Love You to Life
It is dark here. There is pain that chokes the breath out of my lungs
Stealing the air that would have carried words into the world
I am unliving.
I am less than breath,
Breathless
The freezing waters overtake me,
chilling me to the bone while fire engulfs me
Singeing everything that I once held so closely
I bang against the cage that they used to bury me alive
I am suffocating
Arms shaking
Heart palpitating
Breath fading
My instincts kick in and I find the strength for one last struggle
Death can’t have me, not yet
Not like this
Not right now
I feel a million points of pain as the blade cuts through me
Draining out the blood from my faintly bleeding heart
I am no longer me
I am pain
I am suffering
I am lifeless
I am darkness
If God is love, then love killed me
The darkness is absolute now
So thick that it seems to be a tangible thing
swirling around me
Felt but not seen
I feel nothing
Perhaps the darkness seems so large because I have joined it
I am the darkness and the darkness is me
And then, all at once, little by little, I see, I feel,
The life
The light
I gasp with the breath of awareness
I squint at the glare of the sun
I am not just alive, I am living
The brilliance of the Son threatens to blind me
but for the first time in a long time I can see
The irresistible glow of life and living confronts my soul
There is still pain here
The pain reminds me that I am alive
The pain of losing who I thought I was is brutal
but I must endure
Because painful life is better than peaceful death
The sorrow gives dimension to the joy
The pain makes beauty take shape
The hope stands as light against the backdrop of despair
I was resuscitated as the real version of myself
The person that had always previously been defined by darkness
I was unable to see her, to know her before
But here she is
finally
The God assigned identity could finally open her eyes
She sees, she knows, she loves
Welcome to light, to life
Like a baby newly born into this world,
She cried in mourning of the familiar darkness
The comfort of being hidden and contained
Forever taking, with nothing required of her
Small and hungry
her growth limited by what she could see
a universe completely centered on her needs
To fully form was to be exposed
Naked and afraid in the light of day
With nowhere to hide
All the imperfections magnified
But out here she can breathe
Her cries are evidence that she is alive
Her heart beats and her soul sings free
Free from the death that once defined her
Loved,
by God
In death and back to life again
Loved to death
She is Born Again