Sharing the Dream

My husband and I honeymooned in the mountains of Tennessee. It was a beautiful beginning...just the two of us, enjoying every moment together. As we woke one morning, we both began talking about the dream we had the night before. As I began to share my dream, my new husband stared at me in amazement. We had both dreamed the same dream! We laughed about it, and joked that it must be because we were together so much.

The thing that amused so much on that morning more than 12 years ago, is one thing that has kept our marriage beautiful: sharing the same dream. 

I can still hear the words of a woman older than me whose children had all left home giving me a word of warning. How she had been so wrapped up in the children and he had been so involved in putting their food on the table and how they had looked at one another when the last child left home wondering who that person was that they had lived with for so many years.

I hear the words of women my age and younger who tell me they are so exhausted at the end of a day that all they want is sleep. There just isn't energy left for a husband. And it saddens me. Because sleep is necessary, but if we go through our marriages sleeping....literally and figuratively, there is never a time to awake and share the dream. 


Sharing a dream in marriage is that quick phone call that brightens the day of a work-weary husband....that single moment of greeting one another at the door with a long kiss and momentarily ignoring the chaos of children living loudly...the stretching of paychecks and looking beyond this week's grocery money to the years ahead of feeding the love we hold for each other.

Sharing the dream is realizing that a child is cherished and loved but only ours for about 18 short years, while our vows to each other only die when we do. Sharing the dream is acknowledging that a job only helps us to survive so that we have time to truly live. Sharing the dream is the fusion of two into one to the extent it is nearly impossible to see where one ceases and the other begins.

I don't want to wake up after decades of marriage and realize that we have been dreaming separate dreams through the years and there is nothing left to share. How about you?


Jennifer Self is a disciple of Jesus Christ who loves following His plan for her life as a wife to the most wonderful man in the world and mama to four little blessings. Her days are filled with spending time with her man, homeschooling, preparing reasonably healthy meals and keeping the dust bunnies and the clutter monster at bay with a little blogging mixed in. After her family has been taken care of, she dabbles in her other passions of reading, health and music. She blogs about her life, her Heavenly Father, marriage, parenting and home at www.joyeverafter.blogspot.com and real food for real families from the perspective of real faith at www.growingreal.net. 


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