How I Escaped to a Palace
I dream. Usually at night and often full of adventure and revelation. This night was no different in those ways, but felt far more consequential.
I dreamt I was with a little girl I once knew — the little girl I once was. We were leaving, maybe escaping from the back window of my brother’s bedroom over a bridge leading to a new place. At the time we lived in Section 8 public housing in Brooklyn, New York.
This dream was heavy because it required that I return to experiences of my childhood that were at the root of why I have long been uncomfortable in the skin of my own success. Guilt can leave that impression. It has a way of befriending us and remaining so present that we have a hard time distinguishing it from an enemy. In seasons past, it stayed closer than a brother or sister.
In fact, guilt has been a close confidant — who I turn to when I choose to diminish or not share the significance of an important milestone in my life…the reason I have often been more comfortable with struggle and scarcity than thriving and abundance…the reason I confuse pride with confidence and even godfidence — the trust that God made us all for accomplishment according to special plans for each of our lives that we discover over time.
I believe this dream, leaving/escaping with that little girl, was God’s way of telling me she’s free now. I’m free now.
Free to dream again. And this time BIGGER than before and with abandon. Free from the false guilt of making others uncomfortable and free from the fear of rejection because of success. Free from the lie that shrinking is better than living as fully, loudly and as boldly in joy as any one of us should. Free to mature into all that has been set aside for her. For me. For we.
As we choose this path of freedom, we show others this is the way to the new palace* set aside for us all. I pray I will see you there. In that new palace, a spacious place. A great reason to give thanks. Amen.
*I initially intended to type “place” here, but when I reread the section I discovered I accidentally typed “palace.” I then realized palace (the word I didn’t mean to type) is the best choice. Google tells me palace is a a truly large and spacious place. Godfidence tells me — that’s where we’re headed when we walk in freedom. Again, amen.
