Chapter 2
“I was lost, drowning in a sea of my own sorrow. My own life draining out of me in the form of red, metallic blood…”
There was a flash of blinding lights, a scream of agony that pierced through the night sharper then any double-edged sword, the thud of a body hitting the hard concrete and people rushing to my side…
The throbbing pain. Pounding sharper and sharper with each thud; sending tumors of arduous pain shooting up my frail body. I was dying, slowly and surely. How I wish to be safe in my sanctuary, as blithely as I once was. I could feel the life draining out of my gaping wound, the sirens of police fading away into the background. Too much noise. Too much commotion and lights. Too much…
I awoke with a start, eyes stung by the contact of laser lights right above me. Squinting appallingly, I felt my hands grip something soft and chaste. What was it? I took the material and held it up in front of my eyes, suddenly realizing where I was. Outside the door, a voice caught my immediate attention.
“Is he dead?”
“No, but the concussion in his cranium is deadly serious.”
“What happened?”
“A car was speeding. Unfortunately, he couldn’t dodge it in time. See that he gets immediate attention!”
“I’m on it, doctor!”
What’s going on? A car crashed into me? Am I going to die? Questions overflowed in my head, creating even more pressure and I clutched my invariability hammering headache, screaming with excruciating pain. I scarcely heard my door crashed open and a young nurse stood before me, the indistinctness causing everything to fade away.
“Doctor! What is going on…?”
I was falling. Falling into a dark unfathomable chasm that stretched on and on forever. The darkness all about me appeared inviting, now it was suffocating the air from my lungs, the happiness from my heart. “No…” but no sound uttered from my open mouth. I began to be incredulous, giving in to the impetuously inviting oblivion. There was no end, but then, there was never a beginning either. I am falling forever, and there was no one to save my doomed soul…
A flicker of light shone indistinctly through the dark, immediately bathing my aching body in its warmth. Trying to lift my heaving eyelids to see what it was, I felt someone pull me into a warm embrace. “My brother,” I opened my eyes, to see an unearthly form, composed of light and spirit, hovered above the darkness and an essence of kindness seemed to radiate from its lustrous body. “Who? Who are you…?”
Pain and realization burst in the form of teeming tears running down my reprehensible face as all of my sins were revealed in a blinding incandescent light. The agonizing corporeal pain disappeared from the wounds on my body; only I was left alone, sobbing in my ancient sanctuary of isolation. Only then did I experience the love of God, the one whose name I never regarded. His glory and grace rescued me from the trap that I had created for myself. His presence washed over me in an overpowering wave that lifted my broken spirit, bathing me in water so chaste and warm, nothing else could penetrate my opened mind. He was the one I needed…
The one who I thought redundant so long ago…
Ever since then, my life turned in a whole innovative direction. Imperceptibly, I recovered from my physical and emotional injuries and barely escaping the clutches of death, I went to the only one who could save me, Jesus Christ. I went to church to get baptized and my life was reborn. Nothing ever seemed the same, God revealed my exposures to sin and how susceptible I really was. So many things that I did not notice. I soon did not live for myself, but rather, to serve in His name.
