My Death

My death occurred on a mild April day in 1997. I knew I was dying. I had been cleaving to the earth for a long time, but suddenly something was peeling me, pore by pore, off of the sludge and grime of this vicious world. And in the process, something good and pure was digging under my skin and eating at my flesh. As my filthy, sour flesh sunk beneath the water's surface and died, it was good. It was very very good.

But the world, you see, loved the influence my wickedness had on others and wasn't the least bit happy about my death. So it pulled me back, and it didn't take much effort. In fact, we had a deal, the world and I -- I could go to that place that brought about my death for a couple of hours on Sunday mornings, but when I escaped its doors, I belonged to the world again.

Ah, but when the world has hold of you, it can be wildly jealous and the flesh uncontrollably stubborn.

"Saturday night is fun night," World said. "You'll be back in time to do that thing on Sunday morning. Let's go party."

In my flesh, I was weak, so I agreed with World and went along.

But World was still unsettled, "You're having too much fun tonight. You can't go home now. You can miss one Sunday."

World is right, I thought, I can't possibly go home now. What's one Sunday?

Before long, one Sunday became two and two became four, and four became eight -- and before I knew it, I only occassionally went through those doors on Sunday morning.

When my flesh began to feel guilty for the things I did outside of those Sunday morning doors, World was always there to hand me the things that would make it all feel better -- the things that gripped my connection to the pleasures of my past -- the things that helped me forget about my death on that beautiful April morning just a few months earlier.

And suddenly, it was all good again - but for all the wrong reasons.

Soon I began to wonder if I had really died at all beneath that water's surface.

In the years since, I have learned that I indeed died that day -- that even though I let go of Him in those early years, He never let go of me. In the moment of my death, His arms opened wide. Even when I do something stupid, like fall under the spell of the world, all I have to do is turn my face toward Him, and He is there loving me and giving me the strength to resist the world's next attack.

And thanks to His love and His sacrifice, I grow stronger every day.

Thank you, God, for fighting for me and never letting go even when the world fights back.