On the Other Side of the Wall

Several days before my recent trip to Rhode Island, I was about to fall asleep when suddenly, I saw a brief vision. It was like a movie projector was switched on in my mind’s eye, played for a few seconds, and then switched off.

Rarely do I see visions, but I am not surprised by them. We know that when the New Testament Church was birthed, the Book of Acts records the Apostle Peter citing the Book of Joel in his sermon:   "In the last days," God says, "I will pour out my Spirit on all people."  He then continued with a declaration that followers of Christ will see visions and dream dreams, both which have a supernatural source and purpose. 

God doesn't often speak to me this way, but I know it's biblical; and when He does, I pay attention, test it, write it down, draw it if I can, and wait for the interpretation.                                                          

THE VISION   In my vision was a small section of a wooded area on what appeared to be the edge of a property.  Sunlight was shining through a bit, but the trees were pretty close together in some areas and there was a lot of shade. There was a stone wall. In this scene I saw the back view of a middle school aged boy walking through this wooded area. No shirt on, just denim shorts, and shoulder length sandy blonde hair (could not see his face). There was a high stone wall on the right side of the perimeter of my view (I was viewing him from behind). The boy was walking slowly near the wall, his right arm was extended and his fingers were touching the stone wall as he was walking along. It was a very high wall. Then the projector in my mind’s eye switched off.

Always in the past I have had some idea of what these visions mean as I am seeing them. But this one didn’t make sense at all.  In fact, I didn’t wake up remembering the vision because nothing was familiar about it—I had no reference point. It wasn’t brought to my mind until several days later.

The Cliff Walk ~ Newport, Rhode Island

Fast forward to Barrington, Rhode Island, several days later. I went to stay with friends and was out on a 2-mile run, preparing for my 5K run I was going to run in 2 days on the Cliff Walk in Newport. I was running the 5K as an act of faith. I have been working through physical pain for well more than a year (first my foot, then knees, then hips and back, then all my joints). I hadn’t been able to run for over a year now. I read about Cliff Walk in a travel book, and something stirred in my spirit when I did.  I believed that God was calling me to meet Him there on that 5K course and that there would be a supernatural breakthrough for me regarding my chronic pain. Not just a physical breakthrough, but a mental one too. Trust me, as with most people with chronic pain, I was needing to see light at the end of the tunnel. You can't understand this journey if you have not walked this hard road.

On this day when I was preparing for my Cliff Walk run, my friend dropped me off at the dead-end of the highway that led back to Zion Bible College campus. She and her family are temporarily living there, waiting to move in to their new home. Even though I had been running/training in a pool and had gained some strength and flexibility, I didn’t know if I could make the run from the campus and back, so she dropped me off where the highway ended near the water.

Although I was still having some back and foot discomfort, it subsided temporarily while running because of blood flow. I was cautious and took my time, and it was a good run. A quarter mile out, my arch in my foot gave way, and I couldn’t run anymore; it was too painful. I knew I could make it back walking, I just could not run anymore.  I was not discouraged though. I had come here to run Cliff Walk as an act of faith. I was going to be obedient to what God asked me to do and let Him determine what success looked like. 

As I was heading back to the campus I was trying to get my bearings. I wasn’t sure how far I had to go. I hadn’t come this way before because I didn’t start my run from the campus. Having poor sense of direction, for some reason I was expecting to see the campus up ahead on the right side of the road.   I was trying to look ahead to spot it.

THE ENCOUNTER  On my left, I found myself at a wooded area of what I realized was the front of the Zion campus, at the southeast corner, not far from the entrance. It sneaked up on me because it was on the left, and I had my eyes fixed ahead on the right.

I walked a little bit along the sidewalk next to the walled perimeter of the campus. Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. I knew those trees. I knew that wall. I knew that wooded area on the edge of a property.Out loud, with jaw dropped, I said (rather, gasped), “This is the place! This is the stone wall in my vision!" Only this time, I was viewing it On the Other Side of the Wall.



In my vision was a small section of a wooded area on what appeared to be the edge of a property.  Sunlight was shining through a bit, but the trees were pretty close together in some areas and there was a lot of shade. There was a stone wall.



Wait. I thought for a moment and realized, this couldn’t be the wall; this was a short wall, in fact, it came just above my waist.  Even so, it was a strange reflex, but spontaneously I reached my hand over the wall and ran my fingers on the inside of the wall, like the boy did in the vision. I just had to touch the inside of the wall. I wasn't sure why at the time, but I just had to.

Within a few seconds of walking away from that spot and toward my friends’ campus apartment, doubt creeped in again!  I had decided that it still didn’t make enough sense. This couldn't be the wall in my vision. A short wall? It didn’t fit. I have had enough mentorship and discipleship in the area of biblical visions to know that visions should always be brought before the Lord and “tested” to see if He is the source. And sometimes we can mistakenly project our own meaning and interpretation based on what we know in the natural. But I was reminded this week of the principle, "Don't doubt in the dark what God told you in the light."

So, I turned it over to the Lord. If this vision was from Him, He would have to explain it and confirm it. I left it in His hands and went on my way.

I had prayed for an interpretation, and it came that next morning. I have learned to dialogue when the Holy Spirit speaks like this. Questions are important, and seeking and receiving clarification is part of the beauty of the process...the interpretation unfolds, often over the course of several days.

THE INTERPRETATION The message in this vision was for me and told the story of deliverance from my place of chronic physical pain and the mental breakthrough needed to get on the other side of it.  The stone wall that the fingers of this young boy's right hand was touching as he walked along the perimeter of this property was very high, too high to scale. This represented me inside my world of chronic pain. While the pain is real, the season has been long and I had found myself inside of the wall, at property's edge, stuck in this place. I could touch the wall, but could not scale it to get to the outside. The outside represented breakthrough.

In light of that, it was interesting that I was on the OUTSIDE of the wall when I found the wall in my vision at the front corner of the Zion property. It was the reason why I was preparing for the Cliff Walk run and planned to do it in spite of my pain.

THE QUESTION: "But why a short wall, Lord? It was a high wall in the vision."                      

THE INTERPRETATION:  From the inside of the wall, the one who suffers from chronic pain has the perspective that the wall is high and insurmountable. But it is not ["With my God I can scale a wall! Psalm 18:29]. Often we don't have that perspective until we are On the Other Side of the Wall, on the other side of the physical pain, on the other side of the mental barrier. And that mental barrier can be as thick and high as the stone wall in the vision that had imprisoned this boy, had imprisoned me.

THE QUESTION: "Lord, why were the boy's fingers touching the inside of the wall as he was walking along?"  

THE INTERPRETATION:  He lived on the inside of that wall for a long season. He knew that wall, it was familiar to him. 

THE QUESTION: "Why my spontaneous reflex to touch the inside of the stone wall at Zion when I realized it was the stone wall in my vision?"

THE INTERPRETATION:   On the Other Side of the Wall, you could see the wall was short enough to crawl back over at anytime. We instinctively want to return to what is familiar, even if we don't want to be "there" again.

THE QUESTION: "If the message was for me and you were speaking a word to me through this vision, why didn't you portray a young girl like me at that age in the vision, with shoulder length, light brown hair? Why a young boy with long, light sandy brown hair?"

THE RESPONSE: "Because there is someone else I want you to share this vision with."

God sovereignly gives us instructed tongues, so that we will know how to speak a word in season to those who are weary..."

Isaiah 50:4, paraphrased

Praise God, two days later I completed the Cliff Walk 5K, running strong at the end with no foot injury.

It was a challenging and unpredicatable course, not unlike this journey I've been on. 

But that's another blog post!