He Called, I Answered

     When I younger I had a best friend named Brenna. She was everything I wanted to be. Smart, creative, brave, quirky, and outgoing. We met in elementary school and spent every moment we could together. Countless sleepovers, yearly shopping trips with my Grandmothers, and summers spent camping in Graeagle California. We were inseparable, and some of my absolute best childhood memories have her as the centerpiece.

When I mentioned she was smart, I meant it. She was in the gifted and talented program at school, she was a super genius. Her mom once told us that when she was pregnant with Brenna, the doctors had told her something was wrong with Brenna and that she would need special care her whole life. She told us that they gave her the option to terminate her pregnancy, but she wouldn’t dare. Instead, Brenna came into this world a brilliant and blazing ray of sunshine. When it was time for 8th grade, Brenna was to be skipped up a grade and to enter high school as an international bachelorette. She brought me to her high school orientation, but somehow we both knew that our friendship was going to change.

I can honestly tell you that for the life of me I cannot remember what the fight that ended our friendship was about. But high school without Brenna was dark to say the least. One day my senior year, I was driving to my then boyfriend’s house, and for some reason, she came into my mind. I hadn’t thought of her for quite some time, but suddenly, the strongest sense of her came over me. I thought, “why did I let a stupid fight ruin our friendship.” Suddenly, I missed her desperately. “I need to call her, I need to reconnect,” I thought. As I arrived at my boyfriend’s house, the conviction to contact her left me as quickly as it came.

     A few weeks later classmate who was good friends with my cousins (who are close in age and also attended the same high school) approached me just before government class. “Hey, do you remember that girl you always used to bring camping,” he asked. “Brenna?” My interest was piqued. “Yeah that’s her name, she died...I don’t know what happened, some accident.” His voice trailed off, and the rest of the day was a blur. Brenna had graduated a year early as planned and as expected she was traveling the world. She was attending school in Cairo Egypt but was in Beirut teaching refugees to speak English. There, she had been in some sort of accident. She was declared brain dead and was taken off life support. The funeral had already passed.

     The rest of my senior year was also a blur. I had no desire to attend college, barely graduated high school, my GPA was hardly brag worthy, and I didn’t even take the SATS. My parents gave me space and time to be restless but eventually they gave me two options, go back to school (school and bills would be paid for) or get a full-time job and start paying my own way. I still had no idea which direction to go and was utterly hopeless. Then, I had a dream.

     I was in a small living room, with nothing but two black leather couches facing each other on opposite sides of the room. There were people talking to each other and interacting. I got the idea that it was some type of party. I was on one side of the room and looking toward the other side. Next to the couch across the room was a Vespa with a bent basket and tattered umbrella on it. And in front of the Vespa, stood my Brenna. My heart burst. I ran through the crowd to the other side of room and was hysterical by the time I got reached her. I was a blubbering mess. I apologized for letting our friendship end and for not mending the relationship. I told her how guilty I had felt and how I just couldn’t forgive myself. Breanna took both of her hands and placed them on my shoulders. “Listen,” she said. “That’s isn’t why I am here, so you can apologize. I am here to tell you that you must forgive yourself and get moving. You have a lot of work to do. I don’t have a lot of time, but I came to tell you that you have to move on and get going.”

     All of a sudden, the party scene was gone, and before us stood an elevator leading up to absolutely nowhere. In it stood an older nondescript man and woman. “I have to go,” she repeated. “I want to come with you,” I replied, as if I finally understood just where she was going back to. “I don’t belong here, I’m not like them, I’m tired of being here,” I pleaded. “Turn around,” she directed me to pivot. I turned to find a completely different scene. I’ve never seen any place like it, so describing it is a little difficult. It was almost like a cobblestone tavern, with a rock retaining wall holding back a pond surrounded by lush, deep green foliage of many varieties. The cobble stone walls were high and opened into the sky with no roof above it. The cobblestone floor created a pathway that led so far beyond my vision that I could see no end. Filling this curious scene before me were people, tons of people. They stood close together motionless and gazing straight at me. They stood on the retaining wall and filled the pond with water up to their calves. They filled the pathway and never seemed to end. I heard Brenna’s voice behind me, “do you see all of these people?” “Yes,” I replied hesitantly. “These, are all the people that you are going to save in your lifetime.” I didn’t speak. I just stared, stunned, and mostly confused. I turned around to question what I had just heard, but when I turned around, she was already gone. And just like that, I woke up.

     I woke up and instantly went into the kitchen to tell my mother about my dream. She has always believed in me and was just as fascinated by my dream as I was. “You should go write that dream down so you don’t forget it honey,” she advised. But I didn’t need to write it down, “I don’t think this is the kind of dream I will ever forget,” I responded. A short time later I was sitting on the front porch with my friend Rachel and was telling her about my dream and about my parent’s ultimatum. Suddenly she looked at me and said, “you should be a therapist. You would make a good therapist. After everything you’ve been through, I know you would be good.” Now, what she meant by “everything you’ve been through” is a story for another blog, or twenty, but her conviction struck me. It’s like, living in the dark your entire life and then suddenly, someone turns on the lights. It was literally electric. I felt it in my DNA, and I knew, that is exactly what Brenna meant.

  That summer I enrolled in our local community college and began classes. That summer, the girl who I had been in high school disappeared. The girl who snuck out, failed classes, was always seen at smoker’s corner (I’m so sorry mom), and who even got suspended twice, disappeared in an instant. I was getting a 4.0. I made the Dean’s list. I graduated with my AA and transferred to the University of Nevada, Reno where I finished my Bachelors and then went on to obtain my Master’s in Social Work. Today I am an LCSW and the clinical supervisor of my agency. The beads you see in the photo for this blog belong to a necklace that Brenna had made. I have it in my office on my desk and often find myself playing with it during sessions, I think it will be a staple in my practice for the rest of my career. How I got that necklace is also another story in its own.

In my dream, I fully believe that God spoke His purpose onto my dry bones. In that dream, God brought me to life. I obviously don’t believe that it’s me who is “saving” people as Brenna called it, but more that it has been God sending people to me so that He can do His work through me. Since then, I have never questioned His purpose for my career, and I am forever thankful for that. About a week ago, I felt God call me again. It wasn’t nearly as intense as my dream about Brenna, but it was a calling all the same. The calling was to start this blog. When the thought came into my head, I thought it was crazy. I ignored it. What would I have to write about? What could I have to say that would be worthwhile for others to read? The next day God answered. I don’t have anything worthwhile to say, I don’t have any great revelations of my own to share, but God does. He has so much to say to you, and through the testimony in my life, He is working to reach you and your heart. So, let my words not be mine, but be His. Matthew 10:20 says, “for it is not you who speaks, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you,” and that is why I am here, writing this blog in prayer that my words are Gods words and they find you exactly where your soul is in need.