I’m shivering, huddled in a corner. No light reaches this place. Nothing but blackness meets my eyes, and the only sound is of my own ragged breathing. Although I’ve never experienced such a lack of light as this – I sense an even deeper blackness near me. Despite the cold – this black presence is what is making me shudder and shake. It is all around me and yet as I try to focus, my eyes can’t quite register it. It isn’t just cold; it’s a complete lack of warmth. It isn’t just dark – it’s the absence of light. It has never known light. It is more than black. Black is something that can be known and defined and this mass is not even that. It is not tangible and yet I feel as though it is the most tangible thing I’ve ever known. My mind is filling with it and it is as if I have never felt anything but despair. It is moving towards me, breathing and hovering and pulsating. But it does not breathe or hover or pulsate from a place of life, but of death. More than death. It wants to suck the life from me, to leave me not just empty; not just nothing, it wants to leave me as it is. It wants to absorb me until there is no trace of me left. Until I am devoid of all life or hope or existence. It wants to overtake me and pull me under to never resurface again. To be forgotten and lost for all of time, outside of the definition of time. Knowing only pain. It threatens me with its excruciatingly deafening silence. I am bleeding, I am done, I am finished, I am nothing. I am giving in. I am submitting myself to this blackness as it begins to engulf me, my skin is on fire, it begins to seep into my pores and skin and erase me.
And yet.
A Whisper.
It fills the empty silence.
A Whisper that calls me by a name, a name that I have never heard and yet I know that it is mine. A reminder of a home that I have somewhere, nostalgia for a place I have never been. Suddenly the darkness is no more, all of the fear and pain and threatening silence is drowned out by this still, small Voice. It is the sound of many waters. It is the sound of rocks crying out and stars exploding and a birch tree’s soft rustle in the wind. And this Voice calls me by name. If the darkness I felt was absolute, this light is more than blinding. It is more than radiant, more than warmth, more than comfort. It is I Am. The darkness has fled, I know no more of darkness – it is as if it was never there. The light has overcome the darkness effortlessly, personally, taking the place of where it threatened to seep into my pores. Instead of invading me, the Light is shining from within me. The darkness must flee.
I am as light as a cloud; I am as pure as a stark white lamb. I look up, I lift my eyes, I shift my gaze, and there He stands. My heart is bursting, His arms are reaching for me, pulling me out of the dust and muck and handing me a Robe of Light and a shining scepter and a crown of beauty instead of ashes. I am surrounded by His light, safe in His love. He is kissing my brow and singing over me and speaking my name, that name, the one only He knows. The name that says that I am radiant and beloved and perfect and righteous and beautiful and never, ever alone. His palms are scarred, He tells me the scars are for me. His rib is pierced; He looks on me lovingly and tells me He’d do it a million times over again just to be with me. He tells me I was never alone in the blackness; that He never intended to allow the blackness to overtake me. The blackness was never His desire for me but His nail-scarred hands tell a story of a winning battle, the Battle. A Battle in which we must first experience the darkness to fully comprehend the Light. He tells me stories of how He takes the worthless evil and uses it always in love and goodness for His children. He takes me through each moment of oppression and grief and abuse in my life and shows me He was there all along, weeping for me in righteous anger and pity but never allowing me out of His hand. He shows me all of the places I’ve been wounded and how they are nothing but remnants of a time long gone. I am healed, I am whole, I am full, I am satisfied, I am content, I am perfect, I am pure.
In this moment the laughter that has been bubbling up explodes from within me, I gaze upon His beauty and sing and dance freely before Him, praising Him for all that He is. I look upon Him in joy and wonder. His glory is more than beautiful, for how can define the beauty of the one who is Beauty? It is as if I have never known pain, never known loss, never known darkness. I know only Him. I am His and He is mine and I revel in the joy that this knowledge brings. I shout and cry and weep and praise,
Holy Holy Holy.
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.
