My Jesus

Last night I had the strangest dream. I dream a lot and tend to remember most of my dreams in living, vivid colors and details. Many of my dreams are downright insane and my husband swears I am crazy. But last night was the strangest dream of all. So strange that I can't talk about it because somehow I don't think I can give the dream the credit it deserves verbally. I am going to try to write it. If I have no success writing it, then it was only meant for me.
Last night, sometime between midnight at 2 a.m., I met Jesus in my dreams. To begin with I didn't know it was Jesus. He was just a person I kept seeing sort of in the background. I was always drawn to this person even though this person's image changed to fit the situation, or for lack of a better word environment.
In the beginning of the dream, I was on a football team and Jesus was one of my teammates. He didn't look like the Jesus we see pictures of in the Bible and in church, he look like a normal football player, just like the rest of us. As a woman on a football team, I stood out much more than he did. Somehow, even though at this time I didn't know the man was Jesus, I did know there was something special about him.
Throughout the dream, there would be periods of time that I would feel a specific closeness to Jesus. During these times, Jesus was there and we would walk together and talk together, like we were really good friends. I leaned on him, confided in him and he held and comforted me. I could see him just like I could see anyone else. He was real to me.
In another scene in the dream, I was in a restaurant. Not a fancy one, but something like Picadilly or maybe Shoneys or something. I was eating with a group of people and there was something special about one of the waiters. He wasn't our waiter, just one of many in the restaurant. Somehow there was a connection between me and the waiter, just like the one between me and the football player on my team. Still, I couldn't put my finger on what was so special about this person.
In the last scene I can remember in the dream, I lived in an apartment complex much like the one I lived in when I was in college. The layout of the apartments was very similar, all but the location of the mailboxes and the lighting. The lighting at the complex was dim and actually dark in some places. The mailboxes were across the street in a shadowed area.
I had stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few items. All of the items were in one on two bags so I got them out of the car and carried them with me as I went to the mailbox. While I was getting my mail, a man walked up to the mailboxes. He mumbled something to me that I thought was a hello, and I responded. The man was acting sort of strange and opened one of the boxes and closed it without really looking in it. I felt like this could be the beginning of a bad situation, so I immediately walked away across the street to the apartment complex.
To get to my apartment I would have normally had to walk through a dark area for 50 or so yards, but I noticed the man had followed me across the street and was still walking in the same direction that I was. Instead of my usual route, I walked through a well lit area sticking close to the apartments. The building is the complex had eight apartments, four on top and four on bottom. The area around the stairs was open where you could walk through them. I chose to walk through them and stay in the light. As I was walking through I met another man, who instantly put me at ease. I got the same comforting feeling from him that I got from the football player and the waiter. We greeted each other and for some reason he walked with me to my apartment. I didn't know this man but for some reason, I trusted him completely.
I didn't tell my new friend about the man following me and hoped that the guy would just go away. As my friend and I neared my apartment door. Several police cars with lights and sirens blaring came flying into the parking lot. Before I knew it there were cops everywhere and police dogs sniffing around. Outside an apartment a little further up the complex a woman surrounded by a group of friends was filing a report with the police. My friend and I walked up to the apartment to see what was going on and she was telling the police officer that someone had attempted to rape her when she was walking through the complex. The description I heard her give was the one of the man I had encountered at the mailboxes just a few minutes earlier. As I listened, I got a little sick to my stomach realizing that the same thing could have just happened to me. I didn't say anything to my friend.
My friend walked me back to my apartment to where my husband and little girl waited for me. I opened the door and before I stepped in the apartment I turned to thank my new friend for his kindness, but he was gone. Standing on the sidewalk in front of my apartment was another man. This one was unmistakable -- it was Jesus. I stared in total disbelief and as I looked at him I saw the football player on my team, the waiter in the restaurant and my friend who walked my home and away from a possible rapist.
"I am always with you," he said as he turned and walked away. As I stood there basking in the glory of what had just happened, I saw my Jesus walk back up the sidewalk and embrace the woman who had almost been raped. It wasn't as if he hadn't been with her before, because he had, but she needed him even more at that moment. For some reason I knew I needed to see him go to her, but as strange as this may sound, as he walked away and I saw him walk away, I never felt his presence leave me.
It was at that moment that everything I had been trying to figure out for the last few months was crystal clear. God is with me all the time. He can see me, he knows what I do, what I think, what I feel, but I don't necessarily see him as who he is. I often see him as someone else in different situations, but when I need Him and turn to him for comfort or forgiveness I see Him in all of His glory and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my Jesus is with me all the time and is with all of his children all the time.
In my sleep I am still processing all that has happened even though my dream is pretty much over. I am awakened by my daughter who is crying and scared and wants me to come get in the bed with her. When I stand up to follow her to her room, my heart is beating 90 miles and hour and I'm having a hard time catching my breath, I guess from her startling me and from the dream. Every part of my dream comes rushing back as I wrap my child in my arms just as He does me.