War

The world's filthy muck has a dark hold of me.
My feet are death gripped by the heavy sludge of sin and rejection.
A once beautiful creation, now marred and disfigured. Covered in the stench of blood and death, I reel with doubt.

Evil clings. Weaves and lies it's way inside to become one. It reigns.
Movement only sinks my feet deeper still as all feeling hardens to stone.
The rancid smell of sulphur steaming from hell below, seemingly streams with laughter down the bars around me. Air has turned thick with ash of the bodies claimed before.
Terror tightens my chest. My lungs seize.  My breath shortens and ever living again becomes but a dream as I sink lower still.

The war raged on inside of me but the outcome had seemingly already been written. The ending had already begun.
I struggled. Death beckoned. Then threatened. Hands were useless. Words are empty. Life was definitely slipping away.
The blackness grew stronger. Hope left. I was alone. I could taste the bitter end.
As my last tear fell, I shuddered and became limp as steamy hot breath engulfed my neck.
"Succumb," he hissed, "succumb."

"Jesus..." a prayer flowed from desolation. The rush of the Spirit instantly opened my eyes. My heart confessed and started beating once more.
"Jesus," I whisper again through parched cracked lips as I strain to keep my head above the suffocating nothingness...
"I need you."
"I need YOU."

Instantly my feet we're met with solid truth. Light and life stream from the blackness of the furthest corner of my prison. My broken heart felt again. Relief. Gladness.
I was drenched in renewed strength and joy bubbled from the depths below as out of the blackness my feeble body rose, resting steadfastly on a large wooden cross.
I fell to my knees. Trusting. Staking my faith in Christ and His death on the cross. Which is forever constant. Able. Enough. The end to all ends.

I turned my face into the strong cleansing wind that had begun to mightily blow taking with it the stench of death and the crippling weight of sin and mortality. The disfiguring thickness of earth's mire melted from my skin. Clarity came. Movement began again. Freedom won.
As I turned to face the wind, I saw following closely behind, a mighty roaring refining fire. Purifying. Cleansing as it engulfed. Painfully burning away parts of me twisted with cords of evil. Completely breaking it's hold on me.

Walls crumbled. Hell defeated, roared away, being eaten alive by pure light. Perfectly beaten.
My frame, lifted up as a feather floating to safety became utterly drained of failures. Disappointments and fear. Being filled instead with healing light.
Dead to mortal life. Giving up on me. Hoping once again in Him. Alive. Alive.
Healing tears of joy streamed down my cheeks and soaked into fresh soil below the new green grass-a growing season had now begun. A newly washed heart healthy and thriving, blossoming under the goodness of grace.

"Come"  He said beautifully as only a heavenly melody speaks. "Hold onto me." Grace poured from his lips as Jesus reached out, both arms streaming with light and love, revealing his scarred wrists. My hands lifted to embrace His. He smiled tenderly and pulled me safely to his side, "Come, walk with me again, dear one", as we turned towards Heaven, His all-encompassing presence swallowed me up to glorious eternity.