I'm Only Good at Holding Dogs

I have always been a crazy dreamer. Not like the ambitious, shoot-for-the-stars kind. Like if I sleep, even for 30 minutes, I become a drunk wandering in an Inception movie. Usually without Leonardo DiCaprio present, unfortunately.

It was no surprise that last night I had a baby nightmare. My Facebook newsfeed is one big gender reveal party right now. I can't even remember who is having what at this point- there might have been some puppies thrown in there too. I've just resorted to saying, "Congratulations on that new thing."

I digress.

So, in my dream, I give birth. It was super easy and I looked at the doctor and said, "This was way easier than I thought it was going to be. People have been scaring me my whole life for this?" Some people come in and they try to put me in a wheelchair. "It's time to go see your baby," they say. I don't want to go. Like I straight up refuse to go see my dream baby.

But they wheel me in there and suddenly, I am standing over the baby and I realize that I am holding Minnie (my dog).

The soft-spoken nurse picks up the baby and asks sweetly, "Do you want to hold your baby?"

This is where crap gets real.

I squeeze Minnie to my chest and I yell, "I'M ONLY GOOD AT HOLDING DOGS!"

I woke up in panic mode, embarrassed that I had just yelled at these people- and that I had a weenie dog in a hospital. But then I laughed really, really hard.

Because, as ridiculous as this whole dream was, it encapsulates how I feel on an almost daily basis.

There are so many times in my life when I want to holler at God and other people, "I'M ONLY GOOD AT HOLDING DOGS!"

Prayer is a much easier concept when you know the absolute desires of your heart. It is not so easy when you and your heart are conflicted. When your heart is like all the emotion characters on "Inside Out" and they like to argue with each other.

It's hard to pray for a career when you're not sure it's the right move for your family and sanity. It's hard to pray for a child when you don't know if being a mother is the high calling for your life. So prayer gets put on the back burner because, let's face it, you're ONLY GOOD AT HOLDING DOGS.

But one of my favorite verses is Romans 8:26: Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." 

Oh, intercede for me, Spirit. Intercede for us. Fulfill the unknown desires of our heart and give us the faith to accept the unexpected intercession.

But in the meantime, I will be over here- probably holding my dogs.