I thought that nothing could fill the darkness. I thought the light was darkness and wrong, right. It was paralyzing, fearful, deceptive. I tried to look away, but distraction doesn't work for long.
The shadows take form and grow. Time moves slowly enough because we are young, but there is nothing to do with it. Each of those moments, one right after the other, are wasted, thrown away.
I wish I had them back now that I would fill them.
It was desperation that called me out of the darkness, an ache for something more. I needed truth, but the is truth subjective, right? How could you reach out and grab it if it was always changing?
"The final truth is there is no truth," went a song whose title I can't remember now. But I remember who sang it. A good man, mostly, but he was still wrong. Some things are true.
I did not believe the Bible until after I met Jesus. Not really. I believed some of it was true, or nice, somewhat useful, but that large portions of it were out of date because the truth had changed with time. My version was unfulfilling. Unsatisfying. Ineffective. Shallow. Wanting. This, even though I had a tremendous experience with God in the past. But I was still not willing to see Him for what He was. I preferred the darkness because it did not require anything of me. I was starving to death, but I didn't know that what I needed was food.
What happened? I met Jesus.
I went forward at an altar call when a man came and spoke at a church I was visiting. He was an evangelist on a television show, a Christian teacher with a series of problems in his life that the Lord helped him overcome, some quickly and others he is probably still overcoming. So I went forward. I prayed with someone, a woman I think, one of the church members. But let me back up. I'd actually prayed this prayer before that, but with reservations. By the time I went forward at that church on that day I had no reservations, only hunger. I gave up. And let me tell you, that made all the difference. I was ready for God's way, not my way. And I was transformed. I had been one thing and now I was another. That moment changed me.
One of the first differences I recall was that I could now see and believe that there was a right and a wrong. No more moral relativism. No more what's right for you is right. You may think I was put off by that. But for some reason, I found it very comforting. I did not even mind that I was wrong about so much. I could learn. I was free.
And the Bible came alive to me. The words, the message, it spoke to me. How did it seem so different now? It just did and I have no explanation but that God does those sorts of things. If you want to know why, you should ask him too.
Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields,
when the age of men comes crashing down!
But it is not this day!
This day we fight!
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, men of the West!