reason. That said, I've been having some weird dreams lately.

Not weird as in atypical -- they're the kind of dreams I've been having all my life. Like, I'm a student in class and I don't know where to go or what I was supposed to study and I've been missing classes for weeks. Or I'm an actor in a play and I can't find my costume and I've been learning all the wrong lines -- or even doing the wrong play altogether. That kind of dream.

Yesterday, it was a teacher/director scenario. I was helping in a class with a woman trying to direct a bunch of young kids in a play. And she was making me crazy because she had no idea what she was doing. She was talking way over their heads. She passed out some freaky picture (something like an ancient mosaic) to show the kids where she wanted them each standing on the stage . . . and I thought, just get them on the stage! Show them!

Here's the worst: she would work with her lead actors and leave the other students just sitting there with nothing to do (one of my big pet peeves in theater overall, but a HUGE no-no for a teacher!). Kids were running all over the place with no supervision. I was hopping around telling them they needed to sit down or lose points for the day (although I had no earthly idea if they even had daily points to lose in this ridiculous class). 

I kept wanting to offer suggestions or help to the teacher, but her demeanor toward me made it quite clear she would have none of that. It was awful. 

I woke up thinking, you see? This is why I hesitate to audition for plays now. I've directed enough that I'm afraid I would be frustrated working under another director if I didn't like their style. (And that has, in fact, happened before.) It is difficult sometimes to not be in charge.

And that's when it hit me why I might be having this dream right now.

There's an election tomorrow . . . and I'm not in charge.

Every step of the process in this election (actually, almost every political anything that has happened in the last decade or so) has frustrated and confused me. I can't get over what's going on in our country now. Yes, I know it has been worse and we survived (Civil War, people?). Still, I'm so, so frustrated.

I've actually blogged before (click here to read it) about that director I mentioned above -- and about another director whose style I didn't get, but whom I trusted anyway -- and what it all taught me about trusting God. I re-read that post a few times yesterday . . . and may need to read it more this week (because I expect we won't have election results for quite a while). 

This election is going to happen. And I'm not in charge. Hallelujah to that. But I need to walk the talk here if I genuinely believe in a loving, wise, sovereign God. I need to trust the one who is in charge.

(But I would never trust that woman in my dream . . . she was seriously messed up, y'all.)