Guiding the dream...

We recently inherited a large estate which includes a marvelous country mansion, and along with it a very capable, professional butler, coattails and all.

The family is still adjusting to such a drastic change, so we haven't moved in yet. Just visited on occasion while coattails, Mr. Lucid, tends to the daily upkeep of the mansion and grounds. The girls are so excited, as we are making plans to build a paddock and brand new barn. Soon we'll be able to get them the horses they've been dreaming of loving as their very own for nearly eight years now.

Sharing our good fortune, hubby and I invited some family and friends over for a viewing and a time of movie entertainment in the expansive media room. A room full of plush leather, tapestry, cherry wood, grand stone fireplace, and beautiful fixtures. Posh, yet just as our dear passed Aunt, it's comfortably cozy and most inviting.

Mr. Lucid, the aforementioned butler, in true fashion offers refreshments to the guests, and us, the Watson family, his new masters. He made his way around the room, being sure that all were satisfied. He's a pleasant man. A blessing for sure.

Then someone, and I have no idea who, as many were gathered around me at the time, spilled a beverage.

"Oh, don't worry," I say, "the help will take care of that." I guide my adoring family and friends away from the mess, thinking Mr. Lucid is taking far too long to deal with the spill.

If he's this incapable, I think over my shoulder, then perhaps hubby and I should find new help.

I look to one of my sisters who appears to be watching me. "Good help is so difficult to find." I sneer.

And this, my friends, is where the guiding began.

Chastising myself, I lifted prayers for forgiveness to my Heavenly Father. How could I act so spoiled, so ungrateful, so nasty and impatient, in this, just a dream?

During the remainder of my nearly five hours of continuous dreaming I felt myself overseeing my actions and reactions within this unknown world that my subconscious was creating. It was a dream of situations and activities that weren't driven by my conscious mind, so I can't really call it a lucid dream, but yet, my actions and mindset within the dream were being controlled by me--even guided. Guiding myself to be more holy, more mindful of how Jesus would have acted and responded, and I found myself purposely trying to emulate His ways within the fictional world that my subconscious unveiled from that moment on.

Have you ever done that? Partially controlling your dreams, knowing you are, but yet powerless to snap yourself out of the dream state.

It's almost like it's a heaven-sent exercise.

"See what you'd become if you had all the earthly pleasures possible to you." The Angel asks. "Would the comfort, beauty, excessiveness be worth the cost of your soul?"

"NEVER!" I answer most truthfully, without pause.

Where I am. Who I am. What I am to be. And, what I am to do. I give to thee, Dear Lord.