{"id":27268,"date":"2019-03-09T18:01:23","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T00:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=27268"},"modified":"2026-03-01T00:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T06:50:18","slug":"i-know-who-you-are-she-grinned-do-you-know-who-you-really-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=27268","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I know who you are,\u2019 she said. \u2018Do you know who you really are?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Until I dreamed about her Friday night, I hadn’t thought about this woman for more than two years. But as soon as I saw her eyes in the dream — and then felt her hands reach out for me — I knew who she was. She was a stranger who had spoken strange words to me in a store.<\/p>\n

It happened in October 2016. I told the story to my Facebook friends at the time, and I looked up my notes about it this morning. I was in the pharmacy section of Walmart when a frail and elderly black lady approached me and said gently, \u201cWould you still marry her if you could?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, ma\u2019am, but you must have me mistaken for some other ugly fellow,”<\/em> I said, trying to make light of it, “because I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

She put her hand on my arm firmly and pulled herself close to look up into my eyes intently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know who you are,\u201d<\/em> she said with a sweet smile. \u201cDo you know who you really are?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I was confused and a little freaked out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t know what you mean, ma\u2019am,\u201d<\/em> I said again.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do know what I mean,\u201d<\/em> she said firmly. \u201cYou might not remember yet, but you do know. You have to marry her. Your son must come from her. You need to remember.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

She released my arm and started walking away, but I followed after her, asking her to please explain what she meant. She waved me off and kept walking.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe knows the answer and so do you,\u201d<\/em> she said. \u201cI\u2019m just your reminder. But remember that I love you, son.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And she walked away, leaving me confused and feeling as though I\u2019d either just encountered someone important to me or else someone crazy. I never saw her again, so the story faded from my memory — until she showed up in my dreams last night.<\/p>\n

There was something striking about her hands. They were old and wrinkled, as you might expect from a frail older lady, but when she held them out to me, they were open — as though she was offering something to me.<\/p>\n

“Do you remember now, son?” <\/em>she asked in the same sweet voice. “Do you remember the woman who I instructed you to reach for?”<\/em><\/p>\n

In the dream, I reached out and took her hands with mine. She grasped my hands with a surprisingly strong grip.<\/p>\n

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me,”<\/em> I told her. “I want to understand.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“You know what you must do,”<\/em> she said in an echo of our real-life encounter. “Reach out to her. Touch her. She will know you by your touch.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Who are you talking about?”<\/em> I asked. I thought I might know who she meant, but I felt oddly reticent to say her name here.<\/p>\n

“You know her, son,”<\/em> she said. “Why do you hesitate when time is short? Trust what He has given you. I love you, but I will not be here much longer to watch over you. It is time.”<\/em><\/p>\n

And then she opened her hands and bent over slightly to kiss my hands which were still on top of hers. And then I woke up.<\/p>\n

I’ve had more than my share of odd experiences with people who seemed to behave in mystical ways. Do I attract crazy people? Or is there something which God — the Universe, the Creator, the Holy Spirit, whatever you want to call this — is telling me.<\/p>\n

A rational materialist would say the dream was just some random neurons in my brain recalling a strange woman from two and a half years ago and adding to a strange narrative. A much younger me would have assumed that had to be the case.<\/p>\n

But I’ve encountered enough strange and unexplained things in my life now that I can’t so easily dismiss such possibilities. Maybe I’m the crazy one. There’s no way for me to be sure.<\/p>\n

If I take the message at face value, what does it mean? Who should I reach out and touch? Who is it who will recognize me by my touch?<\/p>\n

It’s either a profound spiritual mystery or it’s random firings of neurons with no meaning. I’ll leave it to you to decide for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Until I dreamed about her Friday night, I hadn’t thought about this woman for more than two years. But as soon as I saw her eyes in the dream — and then felt her hands reach out for me — I knew who she was. She was a stranger who had spoken strange words to Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[535,293,476],"class_list":{"0":"post-27268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-prophet","8":"tag-psychic","9":"tag-spiritual","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-75O","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27268"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38724,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27268\/revisions\/38724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}