My life feels like a candlestick. I once stood tall and I could shine over the tree tops. Then You lit the spark and I’ve been melting ever since, dissipating down to the forest floor. Instead of looking over the trees, I’m now staring up at them. The colored forest, once full of life, is charred and black. How can I get my height back? The ash in the air burns my eyes and makes my lungs scream to the point where they don’t want to inflate any more. It’s all smoke and mirrors, right? Like a blade of grass in the wind, a short ride back to the dirt. “What change has my existence brought?” I ponder this, as I continue my downward approach, descending to a place I don’t want to be. Fizzling out my days, my flame lighting only a two foot radius in this dense forest of a world. Might as well have another drink because who really wants to see tomorrow? If this is all earth can hold, then take me somewhere else. My wick is a shrinking time line, as the past burns away behind me. Tears of wax slide down what little of me is left. Inside each streak is a collection of memories I try to hold on to before they join the others in a pool around where I stand. This is all what will soon be left of me. A small space my remains will occupy. A puddle of remembrance my survivors can peer into when I’m gone, like flipping through a watery photo album. But then it will be on to the next one because someone else will too be melted down. A forest where children once played hide-and-seek, has deteriorated into a spectacle of funeral processions. Visitors dress in black just like the trees. The only trace of color to be seen, is in the flowers of green brought to lay on the graves, where they’ll decay and turn grey like the scene around them. Your suffering followers, God, are weary in their waiting. That legendary song of hope in the horizon is hidden in the farthest reaches of our being. But what is before us cannot be ignored. The people are forgetting who they are, as the world crumbles in front of them. How can we live a better story, when the floor is whipped out from beneath our feet? Where is the horse and the rider? We are done making excuses and denying our eyes the light that once filled them. Jesus, where are You?
– Brad Kunkle
I stand with Your people, on the edge of our time. We stand with our hands open, with nothing real to fill them. As long as we are here, we will always crave what is tangible. If this is it, God send Your winds to sweep us away. There has to be more. And I am asking for it. Where are the “greater things than these” we were promised? Every book in the world couldn’t contain all that You did. So what can that possibly mean for us? Was that only a hopeful metaphor of our squandering potential? That can’t be. God, where is the promise? Will You do what You say You will, or continue to stand by and watch us burn? Why does it feel like the light of the world is being snuffed out by the very thing we were sent to illuminate? Have we failed You? Is it all lost?
I’m inches from the ground now, the end of the rope. Something has to happen or I’m doomed. This little light of mine never grew into what it could be. All my fears I chased away ended up being true. They have returned and mock me with chants and shouts from where they perch in the leafless trees, laughing down at me. “You really were made to burn! That doesn’t sound very poetic anymore, does it you filth? Humanity has failed and you’re the first to fall.”
Finality has tolled the bell and I am no longer dying. I am dead. I really am alone. I will never know what it’s like to see the promised sunrise break over the mountains. I hang my head and accept my fate. “Forgive me Father, I failed you.” Seconds from ceasing to exist on this side of eternity, my heart aches with regret. Sharp thoughts of my life’s possibilities stab my insides, as my eyes, as my life comes to a close. Will He really not save me? My last hope was a rescue in the remaining seconds, but He did not come. What was my faith for, if all my life comes to is ash and dust? I breathe my last and the exhale topples over my tiny candlestick. I’m finally face down in the position I should have lived in. Darkness steps toward my little light to take me to the crossing. He hovers over the sad, weak creature for a moment, and reaches down to carry me. He knows well the way we all must travel. He’s been many times before. But never has he taken one quite like this. Normally the wick has burned away completely, but this one still glows. His long-fingered hand, unfurls from the shadows. Even so, this one must be ushered to the place where all other lights go out. He takes another step closer, with an outstretched hand of blackness. As he nears my failing sphere of light, a distant call commands he keep his hands to himself. The braying of a stallion sends the fleeting Darkness fleeing. My eyes snap open wide. The dawn has come. And then…. Ignition….
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