Why am I dreaming about zombies and in color?  I am not a fan of horror and that includes brain eating zombies.  Once I woke up I could not shake this strange dream from my mind.

I find myself out walking in a wooded area.  It is a rainy fall day that makes you think winter will be coming soon.  The trees have lost most of their leaves, and the leaves that are left are brown; but there is still green grass on the muddied ground.  It is evident it has rained and will rain again.  It’s hard to tell the time of day because the clouds are thick and grey.  I am following a set of truck tracks.  And I see this person moving towards me.  It’s a zombie.

From somewhere behind me yet in my head I hear,  “You have to kill the zombie”.  I have nothing around me to do this.  No gun, no knife, nothing.  I’m not scared at all.  There’s just this feeling of needing to kill this thing.

And since this is a dream and not done in any real story telling sequence, the zombie is on the ground and I am trying to drive this stick into it’s heart.  As I’m trying to kill this thing, it turns and looks at me and I recognize it.  It’s me, or a part of me. And once I recognize it’s me, the guy who had told me to kill it was now under the zombie.  And of course he has been bitten.  And now I have to kill both.  I just need to jam this stick through the heart of the first zombie.

What the heck does this all mean?  What I know about dream interpretation is that the person having the dream has to be the one to interpret it.  But I also know that sometimes my brain picks up on cues in the world that I didn’t even know it was absorbing.  So I do what I always do when I don’t know something – I google it.

From https://www.dreamscloud.com/en/dream-dictionary/symbol/zombies I find the following list about zombies in your dreams:

“May suggest lacking purpose or a direction in life and having no goals or plans for the future.

May suggest an inability to express yourself.

May suggest feeling unemotional, alone and disconnected from others.

May represent aspects of yourself that you have rejected.

May symbolize running away from something or denying your fears.

May represent feeling dead inside or feeling out of touch with reality.

May represent someone that does not or cannot think on their own and just follows someone’s orders – an automaton.”

From http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/z.htm, I find,

“To see or dream that you are a zombie suggests that you are physically and/or emotionally detached from people and situations that are currently surrounding you. You are feeling out of touch. Alternatively, a zombie means that you are feeling dead inside. You are just going through the motions of daily living.

To dream that you are attacked by zombies indicate that you are feeling overwhelmed by forces beyond your control. You are under tremendous stress in your waking life. Alternatively, the dream represents your fears of being helpless and overpowered.”

When I first read this I was angry.  I am no longer detached or lacking purpose, in fact I find I am moving in the opposite direction.  I am full of hope and grace and purpose.  I am finally beginning to do what I love again.  I look forward to going to work and coming home and interacting with my family.  I’m not angry or frustrated or exhausted.

But then I realized what the dream was telling me.  I was killing that part of me.  That part of me that had been dead inside for so long.  The part of me that was closed off and unwilling to be open and share feelings, even to myself.  I was killing the part of me that would not let me be happy or the part that would not allow me to be sad and cry because I just didn’t have the time or energy.  The zombie was who I was, not who I am.

I had lost hope.  Not completely, but so much hope was gone that I began to believe the lies that I just could not be the healthy, happy person God intended me to be.  In the last year I gained 20 pounds and so much more fat.  See, as an adult I have always been overweight, but I could ride 100 miles on my bike or go out and run 2-3 miles with no problem.  But last year was so stressful, I was surviving, not living.  And somewhere in that year I began to lose hope.  So I ate.  And I drank Pepsi.  And I became heavier and I became so much older. And I did not move my body at all.

Hope has been trying to make its way back into my life.  I am reconnecting to God.  I am writing and praying more regularly.  I am starting to walk again in the early morning.  I am passionately pursuing God’s purpose for my life.  Those negative nasty thoughts about giving up and not trying to be a healthy person are beginning to leave.  I take strength in God’s words, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.  Now all things are of God, who has reconciled Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5: 17-18; NKJV).

I am a new person in Jesus Christ.  The zombie part of me, the part that became dead to living is gone.  I am alive in Christ Jesus.  I am aware I have the choice to live for Him.  Before, when I was surviving, all I was able to do was cry out to God to come and take me away or to get me out of this mess.  But that’s not how God works.  I had to trust God and be patient in His timing.  I had to leave behind my teaching profession.  I had to be patient for Him to open doors.  He had to be the one to lead me.  I was so broken, I was willing to follow.

My last year of teaching created an unhealthy body and mind.  My exterior mirrored what happening inside of me.  But I am a new person, a new woman now.  I have hope.  But oooh, how I wish this would mean my body would change into a new body right here and now, but it won’t.  And oooh how I wish there would be no issues with eating.  But this isn’t how God works.  He is not a fairy God mother coming to save me.  What He wants is a relationship with me.  He wants to be reconciled with me.  He wants me.  All of me.  No matter where I am in my life, He is right there.  In the middle of my eating addiction, He is right there.  When I break a promise to myself to not eat any candy, He is right there when I down a whole bag of peanut M&Ms.  (It’s not the small bag either!!)  When I attempt to walk a mile and am struggling, He is right there.  He doesn’t condemn me or shame me or put me down.  What He does is radical.  HE LOVES ME!!  All of me.

And this hope I have, this new woman I am becoming is because of this radical love.  And what’s even more important is that it’s not just for me.  It’s for everyone.  It doesn’t matter what you are doing or not doing.  It doesn’t matter if you go to church or sit at home watching sports tv.  It doesn’t matter if you believe in Christ Jesus or not!!  What does matter:

HE LOVES YOU!!

ALL OF YOU!!

AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO

TO ESCAPE

HIS LOVE!!