Adapted from the story of someone in a Dallas area prison

A long rebellion, full of loved ones bailing me out, drug use and distribution.  A trail of broken relationships, short trips to jail and running to stay one step ahead.  A deal gone bad.  Shots fired.  I was hit from ten feet away with a 12 gauge.  Blood everywhere.  Sirens.  Trauma.  Bleeding, bleeding, bleeding.  Heart attack.  Flat line.  Charge.  Stand back.  Clear.  Beep……………………

Thick inky darkness.  Sickness.  Brokenness. Pervasive.  Consuming.  Unrelenting.  Engulging.  Like grit in a sandstorm.  Choking.  Suffocating.  Inescapable separation and solitary isolation.  Bone aching loneliness.  Writhing restlessness.  Crushed and pressed, but not destroyed.  Ache and searing shocking gnawing pain.  How can I be this dead and have every sensation so fully engage in torment?  Sensation so overwhelming poignant and strong yet stiflingly dull.  Pointless.  Unending.  Hopeless.  Black.  Black.  Black.  Unknown.  Isolation.  Consumed with memories of something beautiful, ordered, colorful, majestic, peaceful, joyful, provisioned, loving, kind and good.  Loving and graceful yet so very obscure and distant. 

To know fully, but to be fully unknown, tortured, abused and defeated.  Oh my God….nothing…nothing….nothing.

Howls, screams, anxiety, terror, deceit, stagnant, rivers of regret and unheard tears.

Dead and Desperate.

For years I had beauty, power and provision, while others looked in broken silence.  Now I am left ugly, powerless and completely bereft of all that is good or even mildly tolerable.  Now others enjoy….

This is the hardest thought of all.  Somewhere there is a city whose builder and maker is God.  A great impenetrable gulf. 

A place where people live and move and have their being.  Light yet deeply rich with beauty, engagement, provision, acceptance, acknowledgement, restoration, healing, love, purpose, connection, acceptance and belonging.  Abiding overwhelming love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, patient and self-control.

Too fantastic to imagine, yet it fills every excruciating endless moment.

A place in His image, with rule and dominion.

Hopeless, Hopeless, Hopeless

Utter futility, yet impossible to sit still and not writhe in some long insane attempt to escape.

Impossible.

Unworthy, unclean, minstrel filth , wretched, permeating stinch, rancid mire.

Who will rescue me from this body of sin and death?

Adulterer, Liar, Manipulator, People Pleaser, Fearful, Faithless, Debtor, Fraud, Swindler, Angry, Fearful, Idolater, Lustful, Pornographic, Abuse, Self Consumed, Murderer.

Worthy is the Lamb, but I did not accept the gift.

GUILTY!  GUILTY! GUILTY!  COMPLETELY…

From before the foundations THE HOLY TRINITY is perfect love, joy, unity, purpose and harmony.

The self-existent unchanging made a change and chose, the only thing that love must do – give itself.

He chose to share Himself.  This is the story.   How did I miss it completely?  Too fantastic to imagine.  So very obvious.  Love spoke itself into a gift.

LIFE

Life in His presence

To be in His presence is fullness of Joy!  Oh to get this out of mind.

Overwhelming joy must respond.  It cannot be restrained.

Joy screams victory over darkness, but I can only scream at joy.

To see Him to enjoy the gift that was given – is to pour yourself out in PRAISE!

I would not.  Now I am poured out in the emptiness of self-worship.

I didn’t want Him and now I don’t have Him.  I didn’t want His fruit – Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Faithfulness and Self-Control.  Now I don’t have it.  Not even a whisper of it.

To cease praise it to cease to see Him clearly.  Now I can’t see Him at all.  I curse.  I blaspheme.

The Lord is Good His Love Endures Forever.  Why do I now see this more clearly that all of the Christ followers on planet earth combined.  He was patient.  He brought so many opportunities.  I am guilty and without excuse.

104 units.  Charge.  Shock.  Compressions.  Bag him. 

It seemed like forever.  Lights.  Brightness.  Pain.  Pulse.  Heart rhythm.  Shouts.  He’s back.

Tears.  Tears.  Tears.

Hosanna in the Highest!

Love has come.

I have been given another chance.

Oh Lord I’m sorry.

Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

You see at just the right time while we were still putrid wretched sick and enemy combatants.

God did.

But God being rich in Mercy – gave

What God always does – He gave himself.

He ensures.

He pursues. 

He is slow to anger, abounding in love

God makes a way

He renews.

He restores.

He cleans.

He heals.

He protects.

He rebukes.

He provides.

HE takes great great delight in me.

His thoughts of you outnumber the very sands of the sea.

He rests in quiet delight as He sings over me.

From the abyss to adoption as Son of the Most High.  Sealed.  Cleaned.  Establish.  Cleaned.  Holy.  My title is transferred.  He owns me and He will never ever let go.

I have been baptized into His name.  I have been endorsed and countersigned into His name.

I am not my own I have been bought.

HALLELUJAH I am His.

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