I got a phone call a few days ago from a very close friend. The call came early in the morning, and the first thing she said, other than, “Did I wake you up?” was, “I have to tell you about the dream I just had.”

I love phone calls from her that start like this. She has vivid dreams that often seem prophetic in nature, and are always profound and inspiring. In this one we – as well as several other friends – were on a plane. The flight was almost over when the pilots got sick and were unable to land the plane. A call went out into the cabin for someone who was able to land the plane. When no one answered, my friend was told she had to take the controls.

“I can’t land the plane,” she argued, thinking – even in her dream – about the recent tragedy in the French Alps, where a co-pilot killed 150 people by crashing the plane into the mountains.

“You are the only one capable of doing this,” she was told. She looked around and saw that everyone was watching her, trusting her to land the plane. Then she saw me, and the look in my eyes told her, “You can do this. Go.”

In telling me about the dream, she said we had an entire conversation without actually saying a word. And it gave her the courage and confidence to go into the cockpit and land the plane. Which she did, successfully.

We were on a layover, and as we started to board our connecting flight, my friend was told that she needed to fly this plane, too. She protested, saying that she made the emergency landing, but now we needed a real pilot for the rest of the journey.

“No,” she was told. “You have to fly the plane.” She did, but the second landing was much bumpier than the first, and the tail of the plane broke off as she landed. She was upset because she had let everyone down, and also because she realized she would probably be sued by the airline. But another friend who was on the flight told her not to worry.

You got all of us here safely,” he told her. “That’s what we needed you to do.”

I think I was even more excited about my friend’s dream than she was – partly because what happened in the dream is something I have often told her in real life. Not about flying or landing a plane, but about being a leader. She is someone that people respect and trust. And she is much more capable than she realizes. I think she has a great mission in life to fulfill. She just needs to believe it. And to trust that she can.

That’s probably true for most people, which is why we should always encourage the potential – and the greatness – we see in others. Often it is the faith that other people have in us that gives us the courage and confidence to discover all that we are capable of. And to achieve the kind of success we might otherwise find only in our dreams.

The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on April 9, 2015.
©Betty Liedtke, 2015

Have you ever had a dream that you found to be inspiring, profound, or prophetic? I’d love to hear about it! Please be aware, though, that all comments will be moderated and approved before appearing on this blog. This is to protect all of us from unwanted spam.