From Static to Stillness

Last night I had one of those dreams that lingers.

I pulled two metal antennae out of my head.

Not gently. Not surgically. I just reached up and removed them, like they had always been there. I remember touching the holes afterward, feeling where they had been attached. It wasn’t bloody or dramatic. Just… aware. Curious. Almost relieved.

And then, much later in the dream, I was nursing a baby.

When I woke up, it felt symbolic. Not random. And the more I’ve sat with it, the more it feels like a picture of what this season of my life — and this season of Lent — has been.

For a while now, I’ve felt mentally overloaded. Not just busy — overloaded. So many voices. So many opinions. So many expectations. Family systems. Politics. Faith conversations. Social media. Cultural narratives. Old childhood beliefs. New revelations.

It’s like I’ve been walking around with antennae, constantly receiving signals.

Constantly scanning.

Constantly processing.

And if I’m honest, some of those signals weren’t even mine to begin with. They were installed in childhood. Fear-based interpretations of God. Family patterns. Ideas about authority. Ideas about women. Ideas about obedience and worth and silence. Things I absorbed before I was old enough to evaluate them.

The antennae in my dream felt metal. Mechanical. Not organic.

That’s what struck me.

They weren’t part of me. They were attached to me.

Pulling them out felt like a quiet act of fasting.

Because that’s what Lent is, isn’t it? Not just giving up chocolate or wine, but removing what doesn’t belong. Detaching from what feeds the ego, the noise, the fear. Stripping away what has attached itself to us over time so we can hear God more clearly.

“I don’t need to receive every signal anymore.”

That sentence has been sitting in my spirit this morning.

Lent invites us into the desert. And the desert is quiet. No constant updates. No crowd noise. No performance. Just you, your thoughts, and God.

Maybe the antennae had to come out so the static could stop.

Touching the holes afterward felt like examen — noticing where those messages used to enter. Not pretending they were never there. Just acknowledging them. Naming them. Offering them.

That’s what growth has felt like lately.

Not rebellion.
Not rejection.
Revelation.

I’ve been having these “aha” moments — the kind that don’t feel condemning, but freeing. Like God gently saying, “You weren’t ready to understand this before. But you are now.”

Lent isn’t about shame. It’s about clarity.

And here’s the part that moves me most.

After removing the antennae, I was nursing a baby.

That image feels holy.

Because once you stop absorbing everything from the outside, you finally have the capacity to nurture what’s growing inside.

Nursing is slow. Quiet. Intentional. Protective. It’s life-giving. It’s intimate. It’s not loud or performative.

It feels like this softer version of me I’m growing into.

I’m still strong. Maybe stronger. But softer. Less reactive. More grounded. More protective of my peace. More selective about what I allow into my mind and spirit.

Maybe the baby represents a new understanding of God — not the fear-based version I inherited, but the faithful, patient, revealing-in-seasons God I’m coming to know.

Maybe it represents my inner child finally being cared for instead of corrected.

Maybe it represents faith that is chosen, not installed.

Lent is a season of subtraction before resurrection.

You clear out.
You detach.
You fast.
You sit in the quiet.

And in that space, something small and vulnerable is born.

What if the goal isn’t just to give something up — but to make room to nurse what God is forming in us?

If there’s anything someone else might take from this, maybe it’s this:

You are allowed to question what you were handed.
You are allowed to disconnect from voices that exhaust you.
You are allowed to refine your faith instead of abandoning it.
You are allowed to grow into revelations you weren’t ready for at 20.

And Lent is not punishment.

It’s pruning.

Sometimes you have to remove the antennae before you can nourish the baby.

This morning, my strange dream doesn’t feel strange at all.

It feels like the desert.

And it feels like new life quietly beginning.