The Living Room Read Free Page A

mother warned her not to talk openly about her dreams, but in childlike enthusiasm Amy mentioned her dreams to a friendly Sunday school teacher. The teacher passed along the information to the church pastor. Soon thereafter, the pastor pulled Amy and her parents aside after a Sunday morning service. Amy couldn’t hear what the grown-ups discussed, but her mother sat her down when they got home and sternly told her to keep quiet about her dream life.
    The other times Amy said something to friends or relatives about her dreams, she received strange looks or comments about her vivid imagination. Eventually, she stopped trying to share what was so intensely private and precious. Words couldn’t adequately describe the supernatural. The human mind isn’t naturally programmed to comprehend spiritual experiences.
    When she was twelve, Amy had her first spiritual dream that was both visual and auditory. A tall, skinny, introverted girl with a mild acne problem, Amy was going through the intense insecurity common to preteen girls who don’t have a perfect body shape and bubbly personality. One night, as she was leaving the living room, she heard a penetrating voice say, He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love . The words from the dream wrapped themselves around her like an affirming blanket. Amy found the passage in her Bible, wrote down the verse on an index card, and carried it with her for more than a year. The message reminded her that no matter how her peers treated her, there was a loving Father who accepted her, and he had prepared a place for her to be with him.
    During her teenage years, the number of living room dreams decreased and eventually stopped. Amy was deeply disappointed, but her mother received the news with relief. She told Amy the nighttime experiences had probably been a unique form of the imaginary friend phenomenon common among little girls. Amy, who had two imaginary friends, listened but didn’t agree. She knew the difference between make-believe and reality.
    The summer before her senior year in high school, Amy landed a job as a counselor at a Christian camp for girls in the mountains of North Carolina. It was the first time she had been away from home for an extended period of time. Homesickness hit her as hard as it did some of the young campers.
    Each night of the week there was a program held in an openair pavilion. A speaker at the end of the first week challenged the girls whether their relationship with Christ was their own or something passed down from their parents. Amy’s heart was touched. Pushing away her shyness and swallowing her pride, she joined a number of campers at the front of the meeting. The speaker prayed with her.
    That night Amy had a living room dream. She found herself in the familiar place, yet she saw it through maturer eyes that could better appreciate the life it contained. Divine refreshment filled her soul like a cool drink on a hot day.
    She awoke to tears of joy rolling down the sides of her face. She no longer felt homesick; she’d come home.

    Jeff and Megan walked into the house as Amy put a potato casserole in the oven. Jeff gave Amy a quick peck on the lips that bore little resemblance to the passionate reunion between Kelli and Rick at the airport. Amy patted her husband’s broad shoulders. His first name was printed on the shirt issued by the window installation company where he worked as a foreman.
    “The book is done,” she said. “I sent it to Cecilia Davidson about an hour ago.”
    “Congrats.”
    Rick flipped through the stack of mail on the kitchen counter.
    “Speaking of books, isn’t it time for a royalty check?” he asked.
    “I put it in the bill drawer beside the computer in the family room,” Amy said, turning away from him toward the oven.
    “How much was it?”
    “Later,” she replied cryptically.
    Megan was standing in front of the open refrigerator door. Tall, slender, and graceful, Megan’s hair