Old Men Shall Dream

 WRITTEN IN MEMORIUM

MOTHER'S DAY

May 13th, 1934

"AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS"

Having regard for dreams is not necessarily superstition.  Dreams are often meaningless, and only composed of confused thoughts and ideas having no logical relationship to each other.  They are usually quickly forgotten, often as soon as the sleeper awakes.

But who may deny the possibility that God sometimes speaks to the human heart and consciousness through the medium of dreams or visions of the night.  Such was often His method in olden times, and His power to speak to the children of men still continues.

This is why I am about to set down in writing the following experience.  Not that it may remain more clearly fixed in my mind, because no power on earth could efface the memory of that dream, or dim the vision that was given to me on the night of which I write;  but as a tribute to the memory of the one of whom I speak.

I was a man past forty years of age when my mother passed to her reward.  A dear soul who had walked with the Lord throughout a long and useful life-time.

As the years went by and age crept upon her, mother's hair became gray, then white;  her shoulders became stooped and bent with infirmity;  her face, always beaming with reflected heavenly glory, became seamed and wrinkled by the finger of time;  mother's voice took on much of the quaver and treble of the bodily feeble;  mother's step became slow and uncertain.

These things became more noticeable as time went on;  but as the body wasted away, the spirit still burned brightly.  Mother's body became old but her spirit remained ever young.  There came a day, when those who watched beside her bed heard, as with a whispered breath, her last words, "Our Father, who art in heaven," and "Rejoice in the Lord always;  and again I say, Rejoice."  And mother had passed away to be with her Lord.  Her spirit had gone to be with Jesus, but the worn out body still remained.  This was consigned reverently and tenderly to the earth to await the resurrection day.

A man never becomes so old that the loss of his mother does not bring a physical and mental shock.  It is the breaking of a tie that has existed since birth;  and with that bereavement there is lost a human contact with the past that is never, never, regained.

As the days grew into months, and the months slipped into years after mother's death, my mind tried again and again to grasp the vision of what mother had been in the flesh in her younger and stronger days.  The days in which her motherhood first began to influence and mould my childish years.  But the vision was gone, and ever and anon, as my mind struggled with the difficulty, there would only come the picture of her last days, beautiful to be sure, but marred by age;  mother as I last saw her alive, mother upon her death bed, mother's worn tired face resting peacefully in Jesus.

That was not the mother of my boyhood;  and as time went on, the cry and prayer of my heart seemed to be, "God, do not take away the memory that remains, but give me more;  give me back again the memory and the vision that years of wandering and carelessness and sin has robbed me of, that I may treasure it in my heart until I die."

God answered that unspoken prayer of my heart, and this is how He did it.  A dream, all unexpected, in the still short hours of the early morning watch.

I was walking down a muddy and mirey road toward the west carrying a heavy burden upon my back.  A rain storm was beating down upon me, and all was gloom with storm clouds over head.  At last the rain ceased, and the clouds began to break away in the west.  It was just at sunset, and the gold and crimson shades of the setting sun not only transformed the storm clouds, but touched and glorified the weary way I was traveling.

Just then I paused before a beautiful mansion upon my right hand;  and as I lifted my eyes to the open portals of that mansion, I beheld, standing upon the threshold, my mother.  Not bent and crippled with age, but young, and strong, and beautiful, as she was at the time of my earliest recollection.  Her raven black hair was about her forehead and temples, the pink flush of health was in her face.  With rounded cheek and full bosom, she stood looking intently, with dark lustrous eyes, out into the sunset glow.  Mother always loved the sunset.

Unconsciously my burden slipped from my shoulders, down upon the mirey path at my feet.  Gazing up into mother's face, I wondered if she would look away from the sunset beauty and discover her boy, standing in the muddy roadway.  But no, her eyes were fixed upon the glories of the western clouds, her face lit up with a heavenly light, and joy unspeakable seemed to tremble upon her lips in an ecstasy no human tongue could speak.

I, too, unable to utter a sound, turned my eyes to that glorious sunset scene and without knowing how or why, reached down, recovered my fallen burden, and walked on down the difficult path, away into the evening glow.

At the moment of waking I realized God had given unto me the real, the true, the living image and vision of mother, and that it would remain with me as long as life continued, and until that vision is replaced by her resurrected and bodily presence, at the coming of the Lord Jesus to awake those who are asleep in Him.  Tears and sobs of mingled joy and sorrow shook my being to it's depths as I realized the vision was of the Lord, and had been given to me as a token of heavenly assurance and comfort.

A. J. P.