Gamble

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace. Ephesians 1:7

Black. I was walking to work when everything around me went absolutely black. No street. No people. No world. All of a sudden, it was as if nothing had ever existed. I stood completely still in the darkness. Somehow I knew, this was not a dream. This was as real as anything I had ever known. Dark beyond night. Cold beyond ice. Still beyond stone. I stood because everything in me obeyed the moment. No question, no thought, no decision. Simply obeyed.

To my right, as if it had been there all the time, was a light shining down on a roulette table. “How did I not see this before?” I thought. Before I could finish the thought I was sitting the chair at the table. Again, as if He had always been there but for some reason I had never noticed, the most loving and beautiful Man stood behind the wheel with a small, round, white stone in His right hand. The stone had markings on the side. I couldn't read the markings, I could hear them. They called to me. In the most intimate and loving voice, they called to the depths of my heart and life. Then He spoke with the same voice of love and intimacy over me.

“This stone is your life, wrapped in your true name. A name of intimacy that you can only know here in these moments.” He paused to let His voice soak into me fully. He spoke again, but this time conviction clearly laced His love. “When your life entered into this world,” He said releasing the stone ball onto the wheel, “you were born, all in, on black. You did not have a choice, or even a consciousness, that you were abiding in an abyss.” There I was. Every thought, every word, every move. My entire life was stacked up in the black. Leaning in on the wheel, I saw that the black was as the deepest, darkest, and most terrifying abyss of alone I had ever known. I was blinded and betrayed.

“All of your life, you believed that this was an existence of chance. Truth is, it's an eternity of choice. A choice to follow My call; to believe Me, to move from black to blood.” I leaned in to see the Red. True enough, it was the deepest, purest ocean of blood I had ever seen. The Blood was there all the time. For decades, I had been deceived that the only reality was what I saw, what I knew, what I reasoned. Deceived that these stories of a Savior where only tales told by an idiot who was after my money and mind. Deceived that there was no true dark and no One Light. Deceived that there was only me.

While the blood pulled me closer in, the chair pulled me further away. Back into the black. Away from the table. Away from the truth. Away from the Love. Away from the...LORD. The dark that enveloped me, strangely, was not the terror that screamed into my newly discovered soul. It was the sight of His Blood, never to cover me. It was the intimacy of His Love, never to captivate me. It was the glory of His face, never to consume me.

All in, from beginning to end. I lost to the highest cost: Blood. Red. Him. Me. Real.

Enjoy Him, Michelle mlpack777@gmail.com