Aftermath

Preface
Some of this story is me. Some of it is not me, it's fiction. My hope and prayer is that it will meld together to demonstrate the power of God when He invades a life with His mercy and grace. I hope it will encourage just one to believe that God wants to, can, and will change a dead life to a new life no matter how despicable that life has become. The cross and empty tomb point the way...they point the way to Jesus Christ....He and He alone.


Aftermath
Peering in and steaming up the small windows in the doors that led to the sanctuary, I nervously wrung my sweating hands....waiting....asking myself what on God's earth was I doing in such a place! I didn't go in until after everyone was finished greeting each other with handshakes, hugs, and smiles. I didn't want to be touched by anyone for fear the dirt, filth, and yuck of my miserable life would rub off. To keep them away I wondered if I should enter shouting, "Unclean! Unclean!" like the lepers had to do in biblical times as they navigated through the masses. I felt as a single drop of black, polluted oil in a pool of pure, clean water....as a convicted criminal on the run hiding in a crowd of people with squeaky clean records....feeling severely out of my element. And would my dismal presence contaminate what was going on inside that holy place?

I sat in the very back, in the far corner of a pew that no one else was in. I didn't want to be noticed and I certainly didn't want to be recognized. In that room full of people I sat there in my isolation. And I sat with my head down, staring at the patterns in the carpet so hard they began to move. I dared not even look up, make eye contact. My hands, still sweating, were now shaking almost uncontrollably. I clasped them together with such a grip it looked as if my knuckles would burst through the skin. I didn't belong there....but then I didn't belong anywhere. At one point I almost got up to leave and in that instant was strangely drawn to stay. What could it hurt anyway? Perhaps I could get some reprieve from the thoughts that constantly tormented me. Yes, just some rest, if just but a brief escape from a life littered with losses, shame, regrets, and hopelessness. I sat there....still...motionless.....staring at the moving patterns of the carpet.

I never intended my life to end up as it did. As a young boy my dreams for myself were lofty, noble, respectable, and had purpose. My upbringing wasn't harsh. My parents were good parents. They showed me love at every turn, even in their discipline. I lacked for nothing. I was supported and encouraged to go conquer whatever corner of the world I was placed. I was taught to consider others before myself, to love the unlovable, to be merciful, kind-hearted, and caring toward my fellow man.

I grew up in church. I wasn't a total stranger to places like the one I was sitting in. At one time, I even felt comfortable in such places. I knew the bible. I learned it from my Sunday School and pastor at church and from my parents at home. I saw my mom and dad live out in daily life what they confessed they believed. I had such deep respect for them because of that. In crisis their first thought was always prayer to and faith in a God who cared and acted on their behalf. I had good friends...some of my closest friends went to the church I did. I remember a better past with more pleasant memories....they were faint memories....but I remembered them.

I grew up....life happened....circumstances I didn't want or ask for happened to me. I got angry and then bitter....and what was once a life headed for success became a downward spiral of bad decisions. I didn't want to hear from anyone...not from my parents, siblings, children, friends, and certainly not from God. I ignored all those caring voices until I could no longer hear them at all. To cope....I drank. The more difficulty I invited into my life....the more I drank to cope. I lost all. On the outside it was job after job, driving privileges, apartments, marriages, financial stability, upward mobility, and tragically...friends. That network of love and support was gone. On the inside it was self-respect, vision, hope, contentment, peace, joy, and even the will to live. I became the shame and embarrassment of family and friends. No one wanted me around. I had successfully managed to remove myself from any hope of recovery. When the bottle was no longer enough to numb my depression, sense of failure, self judgment, and other hellish torments in my mind, the last answer of true escape was death.

That is where I found myself...sitting in that pew with my head down....a dead man walking. My life had sunk so low I saw death as my only hope. Death was the only way to be truly released of this excruciating misery. Imagine the irony....my only hope being death. There I was sitting in that pew with all hell breaking loose on the inside of me.

I noticed though, even with my head down, I was listening. Listening to what was being said and what was being sung. I didn't realize until it was mentioned.....I entered that sanctuary on Easter Sunday. That revelation made me think of last Easter....I was so drunk I couldn't get myself dressed to go anywhere. Last Easter I sat in my Lazy Boy, drinking vodka and Coke, trying to numb the overwhelming hopelessness that had invaded my life and taken control. It was like I was drinking to get the hopelessness drunk so it would loosen its grip on me for just a little while and give my weary brain some rest.

The pastor, an elderly, distinguished looking gentleman with the kindest eyes, walked forward and read from the bible these verses: "...But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God's grace that you have been saved!)" -Eph. 2:4,5 When I heard those words I raised my head and really started listening. Hearing that I was dead, which I was....or at least felt like I was, but could be given life again intrigued me. This wonderful preacher began to tell of Gods' grace and mercy that spanned the centuries starting in the Garden of Eden and culminating in the death, burial, and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. He said God did what he did though history to establish again relationship with his creation that was broken in the Garden. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, his death, and resurrection ushered in a means whereby we might be restored completely in relationship with God once and for all.

I began wondering how this could be done. What did I have to do? I was desperate, my whole being cried out for relief. Suddenly within me was a thirst for something more. I actually was beginning to hope for something more.....not an assured hope, but a "hope so"; that somehow what was being said could happen to me. Perhaps the downward spiral of my life could be turned around. The preacher continued to say that my sins were nailed to the cross of Christ . He took upon himself my sin that I might live in a new life. He spoke of the hideousness of the cross. He painted such a picture of Christs' blood soaked body being broken for me that I could see him hanging there, dying, staining the cross with his blood and covering the cross with my sin. It moved me someone could love so much. It moved me deeper still someone could love me so much. Lastly, the preacher spoke of Jesus' victory over death and that because of that victory death no longer had a choke hold on those whose faith is in him. Wow!.. death no longer my only hope of escape? Instead of that dead man walking I was seeing hope in a dead man coming alive through this life preached about. But how?

The preacher sat down and the choir stood up. Music started playing and the choir started singing the words to the song, "Hallelujah! Praise the Lamb". Intently I listened....still wondering how....how can I go from walking death to life? As that little country choir sang in that little country church, I became overwhelmed with such a deep appreciation of Gods' great love for me! I bristled because I felt the words of that song were speaking directly to me:

From the moment man first disobeyed the Father
We were then held captured by our sin
The law of God demanded a sacrifice
Restoring to himself His own again

So the Lamb, His Son so freely offered,
Atonement for our sins forever made.
The innocent and holy still God and God only
Would ransom and redeem us back again

So to the cross they carried Him
With all our guilt and all our sin
The Lamb of God was slain for our transgressions
And on the cross those nail pierced hands

Reached up to God and now to man
And just as if I'd never sinned
He took me in His arms
Embracing me he willingly forgave

For mercy, grace, and love that knows no bounds
Though guilty and condemned I now am free
Forever I'm forgiven for Christ the Lord has risen
And risen with Him we shall one day be

Hallelujah praise the Lamb
Hallelujah praise the Lamb
My heart sings His praise again
Hallelujah praise the Lamb

I began to weep as I saw all that Christ did....for me. Me-the three time loser in love; Me-the failure as a son, brother, father, and friend; Me-the loser of jobs; Me-the drunk. His great love for me moved him to leave eternity and enter time and history. He left riches, royalty, and majesty and took upon himself the weakness and frailty of human flesh. For me-he bore my sin that I might be clean and have relationship. Me-this outcast was drawn near and made a son because of him. Me-once homeless, living out of my car, he gave a home in heaven.

My miserable life was flooded with hope! I was still wondering how to leave this death I was living and move into that new life, when that wise and loving pastor got up again. He answered my question with two other verses from the bible: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved." -Rom. 10:9,10 That was it?! No training? No college work? No special certifications? No written recommendations from city officials? No elaborate monetary gifts to the church? No installment payments? No pain? It seemed so easy it couldn't be true! Surely after what Christ did on the cross, I would have to go through some suffering of my own in order to qualify even becoming a candidate for this new life! The pastor said this new life was a gift simply to be received. Nothing in me that I could offer would make a worthy trade for this life. God gave it because he loved me and for no other reason. So I confessed and I believed. I prayed right there in that pew....and his grace and mercy through Christ's love overtook me as a tidal wave!

The aftermath of a tidal wave usually is remembered for the vast amounts of damage, the millions of dollars required to repair the damage, and sometimes the tragic loss of life. This tidal wave was different. My life was already damaged; my life was already tragic. This tidal wave swept over me and transformed my sense of worthlessness into something of value. I may not have been a person of worth in the eyes of many, or even in my own eyes, but in God's eyes I was....I was worth redeeming to him....and he spared no expense to make that happen.

In the aftermath of this tidal wave hopelessness was turned to hope, and not just a "hope so" like I thought earlier....but an assured hope. Hope in him, a knowing that he had invaded the deepest parts of me and eradicated the last bastion of hopelessness....his great love for me routed that life taker completely. And how can a man truly live without a real hope, a right hope....how can man truly live without God?

Isolation was replaced with the hunger for fellowship. I now wanted to receive the handshakes, hugs, and smiles I adamantly avoided in the beginning....I wanted to give them too! I wanted to forgive those who hurt me and I wanted to seek forgiveness from those I hurt. I wanted to love again....everyone! I who had become unlovable wanted to love again!! I was amazed at these things....all happening inside me the moment I confessed and believed....I was new instantly....there was no waiting period. When Christ became mine and I became his, everything that made me...me....changed! I left that holy place different than when I entered it. I still didn't know how my life would turn out, but I knew the Author of my life hadn't finished writing my story....there were still many chapters ahead for me. I had an assured hope of a happy ending. I didn't have to be a slave any longer to hurts, addictions, and failures. I was free....truly free!! I found that freedom in Christ and him alone. All because of Jesus....what a wonderful Savior....praise to his glorious name!!!