The Sword and the Shield

 

The Sword and the Shield.

February 2, 2011 – An Allegory

II Samuel 22:31: “As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.”

 

Luke 2: 34-36: “Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against ³⁵ (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

This is a dream that I had back when I was 15 years old.  It was in the late spring of 1980 and I hadn't yet turned 16.  It was posted on the "Michaelsguardian" blogspot blog on February 2, 2011.  Google took down that blog and 12 years of work in December of 2021, so I am reposting the dreams I had here.

A Message for Grandpop 

 

She rests on her bed, face to the wall but she cannot sleep.  No thoughts in particular fill her head.  It’s just a restless night.  She wonders if she should have taken the weekend at home instead of staying at the boarding school.

 

Curious shadows draw her attention to the wall in front of her eyes.  There are two distinct shapes on the wall, long and rather sharp.  They don’t move but seem to become sharper in focus.  Her brows drew together in confusion.  This shouldn’t be.

 

She sat up and turned toward the closed dorm room door.  There was light from the hallway coming from under the door, but nothing she could see between that source of light that would form these shadows.  She turned back toward the wall.

 

The Shadows were now distinct, with sharp lines between the shadow and the light on the wall.  She moves her hand around in the air in circles, but no shadow of her arm appears on the wall.  It is then she discovers that the source of light throwing the shadow is coming from beyond the wall.  She pulls her arm down sharply.

 

The shadows were not ON the wall, they were IN FRONT of the wall. The light was coming from WITHIN the wall.

 

She sat strait up in bed, eyes wide.  The shadows were now solid forms, becoming three dimensional.   Oddly she was more in wonder of the phenomenon then she was afraid.

 

She reached out to touch the taller, thinner shadow in front of her, but the shadows again began to change. The light beyond the wall became more intense, illuminating what the shadows actually were.

 

As the images began to take on features and contours, She recognized the objects that used to be shadows.  One shadow became a very large sword, shiny, standing forward to the object to her left and back slightly. That second object was a heavy, incredibly beautiful, heavy shield.

 

With her mouth and eyes wide open, she marveled at the beautiful objects.  She this time reached out to touch the shield and the objects again began to change, slowly forming into two suits of armor.  The one that used to be the shield was slightly taller than the other.

 

When their form was complete, the girl stood from a sitting position, feeling the bed against the back of her knees.  The man in armor who used to be the shield lifted his face piece and began speaking to her.  She could see dark hair curl from under the helmet and heavy brows framing dark eyes.  The light growing bolder beyond the wall made turning on a light unnecessary.  The “shield” man began speaking to her, but it was in a language she did not recognize.  She shook her had no politely to try and tell him she did not understand.

 

The one who was the “sword” put his hand up to silence the “shield”.  She watched all this in wonder, slowly recognizing just who it was who came to see her.  She didn’t see him, because when the “sword” lifted his face piece to talk to her, he was still concealed from her.  But she knew who he was.

 

He asked her, “Do you know why I come?”

 

She shook her head no.  He then asked her, “Why do you cry?”  But she knew that he knew.

 

She bowed her head, barely able to speak through the emotion.  She didn’t know until then that she HAD been crying.  She finally spoke, “How do I know?”

 

She couldn’t see him smile but she felt it.  He asked her, “Why do you doubt?”

 

She replied, “I was young when I asked you to save me.  I wasn’t sure I even knew what that meant.”

 

He answered, “You came to me as a child.  You trusted as a child.” 

 

She looked up and asked, “but how do I know for sure?  How do I know my name is in the Book of Life?”

 

She felt him smile again.  He replied, “Because it is written.  You look in that book every day.  If you see it and believe it what more assurance do you need?”  His tone of voice was one of amusement – as one who would entertain the numerous “why’s” from a five year old, with incredible kindness.

 

Jesus placed a card in her hand.  It was on material she had never felt before.  It was gold and glittery, padded and pliable but firm.  Her name was embossed on the card.  She looked up at him and smiled through her tears.

 

“Do you know why I come?”  He asked.

 

“Because I doubt?”  She asked.

 

He replied, “I need you to do something for me.”

 

Her heart grew three sizes.  Jesus was giving her a task.  A warm contentment flooded and overwhelmed her to the point that tears again fell over her cheeks.

 

“I want you to tell your grandfather that you saw me.”

 

Her face slowly fell.  Thoughts swirled . . . Why?  Was her grandfather going to die?  Did he not believe in God?  Her grandfather was the one staple of stability in her life.  Surely he believed in God!

 

“But, he won’t believe me.” she replied back to Christ.

 

“You must tell your grandfather that you saw me . . .” and Jesus and his “shield” partner began to slowly fade to the point they were see through, then disappeared.

 

She awoke the next morning, which was a Saturday.  Even though she had not signed to go home that weekend, she called her stepfather on the payphone to tell him she was coming.  “Do you want me to pick you up?”  “No”, she said, “I will walk”.

 

Outside the building she hesitated.  She could either take the shortcut across the field to her left, or follow the long, narrow path through the woods that ran along the embankment of the highway.  She just had to tell her grandfather, so she opted for the short cut.

 

She broke the border trees lining the property of the school and into the field.  She walked on until she crested a little knoll and saw the abandoned barn in the distance.  She groaned.  She hated that barn.  She always heard noises in there.  Whenever she walked past and had a bad feeling about it.

 

As she approached the barn,  she slowed, then stopped.  She heard noises.  This time it was noises of kids.

 

She dropped her bookbag to the ground and entered the barn.  The barn was empty, dusty, and the chaff and dust were highlighted by streams of sunlight coming in through the cracks between the boards of the barn walls.  She climbed the ladder.  The sound must have been coming from the loft.

 

As her eyes crested the edge of the loft floor, she could hear the panicked wings of a morning dove flying off to safety.  There was nothing else up there.  The floor was strewn with old straw, dust and a few bales of hay here and there, but nothing else.  She climbed up onto the loft floor.

 

She looked around and up at the pitch of the roof.  She then noticed five or six bales of hay in a semi-circle near the front window of the loft, as if people had gathered for campfire stories.  But as she approached, what she saw made her want to leave.

 

In the center of the semi-circle of hay bales was a pile of opened and scattered girlie magazines and a couple of empty liquor bottles.  She let out a sigh and one word escaped her lips –

 

“Boys…”

 

She heard a noise outside that startled her.  It sounded slightly familiar. She ran to the loft window but stayed back in the shadows.  Then she heard the beeping horn.  With a wash of relief she saw her step-father’s Ford Pinto pulled up just outside the barn.

 

She hurried down the ladder, scooped up her book bag and hopped into the car.  “How did you know I was here?” 

 

He replied, “I came to pick you up anyway.  I know sometimes you come this way and I saw your book bag.”

 

She was thankful.  She did not tell her stepfather what she saw in the barn.

 

Her grandfather came to visit them and She did what she was told to do.  She looked her grandfather square in the eye and told him, “Jesus told me to tell you I saw him.”

 

He looked at her blankly for a minute, then kind of chuckled.  “What do you mean?”

 

She became less sure, “I saw Jesus in school and he told me to tell you I saw him.”

 

With a look of amusement on his face, he asked her, “Were you sleeping?”

 

With a steady voice she replied “No. I was awake.”  Her grandfather countered, “Were you in bed?”

 

She answered, slightly irritated, “Yes, but I was awake.”  And as sure as she told Jesus the night before, her grandfather dressed her down about  the difference between dreams and reality.  Sulking, she walked away.

Back at school that week, she had one surge of panic when she began looking for the golden card that Jesus had given her.  She ripped the covers off her bed, the sheets, pulled out all the drawers in her dresser and night table and could not find it.  She sat on the floor and cried.  Maybe it was a dream.

 

That Friday, she signed out to go home.  She wanted to walk it.  This time, she took that straight and narrow path through the woods, up on the ridge along the highway.  It took longer to get home, but at least she didn’t have to pass that horrible barn.

 

She realized as she took the path a ways, that leaving after classes on Friday left her at a disadvantage.  It still got dark early and if she had waited until Saturday, she could have left early.  She stopped and looked toward highway down on her right.  Then to her left.  If she cut through the woods to that field, instead of going all the way back, she could still get home before sun down.

 

After a second’s hesitation, she left the path and veered left into the woods.  She ran to try to save some time. 

As she ran the underbrush seemed to be getting thicker.  That wasn’t making any sense!  She was heading back toward the school property which bordered that field.  The woods should be getting thinner, not thicker!

 

  She looked at where the sun was in the sky, toward the west, and she ran toward it.  The sun was getting low.  She stopped again.  She looked and couldn’t even see a clearing. 

 

She could feel panic building up.  The sun was getting even lower and she was now lost in the woods.  She had a horrible week at school, her grandfather didn’t listen to her and of all sins, she lost that beautiful card that Jesus had given her, causing her to doubt all of it was even real.

 

Frustrated, she began to cry.  As she began to pray, suddenly a distortion of the trees in front of her occurred.  At first she thought it was just her tears, so she rubbed her eyes.  It was almost as if there was a mirage forming in front of her giving the outlines of the tree trunks an almost liquid look.

 

The distortion took on a pearly-grey look, then solidified and two distinct but familiar shapes began to form, deepen then solidify.

 

The quickly changed from their symbols of the sword and shield to their armor personas.  This time the “shield” was quiet, but took off his helmet.  Jesus only lifted the face piece to speak.

 

“Why are you crying?”  (same as before).

 

She cried, “I’m lost.  I left the path to find the short cut so I could get home before dark and now I can’t even get back to the path.”

 

Jesus said, “listen”

 

She did.  Very faintly, she heard the sounds of the highway.  She looked toward the sound, knowing the path was within eye sight of the highway.  She turned back to Jesus who told her, “Stay on the straight and narrow path. Leaving the path for short cuts will only serve to divert you from your destiny.”

 

She remembered the verse Matthew 7:13: ¹³ “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.”

 

Jesus asked her, “did you tell your grandfather that you saw me?”  She bowed her head and answered, “yes.  He did not believe me.  And I could not find the golden card you gave me.  The one proving I was in the Book of Life…”

 

Jesus replied, “It is in your Bible.  It has always been in your Bible.  You must tell him you saw me.  Tell him with faith.”  And he slowly faded away.  She found her feet back on the path she lost and she followed it home.

 

Back at school the following week, she was against disheartened.  For the second time, her grandfather did not believe her.  However, when she got back to school on Monday, she checked her Bible and sure enough, there was the golden card sticking out of it.  She excitedly opened up her Bible to touch it and as she opened it up, the card disintegrated into golden dust and dissolved in front of her eyes.

 

The last line of “gold dust” that faded was lined up under the verse of John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

 

The Book of Life that God gave us was the Bible, she thought to herself.  Our proof, and our assurance is in there.

 

At the end of the school year, she was helping the librarian pack up books to make room for the new ones coming in for the fall semester.  She did this as she waited for her family to pick her and her belongings up.  One of the secretaries came up to tell her they were waiting in the lobby.

 

As she took her last small box of books up to the storage, a familiar silhouette formed in front of her on the stairs.  No one else was around.

 

This time he was in a white robe, no armor.  He had the eyes that drew your soul to him.  He asked her, “Did you tell your grandfather that you saw me?”

 

“I did.  He still did not believe me.”  She said solemnly.

 

As Christ faded, she felt a hand on her shoulder.  She turned and walked down the steps to the second floor hallway, then from there to the main stair case and down into the lobby.

 

She could still feel the hand on her shoulder.  She spied her family sitting on the lobby sofas, with their backs to her, facing the main reception counter.  She walked around and stood facing them, right in front of her grandfather.

 

Her mother, step-father, brother and grandparents were there, her sister was not.

 

“Grandpop”, she said looking him directly in the eye, feeling peaceful.

 

He looked up without answering. She said to him, “Jesus told me to tell you that I saw him.”

 

His face began to crumble in contest and agitation.  She felt the comforting hand leave her shoulder, but she envisioned Jesus walking over to her grandfather and placing his had on her grandfather’s shoulder.

 

Suddenly, her grandfather sat upright.  A parade of expressions crossed his face; shock, bewilderment, confusion, acceptance, recognition, then peace.  A slight smile softened his face,

 

“Bonnie, I believe you . . .”

 

This is a dream I had when I was fifteen years old.  My grandfather, true to this dream never believed me the numerous times that I told him about the dream.  It was a little over this time last year that I told him for the last time, Jesus told me to tell him that I saw him. 

 

He was in a hospital bed and could not speak.  We were in such bad shape financially I could not even afford to go down and see him but somehow, someone in our church found out and the deacons came up with the money to get me down there one last time.

 

That was the same weekend that my husband’s mom gave me the “Man in the Mirror” picture book of Michael when I stopped in to visit on my trip down.

 

That’s the same weekend that he watched me from the front seat of my car on an eleven hour trip.  And the same weekend that on the way back home that Sunday, after pulling out of the rest stop in Mount. Jackson, Virginia, with “Man in the Mirror” playing on the radio, that my grandfather passed away.  I found out when I got home what time he had passed and I had checked the time on the clock because it was at that time when I called my husband to let him know how far I was from home.

 

Before I left him that Saturday, I had waiting for mom to leave the room to talk to the nurse.   Leaned over to my grandfather, who had really been my father most of my life.  I leaned to his ear and whispered, “Grandpop, I know I told you this many times before throughout my life and you always gave me a hard time.  Jesus told me to tell you I saw him  . . . This time when he puts his hand on your shoulder, just say yes . . .” 

Revelation 17:8
The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

 

 

 

 

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