The darkness is complete. Silent. Suffocating. In the stillness you can detect no sound. Not a whisper of air is moving. It feels like a tomb and would be except you can hear your own heartbeat thumping in time. It will be a tomb soon enough if you can't figure a way out but who could when you can't see your hand in front of your face!
You feel around but there is only emptiness. There are no walls, no furniture, nothing. It feels like you could go on forever running full out and never trip over anything yet continually afraid that you might. It's the worst kind of prison.
The darkness is complete. And in your desperation when all hope is lost you cry out. You can't even tell if you said anything, just gave relief to your pent up anger, frustration, and fear. An animal cry that doesn't even echo so vast is the emptiness. When the last breath escapes and you gasp to recover your air the silence returns. But an instant of hope occurs as you think maybe, just maybe, someone could hear you.
In that instant hope arose, that moment before all is lost and you tumble into forever black, a crack appears and light stabs the dark! At first it's blinding, this tiny ray of light. But you blink away the aching of your eyes as you desperately cling to the hope welling inside you. There stands a doorway. Light illuminating the edges. It's open just a crack.
You want to cry out but something inside you holds back. Strange thoughts betray the hope inside and you begin to doubt that anything good lay beyond that door. You realize that you have become used to the darkness and it's anonymity. The hope begins to fade and the door begins to close. At once your on your feet sprinting for all your worth to catch it before it closes. But you seem to never get closer nor does it seem to be outpacing you. And the door closes. Hope dies.
Tears flow freely at this point. You weep as would a child who wakes from a nightmare and finds an empty bedroom. But the thought occurs to you that there must have been someone who opened the door! You scream, "Please! Whoever you are don't leave me here! Please come back!" And you wait. That tiny flicker of hope returns. So does the door.
Knowing from previous experience that it's no good trying to go to the door you begin to plead with whoever is there. The words tumble from your heart as you express your regret and confess your shortcomings. And plead if they would only allow you to exit this hell that you would be content to be nothing more than a slave in the employ of this doorkeeper. Pride dies, and so does a life.
The door swings wide. Light, glorious and pure vacates the darkness. You stand exposed and naked before it. It is all around you and through you. There is nowhere it does not shine. And you find that you have been on your knees, begging.
The figure in the doorway embraces you like a son and lifts you to your feet. You feel strength return to your limbs and the agony of loneliness flees you. He says in a voice so pure and so filled with love that your heart breaks from the sound, "Come. Enter into the joy of your master."
A life is born.
The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. John 10:3
'Behold, I stand at the door and knock' Revelation 3:20
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7
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ReplyDeleteSo very well written! I am with you every step of the way. Your words walk me into that dark space and I feel every bit of the panic and despair. I see the light I feel the urgency. ~ In my life, I have been to this place and each time He has opened the door and welcomed me in. He has forgiven all that led me there. He has made me safe. He has made me whole.
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