Weakness and Obedience, part 2

In an instant … it’s all over. I am alone, cut off … invisible and immaterial. Surrounded by those I love, who go on with their lives as if oblivious to my sudden disappearance. No—they are oblivious, because though I move in their midst, I cannot be seen or felt.

Frustration flashes through me, because although I’m gone, I’m not allowed to depart. I’m required, for no good reason I can see, to stay around, to hover and observe, pray and assist in my silent way.

I realize suddenly as I flit here and there that to one, at least, I am not invisible—the one who lived with and loved me best, my husband, sees me and somehow is granted understanding of my purpose, where such is denied me.

And then my two oldest children.

And slowly, as I continue to labor in silence and obscurity, I become visible to others, and less immaterial, until at one point I beat my fists against a wall in renewed frustration, wondering why I am not released, since I was so obviously done with this portion of existence—

And then I awake.

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I am not given to what I would call prophetic dreams, but this one wouldn’t be shaken off. It didn’t have the feeling of pervasive evil that marks a spiritual attack, so I wondered if it could merely be a product of my anxiety over various things. Finally I dared to share the dream—silly though it seemed to me to do so—with a few of my closest friends. Three different people felt that the dream spoke to where I was with my writing—the sudden “death,” the obscurity, the role of servant. And yet—and yet—as I had already seen, albeit dimly, the act of serving in relative silence and invisibility would be the very agent of eventual freedom for me—and as part of the process, a treasure-trove of lessons in its own right.

In the meantime, God had begun to graciously lift the veil in other ways …