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A vivid encounter involving roadkill, hockey, and bad guys

By now I think it's pretty clear that God loves to speak to me through my dreams. Here is a vivid dream I had after returning from the 2012 Undergrad Retreat.

In the dream, I was walking down State Street (towards Yost) when I realized I was being chased by some bad guys. In an attempt to escape, I ran into a barber shop (pretty sure it was this one Imageactually) that ended up being a secret passageway to a UMhockey game. As I was walking down the hallway from the barber shop to the ice rink, I noticed a copious amount of roadkill near my footsteps. I DESPISE dead animals (yet alone live ones :X) so I started getting really disgusted, repulsed, and discouraged at the sight of dead birds, squirrels, and dogs on-my-way to the ice rink. I thought I could avoid this discomfort by turning back, but was confronted with a flood of (live) dogs running right at me soon-after. I couldn't handle that either and ended up leaving the arena and the barber shop, back on the streets where I was even more vulnerable--to attack by the bad guys.
Because this was such a vivid and strange dream, I decided to ask God for wisdom to discern what all of this could mean. At first I had no clue what the heck this meant (or if it should mean anything at all), but as I surrendered this to God ("God, I have no idea what this means..") I began to recognize God through it. 
So.. what did this dream mean? God used this dream to warn me of what was to come in the remainder of the year. The roadkill and animals I encountered during my journey to the rink symbolized the difficulties and discomforts I would be confronted with as a necessary "rite of passage" in my pursuit of Christ. As tempting as it is to cringe and to want to give up, I need to embrace these difficulties to overcome them, rather than cower away and turn away entirely. I'm either all-in, or all-out; facing my fears and overcoming them, or cowering away and never maturing; I head towards Christ (the rink), or give up all together and join the enemy's side (the bad guys on the street).
God really used this prophetic dream to prepare me for the tough year ahead. I've never been confronted with so many fears/insecurities or struggled as much as I have this year, but it's been so worth it. A verse that helped me have hope in the midst of the hard times is John 16:33 when Jesus says "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

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