Dreams that Still Haunt Me

I had a dream that still haunts me and reoccurs from time to time, often with some different forms, or I'll just see flashes of the scene, but it still comes and goes, as it has for years.
In the dream, I walk into a sanctuary. The pews are stained so dark, they're black, and everything is covered in a layer of dust. The place has a smell that is a mixture of an old church (anyone has to know what that smell is) and evil, like rotting blood or dead bodies. The ceiling is open all the way up, and the same dark stain coats the rafters and the walls.

I stand off to one side, to the right in the back, under the choir loft. Someone is standing with me, but I don't know who it is. I never look. I believe it is a man, but I don't know who he is. I get the impression that he's from my more recent life. He's from my now. He doens't know of my past, and he doesn't understand what is going on.

There is another man standing center stage, rage pouring from his being. My family is standing in front of him, namely my parents, and this man, this pastoral-like figure, is pure evil and full of fury. I stand in the back, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything, while this evil man brutally slaughters my family in front of me, letting their blood spread all over. The figure next to me doesn't understand anything that's going on. I want to scream. My body shakes. My body shakes when I can't cry. My body shakes when I'm furiously angry. I look down at my legs. My thighs are splitting like ball park franks with huge horizontal slices that bleed profusely. I'm trying to pull down my skirt over the wounds, trying to cover them up and hide them while watching my family being killed. Figure next to me is confused. He's looking at my legs, taking hold of my elbow, saying my name. I don't know what to say to him. The pastor's eyes are full of evil fury and he looks at me.

I wish I had had this dream three years ago, even two years ago. I wish this didn't still haunt me. I had this dream about three months ago. It's one of many like it, though this is the most detailed dream I can remember anymore.

I don't understand it, and I'm not too sure I'd even want to. What I do know is at some point, while we were in the process of leaving my XC, someone spoke to my mom and said that the congregation would rather see my family's blood in their aisles than have us back in fellowship. I know that makes the dream seem pretty obvious. But it's been five years, and I've moved on from so much of it, you'd think I'd be able to get to a point where I at least wasn't still having the dreams.

Do spiritual wounds, such as the ones so many of us carry, ever really heal? I don't think time heals things like this.

I'll be honest, I've tried to leave and ignore so much of it, so much of my faith even. I closed my eyes to spiritual things a long time ago because I was so weary and beaten down, and so young, I just didn't want to deal anymore. I left my town and the life I've been living has barely lined up with the perfect little christian girl I was before. I honestly don't regret most of it . . . but I thought once I wasn't immersed in that church anymore, in all the evilness that was there and all the lies that were being told, I thought once I was free from those bonds, the dreams would stop and I would heal.

Apparently, I was wrong.