She Stopped Praying—But Her Dreams Were Haunted By The Same Verse Every Night
Subtitle: A spiritual mystery woven in sleep, grief, and a divine call she couldn’t escape.
Chapter One: The Silence After Shabbat
Leah Cohen hadn’t lit the Shabbat candles in 18 months.
Her apartment in Jerusalem still held the silver candlesticks her grandmother brought from Prague before the war. Dust coated them now, muted symbols of a light she once knew but could no longer feel.
The last time she whispered the blessing over the flames, her husband was still alive. The night he died—Erev Shabbat—her prayers shattered with the crash of a siren and the cold knock of two soldiers at her door.
Since then, she had not uttered another word to God.
Chapter Two: A Dream in the Darkness
At first, the dreams were nothing but shadows—hazy and formless. But they grew clearer with each passing Friday night.
Always the same dream:
She stood in a field of barley swaying beneath a twilight sky. A storm brewed on the horizon. And from the wind, a voice spoke—not loud, but piercing:
“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath... and call the Sabbath a delight...”
The words wrapped around her soul like a thread pulling taut.
Every week, the same verse. Every week, louder.
“Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD...”
(Isaiah 58:13–14)
She’d wake breathless, cold with sweat, her heart racing—and angry.
“Why that verse? Why now?” she’d whisper into the stillness.
But heaven was silent.
Chapter Three: The Stranger in the Marketplace
It was Thursday when Leah noticed him.
An old man in a tattered coat, standing near the olive vendor in Machane Yehuda. He was staring at her—no, through her. His eyes held a strange, unsettling glow.
She tried to walk past, but he spoke.
“You carry silence like a cloak,” he said softly.
Leah froze. “Excuse me?”
He reached into his pocket and handed her a slip of parchment—creased and stained, like it had weathered many years in someone’s possession.
Then he walked away.
She unfolded it slowly. A single line written in ancient Hebrew script:
“And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested...”
(Genesis 2:2)
Her hands trembled. The verse pulsed in her chest like a second heartbeat.
That night, the dream returned.
Chapter Four: The Shofar in the Alley
Friday came. Leah wandered aimlessly through the city, unsure whether she was running away or being drawn toward something.
As the sun dipped low, a strange sound caught her ear in the alley near King David Street. A shofar. Not the polished kind used in synagogue, but raw, ancient, groaning like the earth itself.
She turned the corner.
There was no one there.
Only a small table with a cloth draped over it. On it rested a worn book—Tanakh—and a single challah loaf.
Taped to the side of the table was another note:
“The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
(Matthew 12:8)
Leah’s knees buckled. That verse... She remembered it from her childhood, when her grandfather taught her from the Gospels in hushed tones, fearful of judgment from the community that rejected Yeshua.
The memories flooded in: the joy, the singing, the warmth of Shabbat... and then the silence after her loss.
Chapter Five: The Song in the Wind
Friday night came. Leah lit no candles. But she didn’t sleep either.
Instead, she stood by her window, staring at the Jerusalem skyline.
That’s when she heard it.
Soft, like a whisper riding on the breeze.
A melody.
She couldn’t place it at first. But then, the words came back to her:
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy...”
(Exodus 20:8)
Tears welled in her eyes.
The song was one her mother used to sing as she tucked her in—an old Shabbat tune. She hadn’t heard it in decades.
And now it was rising from the empty streets below.
Chapter Six: The Candle That Lit Itself
Leah went to the kitchen. Her hand moved almost involuntarily to the drawer where the matches used to be.
She stared at the candlesticks—still dusty, still untouched.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
And yet, her hand moved to them. Gently, she polished them with the sleeve of her robe. She set them on the table. No candles.
Just the memory.
And then—without warning—the left candlestick flickered. A flame danced to life.
She gasped and stumbled back.
No matches. No fire.
Just light.
And in that moment, the room felt full.
Full of Presence. Full of Ruach. Full of something—Someone—holy.
She fell to her knees and wept.
Chapter Seven: A Shabbat Rest for the Broken
The next morning, Leah walked to a small gathering of Messianic believers near the Old City. She hadn’t seen them since before her grief swallowed her whole.
She stepped inside. The singing had begun.
“Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
(Matthew 11:28)
The word rest struck her like thunder.
She sat quietly in the back. The rabbi spoke of teshuvah—returning—and of the Sabbath being more than a law... a gift.
He read from Isaiah:
“If you turn your foot from the Sabbath...
If you honor it...
Then you will ride on the heights of the earth...”
(Isaiah 58:13–14)
Leah felt something shift deep within her soul.
The dream had been a calling. The stranger, a messenger. The wind, a song. The flame, a sign.
Chapter Eight: She Prayed Again
That night, Leah lit two new white candles.
The match struck.
She whispered the ancient blessing, voice quivering:
“Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam,
asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat.”
Her lips had forgotten the shape of the words—but her soul had not.
And when the flame caught, so did her heart.
She prayed again.
Not because her pain was gone.
But because her silence had ended.
Epilogue: The Verse That Stayed
Leah never had the dream again.
But she kept the parchment from the stranger in her Bible, and every Friday, before lighting the candles, she read it aloud:
“And on the seventh day God ended His work... and He rested.”
The Sabbath was no longer an obligation.
It was a reunion.
A mystery unraveled.
A song remembered.
And a gift unforgotten.
For those who have stopped praying...
For those who have laid Shabbat aside...
He still waits in the rest.
He still whispers in the wind.
And sometimes—He still speaks through dreams.
No comments:
Post a Comment