Lent 34 – Fear No Evil

Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for You are at my side
With Your rod and Your staff
that give me courage.   ~  Psalm 23: 4

          Many years ago, someone dreamt that I would go down a dark path off a highway, by myself. The person told me that in the dream, she tried to stop me from leaving, but that I continued to make my way into the deepening darkness. In her words, she said,

But you went. And you went bravely.

          That dream actually foretold a coming sorrow in my life, one I could not have foreseen, and a descent into seeming interminable darkness. What it did not show the person who dreamt of me, was that the dark would one day give way to light, and I would be freed.

          In the wee hours of this morning, on this precious day of the 18th of March, I prayed for the healing of the bloodline of this person who dreamt of me so many years ago. It was just a simple prayer: I placed the bloodline into the 5th wound of Jesus, the Wound of the Sacred Side of Jesus as well as of the Heart of Christ.

          Later, as I read the Responsorial Psalm for today, something within me lingered over the 4th verse,

Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for You are at my side
With Your rod and Your staff
that give me courage

I recalled the dream from many years back but soon tucked it away. Then, I went to what was a fulfilling workday.

          But returning to my car late in the day after work, I discovered that the rear windscreen had completely shattered. My car was parked close the security checkpoint so it was a safe location. Colleagues from work checked everything and everywhere and it did not seem to be the result of any mischief. The windscreen could have sustained a small crack at some point which we did not notice, which might have led to its complete failure today.

          Very strangely, except for a slight sense of dread at having to drive very carefully to make it home without having the windscreen explode on me and the fact that my husband was working outstation for two days, I was completely calm and even cheerily resigned to what had happened.

          Until now, as I type out this post, my heart remains untroubled. My husband did ask earlier in the evening once I informed him about the incident, if I would go ahead and continue to pray about the bloodlines of any more people. I didn’t have an answer then, but in the silence of the night and alone at home, I do now. Whether this incident is related to my prayer or not, what must be prayed about must be prayed. Satan must never be allowed to win. Am I certain that this is his doing? I guess I am because inexplicable, violent smashing seems to be his call sign. He smashes when he has lost to Jesus. Years before, again on a night when my husband was working outstation, satan had wrenched a Crucifix in my home, attached securely to its hook and smashed it to the floor a distance away because I had, for the first time that night, prayed to love my crosses. Satan adamantly thwarts any prayer, but I have come to understand that there are some to which the reaction will be particularly violent. In my case, the prayer to suffer for Christ was one. And now, the prayer to purify bloodlines of generations of sin.

          Protected by the Blood of Christ, I prayed again for bloodlines to cleansed, because

I fear no evil, for Jesus is at my side;

With His rod and His staff, He gives me courage.