September 28, 2007
In a land where dreams and nightmares walk and make war with one another, there once was a kingdom ruled by a wise king and beautiful queen. It so happened that after many, many years of longing, waiting, and suffering that a child was born to them. The child was without equal in beauty and people from miles around marveled at her grace. Upon her rested her mother’s queenly countenance and her father’s majestic bearing. As tokens of their royal blessing upon her, the queen gave their daughter her royal earrings. The father of the girl, whose name was Gloria, gave her a locket that housed within its golden shell, a fire that he himself placed there.
Some people, I may happily report, rejoiced and celebrated her birth, recognizing Gloria’s arrival into the world as a divinely ordained event. Others, not so happy about it, gnashed their teeth and muttered curses under their breath and into one another’s ears, for while only some actually had delusions of usurping her place as the royal favored one, many simply hated her for jealousy’s sake and plotted her ruin.
One particularly evil and bitter woman, who of old had chosen to hate the royal family and all that it stood for, had learned the arts of “dreaving” (the weaving of dreams of others according to her purposes and designs). The foul practices of dreaving had been banned from the land for the king wished his people to live in contentment with their blessings and avoid the snares of covetousness and envy. Nor did he desire for them in jealousy to harm one another and thus disrupt the peace of his kingdom.
Nevertheless, when Gloria had grown to adulthood, her father and mother permitted her to venture at will throughout their palace. Although they longed for her fellowship and the joy of setting their eyes upon her face, they knew that she was to journey through a time of testing. After trial, trouble, and travail she would again be restored to them, their fellowship sweetened all the more in spite of the harm that evil would contrive against her.
As she walked throughout the castle, the crone of bitterness was prepared. Sitting in a corner of the palace as far from the presence of the king as could be, she sat on a small stool weaving her webs on a loom. Gloria was transfixed by the artfully moving fingers of the old woman and approached her. The crone smiled encouragingly and, as Gloria reached out to touch the loom in wonder, took hold of her hands and moved her fingers to touch the fabric that had been woven. Instantly, into the mind of Gloria leapt images of palaces and pageants greater than she had ever known. As she stood there, she stroked the cloth spellbound by the magic that was being worked and failed to notice that the smile of the old woman had changed ever-so-slightly to that of amused malice. The hag had woven into her fabric two needles, the points of which were laced with sorcerous spells that would sedate and paralyze the heart of those whose flesh was pierced by them.
In one moment her wickedness achieved its end. Gloria’s hands, trailing along the edge of the fine weaving, were each pricked by the poison barbs hidden in the cloth. Gloria’s eyes glazed over and her heart was rendered immovable, asleep to those things that had once made her beautiful. She quickly turned from the loom and the old woman as if she could no longer see them and strode from the dark chamber. She quickly returned to her private room and began to gaze at herself in her mirror. She walked and talked as though she were alive and awake, but her spirit was cold and her eyes closed to the lives of others around her. She began to plan and prepare for herself new gowns and parties at which she would be celebrated. While she had once been known for her kindness and regard for the poor, she became harsh and selfish. Her once beautiful countenance, celebrated and loved by all those whose lives had been blessed by hers, was replaced with vulgar vanity and ugly presumption. The king and queen were grieved and it seemed to them that their daughter had died. Often they attempted to awaken her heart to their love and open her eyes to the people she had once helped. But her heart seemed surrounded by a girdle of thorny pride and enviousness.
Worse still, all who came into contact with the king’s daughter found their hearts also pierced by the magic that had claimed her. Their hearts also swooned into a deep sleep of complacency and selfishness, filling their minds with dreams that were totally contrary to their duties and gifts. The sleep of the jealous crone soon spread from the princess to the king’s subjects far and wide.
After a time, the king, knowing that he would be forced to pronounce judgment on even his own daughter lest his kingdom be overthrown by the sickness in their souls, resolved to find healing one last time. He and the queen sent word far and wide for any man who would be bold enough to try to reach their daughter’s heart. “Who shall I send? And who will go for us?” the royal proclamation read.
“I will go,” answered one young man, who entered their presence. He was lowly in appearance, yet within him glowed the light of devotion to the king.
“Do you realize the danger?” the king asked solemnly. “I do,” the man replied. “Then go with my blessing,” the king said, “for in you do I see that there is a fire by which you may yet kindle her sleeping heart.”
He parted from the king and found the princess gawking at her reflection in a large mirror in another part of the palace. At first, he was repulsed by the appearance of the girl, covered as she was by filth and a thorny growth that emanated from the spell that had trapped her heart and now seemed like a second skin. He remembered the danger that he too could be lost to the evil magic, but he remembered how beautiful she once was and a desire to see her beauty restored moved him to act. She was lost in the ongoing daydream in which she was all that was beautiful and worthy of praise. So she did not see him until he was scarcely inches from her. She vaguely tried to push him away for he obstructed her view of herself, but she could not. “Wake up!” he said softly but firmly. “I’ve been sent by your father to awaken you.” A rage seized her and she struck at him. Her blows hurt and doubt for a moment stirred within him. But as despair reached out for him, he saw needles in Gloria’s sleeve and avoided their touch. “Wake up,” he said again. “Your father is calling you. Do you not hear? Do you not care?”
And then the fire which had been burning within him cast a spark that was caught in the locket that Gloria’s father had given her. The light which had for so long been dimmed and nearly gone out, sputtered and then burst into a new flame. The fire in the heart-shaped locket grew and seemed to catch fire to Gloria’s dress and even to Gloria herself. At first it burned and she cried, but it merely burned away the calluses that had covered her heart and the sleeping spell which had smothered her devotion to her father and mother and drowned her compassion for others: she was set free with all the former ugliness burned away. She and the young man joyfully ran before her father and mother. She cast herself at his feet, begging forgiveness. Her father stood up and, taking her hand, raised her to her feet. “Daughter, this was all that I desired.” And truly the fellowship that Gloria, her father and mother, and the brave young man who had risked his own life, was sweet and victorious. The bitter old hag, however, was banished from the land, but still hoped one day to lure the young princess back into the slumber of complacency.
Christians today can fall under the spell of complacency, dreaming dreams of pride and selfishness. If you have fallen asleep to His love, and a thorny hedge of indifference keeps you from reaching out with compassion to others, ask God to revive the fire of His love in your heart today.
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘…I know your deeds; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of My God. Remember, therefore, what you have seen and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. You have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with Me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white” (Revelation 3:105a NIV).
(Thom Mollohan and his family have ministered in southern Ohio the past twelve years. He is the pastor of Pathway Community Church, which meets on Sunday mornings at 455 Third Avenue. He may be reached for comments or questions by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com).
