How much do you believe? ... Really really believe?

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20 “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.[a]” Matthew 17:20 (NLT)
Two nights ago my 4 year old daughter had a nightmare.  She cried more than once at night over what seemed to be the same dream.

In the morning I asked her and she confirmed that indeed she had a recurrent nightmare.  When I asked her she started crying so I stopped asking her.

But by 11 AM she came to me sobbing saying "mommy, I can still remember my bad dream".  So I reminded her that Jesus can take away bad dreams and to ask Him to do so.

By 1PM she came again and said the same thing - so I attempted carefully to ask her to recount her bad dream to me.  She told me that in her dream there was a witch with a potion...and then started crying again.

By late afternoon it was apparent she was very troubled by this dream.  After failing to help her after we prayed, talked about it and attempting to distract her I started to think of other ways to help her.

So I asked her to draw the dream out.

At first she didn't want to 'It will be scary" so I asked her to tell me the entire dream and that I would draw it.  As she described the witch to me and I started to draw, I invited her to join me in drawing.  And so did she.

After all was done - I asked her if she thought we could 'fix' this scary and sad picture.  She thought about it and at first said 'no'.  But then I gave her some ideas.  "What if we change the witch's angry mouth to a smiley mouth?"  "what if we coloured her black dress and put on a pink dress instead?  After all, pink makes everyone happy"  and "What if we put some cupcakes, icing and happy thoughts in her potion instead so that everyone who drinks it will be happy?"

We had a good laugh

and we 'fixed' the picture.

Sarah's Nightmare Turned into a Happy Dream - Notice the Witch has a happy face, lipstick, eyelashes, earrings and a heart.  Notice what she is saying too --  "SORRY"...and the sun is no longer sad...but happy.  There is rainbow now.  The little person on the bottom is a doll - She says dolls make people happy.


By night, before going to bed, she was still coming to me saying she could remember the dream and each time I would remind her to remember the picture we drew and how we fixed it.  That perhaps it's not that she has to forget it but that maybe the witch was angry because no one has ever showed her love.  In her dream our entire family was there.  So I told her maybe God gave her that dream so that our family could show the witch that God and we love her very much.

She agreed.

During prayer time we prayed specifically that Jesus would take away her dream...again.  But after prayer it daunted on me that we never listened to Jesus' response to our prayer so I asked Sarah: "What did Jesus tell you when you asked Him to take away the dream?"

She looked at me funny at first

So I asked her if she knew that Jesus was in this room and if He actually heard the prayer.  Otherwise, why pray?

She thought and then agreed that Jesus was in the room with us.  Then she said that Jesus said to her that He could take care of the dream for her.

I left my 4-year-old daughter's room reflecting on all the events of the day and wondered in my heart...how much do I actually believe that Jesus WILL take away this bad dream and replace it with a good dream?  I tell her to pray but DO I BELIEVE that the prayer is heard and that Jesus actually has a response to our prayer?

I went to bed, to be honest, not believing.  There was unbelief deep inside me.  I don't know what it was exactly but it was as if I almost felt Jesus would be too busy to deal with a 4 year old's little nightmare - the logical side of me was saying that I was silly since Jesus loves and cares for all of us, right?

But ... I prayed for Sarah but also went to bed expecting to be awoken by cries.

Do you know what happened that night?

NOTHING

and two days have passed and not a single mention of witches, potions or nightmares.

This little experience really challenged me to think about how much I really believe that God listens and answers prayers, no matter how insignificant we may think they are.  It also reminded me to LISTEN to what He has to say after we send out the prayer up so to speak.  But above all, it was also a reminder that I do not believe as much as I may sometimes think I do...and for that, Jesus was showing me that He is indeed worthy of all our trust in Him.


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