Chapter 8: THE SHIELD OF FAITH.

I FOLLOWED THE SOUND of the child crying until it ceased, and I was left standing in the root-tangled hallway. When my focus narrowed to my own surroundings, I saw that the light had changed. The passageway had once been brighter. However, as I traveled deeper into this root system, the hallways were becoming darker and darker.

Without warning, I heard the rattle of something on tracks. Then, almost immediately, several linked steel cars rounded a corner. They rattled from side to side, sort of like old roller-coaster rides, and stopped near me. The paint was peeling from the dented compartments, and the once shiny plastic seats were now gummy and torn. I saw the name "Decisions" on the grimy hood of the lead car. The cars stopped before the entrance to a large root. Prominently displayed over the door were the words "The Swill."

Ruach appeared and spoke tensely: "Prepare your shield." I looked toward the area that would have been His face, if I could have seen it. "What is swill?" I whispered. "It is the canker that eats the heart as the mind and spirit battle for ascendency. Prepare your shield," He reiterated. I thought, "I don't understand." While trying to work out the reply in my mind, I rotated the shield from the location across my back, where I had stashed it. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. I half blurted out: "I'm sorry," I said. "What is swill?" Ruach helped me fit the shield onto my left arm as He answered: "It is the slop fed to hogs." His answer stunned me.

Suddenly, another angel appeared near the waiting coaster ride. Ruach welcomed him in a low voice: "Knowledge." The angel was tall and noble in countenance. He wore a garment covered in Bible verses. I also noticed that he wore chest-high wader boots with a good deal of his garment stuffed into the top-under his suspenders. "May I join you?" He smiled but spoke in equally low tones. "Please," I answered. Then I caught my error in protocol. "I mean, if it's alright with You," I asked Ruach. "More than alright," He affirmed, "for Knowledge has been assigned to accompany you." Ruach took my right hand to assist me into the nearest compartment. "Knowledge, this is our Anna." Knowledge bowed at the waist. I tried to do the same (which does not work as well when climbing into a narrow compartment). "Please," Ruach said as He gestured for Knowledge to climb into the compartment near me. Knowledge obliged. "I am pleased to be here." He smiled as he sat down. "Wait," I whispered, "where is your shield?" "I'm getting behind yours." He smiled. I choked a laugh. "Well, that's good to know." The car lurched and then began to move forward. I was as excited as if going on a roller-coaster ride. "We're going!" I turned, smiling toward Ruach, who was being left behind. "Remember your shield," He called tensely. I held up my shield, but His words dampened my momentary lightheartedness.

We bumped through a couple of padded double doors into an inky half-light-the sort that somewhat conceals the scary pop-ups in carnival sideshows. "Lift your shield, Anna," Knowledge urged. I had just lifted it when two fiery darts hit it and bounced off. "Just in time," he laughed. "That was Despair and Guilt." "They are on fire!" I blurted out in alarm. "No one said that they would play fair," Knowledge said with a smile. "But who would shoot at us?" I asked as more and more fiery darts bounced off the shield. "Former friends," Knowledge said, ducking behind the shield. "Friends?" "Demons," was his blunt answer. "They once desired the things of God, but when they turned, it was not just a little; instead, they deliberately stood against all they once supported. Now they not only oppose God having His desires but hinder others from serving Him. There is no one more vicious than one who was once for God's purposes and then turns to stand against Him."

All of a sudden, we dipped and began to sink. "Wait a minute!" I cried out involuntarily. "Lift your shield!" Knowledge shouted. "But we're sinking," I blurted out. Honestly, I could not see why lifting my shield would help. Maybe we could use it as a paddle. I could see now why Knowledge wore chest-high waders. But all I could do was follow instructions. I lifted my shield high just as the arrows named Disbelief, Distrust, and Doubt drove deep into the plastic seats, trying to attack the shield of faith. "Whew!" Knowledge exhaled after being missed by such lethal projectiles. I pulled them out and extinguished their fire in the surrounding goo even as we sort of bumped down another notch into the putrid soup. I thought to myself, "I'm thankful I can swim." We were bombarded suddenly by dozens of arrows-too many to read. Creeping fear sent a chill through me as a javelin by that name hit the shield and thudded off into the swill. Slowly, we were sinking up to our waists in the garbage. Severed human hands and animal parts floated on the surface. The stench was dreadful.

I could see many people struggling in this swamp of Swill. Some were having difficulty keeping their heads above the slop, and some were clinging to their partially submerged roller-coaster cars, thinking those could save them. Within the swill were Berkshire hogs having the time of their lives. These hogs had enormous ears. (I supposed that they were the reason we were whispering before the ride began.) On the bank, dozens of these massive swine were luxuriating half in and half out of their scrounged holes. Hopelessness began to hang in the air like a black cloud. I saw other hogs with nets that they were throwing into the slop to catch people as though they were fish. The people were trying to stay afloat, but there seemed to be little resistance to being caught. It looked more like coping on their part-reasoning their way into some sort of mental acceptance. Sometimes it seems that if we get dragged down low enough, we join forces with our captors: some kind of spiritual Stockholm syndrome.

"That's what it is," I confirmed within myself. "They don't believe God will save them. They have lost faith." I was reinforced in this revelation as I saw many trying to eat the slop right along with the pigs. Just then the gears on our car clogged, and we stopped. "The swill," I shouted to Knowledge. "The swill is Unbelief!" I was so stunned by this revelation that I missed two flaming arrows that sank deep into the top of the plastic seats. Knowledge grabbed them. They were little ones-Wavering and Misgivings-but they were burning quite a hole in the plastic. "Trust in God, Anna," shouted Knowledge as suddenly he was being swept away but was still clamoring to help me. "Remember," he cried, "he who comes to God must believe that He is and " I could see that I could not reach him, but I wanted to encourage him, so I called back: "And He is a rewarder of those who seek Him," I chimed in, completing the phrase.

Knowledge called from even further away, "God never abandons those who fight for His cause." "Trust in Him alone," he called loudly, from an even greater distance. And he was gone. "What is the matter with me?" I thought. "That's what I need to do, cry for help." I cried out, "Help me, Lord!" "Help, Lord," I shouted again. "I'm sinking!" I began to talk to myself frantically: "Remember, His desire to save me is greater than anyone's desire to destroy me." I began to build myself up on my most holy faith. I remembered that when Peter walked on water toward the Lord and began to sink, he cried out to the Lord, who immediately saved him. Others in the swill began to cry out in the gall of their bitterness, for they were trying to extract themselves in their own strength. "Lord, help!" I cried louder. But He did not answer. He answered Peter but not me. And I could no longer see my traveling companion, Knowledge.

Something from within the Swill began wrapping around me and pulling me down. I kicked at it. I could feel suction cups, like tentacles, attaching to my body. "Why doesn't the Lord help me?" I asked myself, panicking. "And where is Knowledge?" There is a point when even the most faith-filled child of God feels so overwhelmed that he begins to lose heart. I was so discouraged. I could feel myself letting go. I slipped into a stunned melancholy. I was going down and began to justify letting go. I was seeking salvation from the only One who could give it. I believed He would rescue me. But where was He? I began to sink to a depth to which I was unaccustomed. Generally, if sad, I did not drop further and further from the light into a black funk of depression. But now I began to slip stonily into self-pity. I felt myself being pulled under, but I was so disimpassioned by the struggle that I justified my actions. "Why fight it?" I wondered. "Perhaps surrender would be peaceful." I thought I might as well give up and let it take me under-I felt so overwhelmed.

Softly, I began to resist less. With less resistance, I slid deeper into the Swill. Strangely, as I sank, a story Bob Jones (a prophetic minister) told me flashed into my mind. Bob grew up in the mountains of Arkansas among people that held bitter grudges and often took violent revenge. He told me that while in the VA hospital, before he was saved, he planned to sneak out at night and cause terminal harm to several people against whom his family sought revenge. Afterward, he calculated, he would sneak back in before dawn, thereby giving himself an air-tight alibi. However, before he could put this plan into action, Jesus Christ appeared to him in his hospital room and stopped him. After Bob repented and accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior, the Lord spoke to him in the vernacular of the Arkansas mountains, saying: "I do not want to see you wallow in self-pity ever again," and Bob didn't. The Lord told him that self-pity led to the feeling of victimization, and victimization led to bitterness, and a root of bitterness led to retaliation. While sinking, the Lord brought that story back to my mind because that was exactly what I was doing; I, like the hogs, was beginning to wallow. Self-pity was dragging me down into depression, and depression-like a many-tentacled octopus-was pulling me down into black despair and unbelief.

Suddenly, God Almighty stirred within me. He gave me abounding grace. It was like light in the darkness. Grace gave me the power to change my decisions. Immediately I was so shot through with hope and faith that it seemed to me that I was in no peril at all. I tingled with expectancy. I shouted into the void: "Blessed Lord, You are the One who saves Your own. You love me and will not allow your beloved to see corruption. 'I know that my Redeemer lives, whom my eyes will see, and not another,'" I burst forth in exuberance. "I know You, Lord. I know Your promises, and I know Your heart. We are in covenant, Daddy, sealed in the blood of Your only begotten Son, Jesus. I will not fear for I am already seated with You in heavenly places. You will deliver me from this trial. But even if You do not deliver me, let it be known that I will not serve another God. I will serve You alone, my Redeemer and my King." Knowledge appeared and grabbed the half-submerged shield and pulled. I was hanging onto the shield, and miraculously the roller-coaster ride also began to surface from the slop and vomit. People floundering in the goo shouted and cried abuses at me as I was being airlifted out.

A loud ping rang from the shield.

Suddenly, I and the car passed through some sort of "car wash." Water sprayed from all sides-taking my breath away. Then blowers nearly pulled out my hair, drying me off!

Out I went through padded swinging doors again into the hallway. I was clean, and even the coaster car looked new. Looking at the front of the hood upside down, I could see a word had been uncovered from the gummy dirt which had hidden it before we went through the wash. The car hood now read "Faithful Decisions" emblazoned in gold. Everything looked so new. Distantly, I could hear the multitude of people in the Swill of unbelief crying out. Some had begun to cry out for the Lord-which was encouraging. Some were railing in the hog wallow of bitterness from which I had been supernaturally removed. The cars came to a halt amid the tangled roots. Knowledge walked out through the padded swinging doors with a broad smile on his face. "Knowledge!" Ruach exclaimed with joy. "She did well," Knowledge said, continuing to smile. "Thank you." I reached out to shake his hand as he passed. He looked down at my hand, puzzled. (This is obviously not a custom in Heaven.)

"Thank you," I said as I grabbed his hand to shake it in a way that said, "This is a way we thank others." He caught on and shook my hand vigorously. "You will see Knowledge again," Ruach said. "Yes, you will-but now I must leave you. The great King be with you." Knowledge bowed at the waist to Ruach and smiled at me as he left. I started to peek at my Father's mantle but decided to wait.