The grains of earth slowly surrounding me. One by one, they pile high, nearly covering my head. The light I see above is quickly fading, and the weight of it all is becoming more than I can bear. My own breath is crushing me.
The darkness has set in now. The full blow of being covered over has engulfed my inner core. I cry out, yet no one hears me. I try to see, but the deafening sound of darkness has blinded my eyes.
It is cold, and all that I had seems to be lost under the bleakness of hopes cut short. The noise I hear above me is nothing more than muffled sounds of pounding anvils.
What is happening?
The feelings of abandonment, feeling squashed into the deepest hole, that forgives not, the shame I have become. In my despair, the pounding increases, reverberating throughout my being. Oh where are You? I reach out for help, yet the depths of misery has become my closest friend, fellowshipping together in the dismal tomb that has become my home. In all my passionate pleas for answers, and the reasonings for the parched state I now live, I exist in sinking silence.
The pounding continues, ever increasing do I hear it. My hands cover my eyes, though I cannot see my hands. My eyes look upward pondering the fate I now experience. Laughter is all around me, mocking my condition.
But…..
Just then, the pounding becomes faint, and my anguished dried tongue begins to taste dampness upon it. Before I am able to realize what is happening, I am immersed in moisture and the icy feelings of abandonment slowly fade away. I cannot understand what is befalling me. My eyes struggle to see. My outer flesh is growing warmer.
Unknowingly, the moisture that brought my tongue refreshing relief, is now evaporating, as the warmth, outer to inner, permeates through me. Though the weight above continues to push me down, something inside me begins to counteract it. Something new, something exciting and alive is stirring inside me. An unknown force is driving me – ‘REACH OUT,’ it says, ‘REACH OUT!’
The darkness has slipped into darkness as my being begins to open up – somehow responding to the gift of the pounding anvils above and the heat from within. The destitute state I am in seems to be lifting, yet there is nothing that I have done to lift it.
I had fallen asleep, yet now awake to a rising explosion of breath.
I do not understand. From the moment I slipped, buried under with granules of pain, how could it be possible to ever feel this way again? Something is breaking over me. Looking up once again, the darkness is giving way to fractures of light. The pain inside seems to have given way, and what I once held dear, has broken the silence of this grave.
It is uncontrollable now.
What was lost is now climbing upward, drawn to the light as a magnet. Joy floods my being as I break the surface long forgotten. As my hands start to unfold for the first time in what appeared to be seconds unmeasured, I am standing tall. My hands open wide, responding to the light from above – yet how can this new life stem from the sting I once felt?
Pain, abandonment, and insecurity have now become the rooted platform upon which I stand. I never knew I could go so high, yet for some strange thought, could it be that all of this has come to explain the very purpose for which I was buried?
The answer has come…yes! For the very purpose in which I died, is the reason why you will have life. I have become the life that you may feed upon, because the fruit I now offer was born out of the void of being separated from you…a deepest darkness.
I am the Song of the buried…
I am the Seed who gave my life, so that from Me…you might also live.
Dedicated to Chuck…
— though buried, you will live — Psalm 38