This is my account of being born again or saved.
Finland, 1995
There was an abyss in me. I felt it inside my chest, a massive void. It was an entry gate into a terrifying unknown, a burial ground of old pain, old truths hiding in me, somewhere on the bottom of me. From time to time, it sent its frightening echoes up its walls, quiet rumbles, subtle warnings. Like a sleeping volcano when it’s about to erupt. Every day, I felt it in there, inside my chest, the heaviness of it and the looming horror. Right there, in the middle of my chest, this huge Pit —a doorway to hell — a little to the right from my heart where the bones form a cavity. I would press my hands against it as if it were a deadly wound and hope it goes away.
“I’ll die,” I told my psychiatrist. “I’ll just die. That’s all.”
I’d lay on my back on my bed — I did this from time to time — staring at my white apartment ceiling while trying to slowly relax into it, allowing the feelings to come, those old feelings from all those buried childhood memories. After all, it was what my intuition — or God? — told me to do. I was convinced it was the only way for me to heal, to surrender like that completely. But as soon as I tried, as I moved closer to the edge of that terrifying chasm, it began to expand and pulsate, causing my breathing to cease, as if I’d fallen into a vacuum, and slamming me with such bone-melting terror that I was sure that whatever was in there would certainly kill me.
My psychiatrist disagreed with my methods.
“Don’t do it,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘don’t do it’?”
“I mean, don’t do it.”
“How can you say that? It’s the truth of me, my true feelings, and God! It's in the bottom of me! I need to surrender to it!”
He studied my face with a cool, penetrating expression, looking very serious.
“At this point, I think it would only confuse you more. It might mix you up.”
It upset me. He didn’t get it.
“So just live a lie then? And this is your professional opinion, your advice? As a psychiatrist? Bottle up your feelings? Pretend to be someone you’re not?”
His face was immovable, like a sphinx.
“I’m not saying that. I think forcing yourself to process emotions you’re not ready for could potentially harm you.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Leave it alone.”
Easier said than done. It was as if the pit had become an invisible barrier standing between me and my future. Everything had come to a screeching halt. There I stood, frozen on the edge of it, gazing fearfully over to the other side, longing for freedom and hoping to cross over, but realizing it was impossible and finding nowhere else to go.
I was lost and drifting, twenty-two years old and going nowhere in life, receiving my income from social security, remaining largely isolated at my government-paid apartment where I sat all day long, rotting in front of the TV, afraid to show my face to the world. If I did venture out, it was usually to take care of some practical errand, buy groceries and such, or sometimes risk a trip to downtown where I’d hide between the shelves of a department store, hoping not to run into anyone. Some evenings, after a few glasses of wine, in a desperate attempt to escape that dreadful prison — but especially myself — I’d head out to one of the local bars, where, numbed by the fumes of alcohol, I’d find some poor guy to talk to. I’d sit by the bar wrapped in my sense of superiority, regal and mysterious, playing with my glass, and watching them come: These random men that I had nothing in common with, who were looking for an adventure or maybe a girlfriend, but whichever — it wasn’t going to be me.
All I ever wanted was to talk.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Salvation. You?”
“Salvation? You some kind of religious nut?”
“Not at all. Just a lost soul. Looking for my purpose.”
“Well, honey, you found it. He’s right here.”
“Is he now?”
“I think so. I feel it.”
“Well, don’t hold anything back. I haven’t been impressed in years.”
“See, I knew it! I saw you from over there, and I thought — damn! There’s something about that chick; she’s unique, man.”
“Aha. What else did you see?”
“I don’t know. You’re into deep stuff, aren’t you? Poems and shit?”
“Sometimes. You?”
“Me? Nah, I’m just a regular guy.”
“Okay, regular guy. Tell me something.”
“What do you want to hear?”
“I don’t know. Something that matters.”
“And this will get me into your pants?”
“Not a chance.”
At least I was truthful.
Occasionally, in a drunken stupor, I ended up making out with one of these guys, out of old habit and just to see if they’d manage to make me feel anything (they didn’t), but never past first base, and I never slept with them — I was done with all that. In the end none of it was real; every single one of them disappointed and bored me out of my mind, making me feel a thousand years old. As soon as the alcohol fumes vanished from my head — I was out the door.
My other pastime was spending hours at the public library hunting for the truth. In my mind, I’d become the perfect loser now — a jobless mental health patient — hiding behind the shelves of the psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and religion section, competing for the space with the rest of the weirdos and hermits drawn to that area. I even had my own chair (I’d claimed it), a cute wooden one with brown padding and carved armrests at the end of the aisle. There I sat for hours, underneath the gray light cast from the tall overhead windows, devouring everything from Alice Miller, Hermann Hesse, and Arthur Schopenhauer to the soul wisdom of Winnie the Pooh and to complete the weirdo stereotype — I’d even started to read the Bible regularly. I used to hide it on my lap, making a wall out of my jacket on the sides of the chair so the random passer-by wouldn’t see what book I was reading. I was worried about an old acquaintance suddenly popping up from behind the bookshelf, capturing me in my fallen state: weird, jobless, reading the Bible!
The few people I still hung out with here and there — mostly my sister and her boyfriend — sensed it as much as I did. I wasn't one of them anymore. Most of the time, I had no idea what to talk about or what was safe to say. My experience was so embarrassing and unusual, and my secrets so frightening, persistent, and extreme, that talking about them openly was simply out of the question: “Oh, you know, lately I’ve been trying to come to terms with this GOD-FORCE that’s raging inside of me, calling me day and night. I think it’s trying to tell me something, that I’ve been CHOSEN or something, by God, you know — but for what — not sure! What makes this particularly tricky is that I’ve also been trying to heal from a very bad childhood trauma that caused me to DISSOCIATE as a child, basically — jump outside of myself— mentally, which today affects my thinking and language negatively by making it very difficult for me to ORGANIZE MY THOUGHTS and explain to you what the heck I’m talking about. If I blank out during this conversation, you know why! Yes, I know that mental health problems and God-talk go hand in hand, which causes you not to believe a word I say. But it’s cool! I accept it! In fact, if the tables were turned and I was in your shoes, I’d feel the same! I do see a psychiatrist regularly, of course. No, I don’t have a job, boyfriend, hobby, or friends. No, I don’t have any plans for my future. It would be difficult to make any since I don’t know who I am from one minute to the next since this GOD-FORCE keeps constantly throwing its curveballs at me, continuously surprising me with something new; I really don’t know what tomorrow holds, so why do anything?”
If they wouldn’t have straight-up run away, they would at least have backed up slowly with their hands raised in the air.
“It’ll mellow out,” my psychiatrist assured me. “Overtime, when you heal and the other parts of you get integrated, your experience won’t seem so extreme.”
“Everything else may very well get integrated,” I said, “all those other parts in me, sure, all those loose threads in my head. But I promise you,” I made a dramatic pause, “this God stuff will never mellow out. And I know that. Because I remember now.”
I was in preschool at the time, about five years old, sitting by the round wooden table next to the window, drawing. Every now and then, I’d look up from my picture to observe the other kids playing, enjoying the bright faces around me. Each of them was occupied with their own activity; a couple of them were chasing each other around the wooden benches, while others were busy climbing the wall bars on the opposite side of the room. Some kids sat hunched over a pile of Legos on the mattresses beside the wall. It was “free play,” my favorite time of the day when the teachers allowed us to choose our own games. Sometimes, during this time, I’d drag the big, orange, boat-shaped mattress to mid-floor and pretend to be on a stormy sea, forced to fight off the boys, who were sharks attempting to invade the boat. Sometimes, I’d dress up and play princess, wrap myself in shiny chiffon shawls and long cotton dresses, or cover the old black piano with blankets and hide underneath. But today, I’d chosen to sit quietly by the window and draw instead, enjoying the music the teacher had put on for us. She had placed the rectangular silver-colored stereo on top of one of the wooden benches in front of me, and now the happy tunes mixed with the rest of the cheerful noises of the room.
I’d heard the song many times before. It was an old Finnish children’s nursery rhyme with simple recurring lyrics that translate to something like this:
Grandma took her chicks to the field — and all the chicks were jumping.
Grandma took her chicks to the field — and all the chicks were jumping.
But out from the woods came a silent fox creeping — so sneaky and long-tailed!
But out from the woods came a silent fox creeping— so sneaky and long-tailed!
(Mummo kansasensa niitylle ajoi – pienet kanaset ne hyppeli.
Mummo kansasensa niitylle ajoi – pienet kanaset ne hyppeli.
Vaan metsästä hiipi se hiljainen kettu – niin viekas ja pitkähäntäinen!
Vaan metsästä hiipi se hiljainen kettu – niin viekas ja pitkähäntäinen!)
Suddenly, it was there: The heavy presence, filling every square inch of the room with that familiar air that I’d felt so many times before. It created an electrifying atmosphere around me, an awareness of an existence that I don’t know how to describe with any other words than "Holy." Or "Biblical." Just like that, it came from out of the blue — the God-force. It was clear, inevitable, unquestionable, and natural. Like daylight is natural or rain, it came from deep within me, this subtle voice that gently turned my attention to the lyrics, highlighting them for me as if to say: Pay attention. This is important. An urgency and a sense of seriousness told me that the lyrics were metaphorical and contained a special message to me. Without words but with absolute certainty, the God force told me:
You are grandma, and the chicks are the people of the world.
My heart dropped.
It went on: Beware. There’s a fox out in the world, looking to hurt the people. Somebody needs to do something about it!
I saw my friends play, I saw their innocent faces, and it occurred to me that they were very much like those chicks, careless, free, and hopelessly ignorant of the danger that stood lurking in the shadows, silently watching them.
But what can I do? I asked the force anxiously, my body covered gradually in a cold sweat. I’m as weak as anyone, if not weaker; what can I do about the fox and the world and all its problems?
No response. Only the certainty of what had just been said remained hanging in the air, immovable and absolute, as if to say: This is how it is, Lisa. This IS the truth!
I contemplated it for a while, feeling the world's weight on my shoulders, feeling very tired, old, and sad. Like an old rag. I wanted to crawl under the table, cover my face with my hands, and go to sleep. I wanted to remain like that forever, never to wake up again. Only hide and pretend it never happened, and tell myself that none of this was real, but only random smoke rings in my mind because all I was, was an ordinary girl, just like everyone else. The minutes crept on. I stared numbly at my picture, then slowly picked up the pencil from the table and continued with my drawing. What else could I do? The burden was too heavy to speak of, and no grown-up was grown up enough to carry it for me.
***
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I don’t think you’re lying.”
“I didn’t say you were. You just think I say these things because I’m a little cuckoo. Cuckoo for Coco Puffs? Well, maybe I am. Maybe I’m just plain crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“And this is your professional opinion?”
“Yes.”
“Then what do you think I am?”
“I’m not much into labels.”
I studied his walls and let my eyes slowly wander across the room, stopping at the corner of his desk. It had a dark wooden polish on it.
“Okay then. I have more for you. There’s always more. This is a gift that keeps on giving.”
“Okay.”
“There’s this dream I recently recalled having as a kid that really shook me up. I saw it after watching Disney’s Alice in Wonderland for the first time. I was maybe six years old back then.”
“Ok.”
“I was standing in a garden. It was one of these old English gardens with mazes made from hedges cut into geometrical shapes. You know the kind of garden I’m talking about?”
“Yes.”
“And there were all these people with me in there, in that garden. It was like the garden represented the world. And the people—they were all playing cards, even me.”
“Playing cards?”
“Yes. All kinds. You know, clover sixes and diamond sevens, spades and hearts, and jacks and twos, and so on. It was like people’s personalities and strengths were being shown to me in the form of playing cards. And there was a natural hierarchy there, in the same way as there’s a hierarchy in life, you know? With the smaller numbers being weaker, just like it’s in the game of life. Not in human value, of course, but — just playing strength — the way some people are stronger or better equipped than others.”
“Right.”
“So…I got a little worried and asked myself: “Then who am I? What card am I?” I didn’t really want to know, but I needed to at the same time, just to get it over with, so I asked. And next thing you know, I’m shown that I’m the queen of hearts, which bothered me a lot and gave me all kinds of anxiety.”
“Why did it give you anxiety?”
“Because I didn’t want to be such a strong card. I wanted to be a simple card.”
“Why a simple card?”
“Because…the queen is lonely.”
“Okay.”
“And then I started wondering if maybe there was a king of hearts somewhere in the garden. You know, someone stronger than me, or wiser, I mean spiritually speaking, so I wouldn’t have to feel so lonely all the time and so different and isolated with my thoughts. And something in the dream told me that there was a king of hearts somewhere in there, too, which made me feel so relieved, because it meant that I wasn’t the only strong card, which would be terrible. You know how my biggest fear is to be strong like that and to be isolated by that knowledge?”
“Yes.”
“But as soon as I’d asked that question, something — I think God — told me that there was another card in the garden that was completely outside of the pack. Like maybe the Joker? But I’m not sure. Anyway. That card was stronger than any card, ruling over the entire deck. And when that thought hit me, I felt that card start to approach me; I sensed it because all the hair on my body stood up, and then suddenly it was right there, knocking on the door of my heart with these thunderous knocks: BANG! BANG! Asking me to LOOK AT IT. But I didn’t want to! I was afraid! Because I felt that Pit inside of me again, suddenly starting to move and shake around, all that old pain, that old hornet’s nest inside of me awakening again, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to face it! It was too painful! But that card — which was God, or Jesus, I think — was coming at me full force from somewhere behind me. I felt the power, and it was CALLING ME! From INSIDE OF ME, from that Pit! It was coming for me! And I screamed, and I screamed, and I screamed!”
***
One day, I stopped by a local bookstore near my apartment to see what was new. The bookstore was a small, run-down neighborhood shop that had stood as a permanent fixture on the same street corner for ages, always run by the same gray-haired lady. Occasionally, I visited it, flip through the latest magazines, and walked lazily between the deserted aisles, searching for anything that would pique my interest. In a pile placed on a metal rack next to the front door, I grabbed a newspaper under a sign that said, “Free.”
I knew this paper well. I’ve read it many times out of boredom. It was an artsy, semi-intellectual newspaper directed to the young and hip, filled with snarky, somewhat pretentious articles about our current times and trends.
Religious News from Around the World! Said the column that caught my eye. With a smaller print addition underneath, True stories about cults and sects, religious lunatics, and nut jobs of all sorts.
Something for me then, I thought and kept reading.
“One day in East Java,” began the bullet-pointed paragraph, “an evil spirit caused havoc in a cigarette factory for about an hour and a half, tormenting all its workers and causing the production to come to a complete halt. After moving from person to person, it finally ceased hold of a young woman named Eja, who suddenly stood up on one of the machines and shouted:
“I am Lisa! I came from America to search my Father!’”
(Note: This was before the possibility of my move to America ever presented itself, but as it turns out — this was where I finally ended up. Note that the actual name used was not “Lisa,” my alter ego, but my real name, which I keep out of this website. It was also spelled correctly, which is not typical in English.)
A cold chill ran through my spine. My chest tightened, and my breathing turned rapid and superficial. With shaking hands, I folded the newspaper and stuffed it in my bag, quickly proceeding out the door, leaving the tiny bell above it to jingle after me.
In my apartment, I lay down on my bed, heaving. “What do you want from me?” I asked the air, the chair, God, or whoever this force was behind all the madness, messing me up. I was sure that the article had something to do with me!
“It’s a message from God to me!” I wailed to my psychiatrist. “I KNOW IT! He’s after me! He wants me to do something for Him! Be His messenger or something, walk some lonely spiritual road of isolation and humiliation.”
“I don’t think God wants that from you.”
“No? You know Him well, then?”
“No…I just don’t think God would put that kind of responsibility on anyone.”
“I guess you haven’t read the Bible, then. Because there are plenty of stories in there about Him doing it to plenty of people!”
“Hmm.”
“And you know what else is freaky and weirdly related to that newspaper article that I haven’t even mentioned to you?”
“What?”
“That I smell cigarette smoke! That’s right! Every now and then, in ordinary, everyday situations. I smell it out of the blue and completely random. It’s been going on for at least three years now. It’s always very strong, clear, and distinctively cigarette smoke. Not something else, not smoke from, say, a fire — but cigarettes. No question about it. But no one is smoking around me. I’m in a room alone, in my apartment, for example, and all the windows are closed, and suddenly, there it is – the smell! But it’s like it’s coming from inside of me. Like it’s spiritual. I can feel it filling my nasal cavities, slowly and surely.
“What do you say to THAT?!”
He wrinkled his forehead. He didn’t like that. It didn't fit with his conclusions. It didn’t fit with anything.
Evil spirits. Demons! That’s what I was talking about.
They’d frequented my dreams for a while now. All night long, I was chased by them, running around my small apartment in complete terror, with these blood-curling creatures after me. They’d hide in the shadows all day, but they crept out when I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. That’s when the hunt was on, night after night.
Except a few weeks ago, there had been a change, a subtle shift, caused by something I did, something different. The dream started off like any other one, with the demon chasing me. It was red. Hairy and red. I was running, zooming around my wooden kitchen dining set in loops, me first, him after, the room spinning in my eyes, flashing and pulsating in sync with my heartbeats, furniture, and walls, flying by in a mad whirlwind. Into the hallway, we ran and onward to the living room, where the demon suddenly froze by the doorway and remained standing there, watching me with a satisfied smirk as if wanting to enjoy a last look before shredding me into pieces. I backed up slowly towards the couch, feeling my heart heavily mining its way out of my chest. I was a puddle of terror, desperately trying to devise some last-minute plan. The demon was heaving and growling; its muscular animal body began to coil up, preparing to spring across the room. As my back hit the living room table, bringing my escape to a sudden halt, I tightened my fists and raised them, getting ready to fight for my life.
In a split second, I sized up my opponent. It looked invincible. Relentless. It radiated hate and physical power. I couldn’t help but admire its strength and ability; it was the perfect killing machine, a tower of steel designed to destroy anything in its path. I suddenly realized that I wouldn’t stand a chance. My hands fell to my sides, helpless.
Not with its own weapons, said a sudden thought that popped into my head just then.
Where did it come from?
I considered the thought. What were its weapons? Rage? Yes. Raw physical power? Certainly. Hate? For sure. Its ability to conquer, destroy, and kill? Yes, all of it!
But what could be the opposite of that?
And then I knew.
I stepped forward, meeting it halfway in the middle of the room. Right before it could finish me off, I leaned over and kissed it gently on the forehead.
The shock on its face, the dumb look, the terror! And next, nothing but the white of its eyeballs. That’s all I could see because its pupils flew up and disappeared behind its eyelids. The demon’s face dropped, went dead, folded up in a funny way, like on a flimsy paper man, sinking in, emptying and shriveling up like hollow skin. A snakeskin! I thought, an illusion! I watched it collapse at my feet and turn into a heap of dust and smoke.
***
I was lying on my bed, thinking, my eyes wandering on the white ceiling, studying its crevices. Outside, behind the tan-colored bamboo blinds, traffic was rumbling by. It was spring, but the light and warmth didn’t reach my room; the blinds remained permanently closed to the street.
All day, I’d felt the Pit in me, the heaviness of it, and the hopelessness. I’d staggered around in a numb, zombie-like daze, moving through my daily routines painfully, trying not to pay too much attention to the ominous murmurs inside of me. I took the bus downtown, stopped by the bank and post office, and visited the Social Security office. I sat in the dimly lit waiting area and glared suspiciously at the depressing, beige-colored walls, feeling that familiar rumble again, trying not to let it bother me. When my name was called, I turned on autopilot, put on my neutral face and kept my composure, answered a dozen routine questions, and swallowed my pride when the nosy social worker tried to pry into my life: “Do you have any plans?” “Is the therapy working?” I did my best to tolerate her ignorance and, worse, advice. I almost ran through the glass door on my way out.
I kept listening to the echoes inside me. There they were, as threatening as ever, coming from the Pit, that inner reality I’d cut off from myself long ago. Leave it alone, my psychiatrist had said, but how? I didn’t know how. How did you bypass a big portion of yourself and expect something good in return, some kind of healing? Bypass yourself and find yourself at the same time? The logic escaped me.
A few days ago, I had a realization. I’d been sitting in front of the mirror, putting on my make-up, listening to a television interview about a Christian woman discussing her faith and what it meant to be born again. Like most Christians, she had the usual religious mannerisms and lingo; she was like a walking commercial for the Pentecostal Church, which irritated me. What’s with all the hallelujahs in every other sentence? I thought, but I kept listening anyway. Something about her face fascinated me, especially her eyes. There was a certain depth in them, a wisdom, as if she’d understood a great secret and was now in harmony with life and didn't need a thing. I compared her face to the others’, the interviewers and the other people in the room participating in the conversation and concluded that they paled in comparison. She stood out among them; she shone brightly amidst human grayness, emanating an unusual inner freedom, a mind more expanded than theirs, open and free to just be.
She has arrived at the bottom of herself, I concluded.
It was less what she said and more what she looked like. Physically, it was nothing special; she was ordinary but radiated peace. The more I watched her, the more fascinated I became, and gradually, a shy thought crept in: Could I find her level of freedom and become like her — a Christian? Immediately, an avalanche of negative ideas about Christians and Christianity crashed through my brain. Had I forgotten how embarrassing born-again Christians were? How they made fools out of themselves and others by habit. Like the man who confronted my classmate one day after school when we were walking down the street, minding our own business. Suddenly, like some cosmic terrorist, he hopped in front of my friend, pointed aggressively at her chest with a wild look, and shouted:
“DO YOU BELONG TO JESUS?!”
This was Christianity for me, in a nutshell: Public insanity. And what about the rest of it? The exaggerated sweetness, the hopeless pretending, the farce of the Lutheran church services? The religious theatrics, the boredom of endless rituals, the wooden pews filled with old ladies singing hymns with shrill voices, the Lutheran priests yodeling their lines carrying their religious trinkets around. And I wanted to become a supporter of this as if I believed in it.
I turned my face away from the woman and decided there was no way.
That’s when the thought came. Clear and bright, like the chime of a silver bell inside my head.
If you don’t, you’ll never have a chance to be truly happy.
And to my shock, I realized that it was completely true!
***
So, you want me to surrender to You? I repositioned myself on the bed.
You want me to surrender to the Pit and meet You at the bottom of it? I know You want me like that, naked and complete, ALL of me, like that Christian woman, full of truth, and not just partially here.
I placed my hand on my chest. There it was, that looming heaviness again, all the darkness and mass of emotions I’d rejected and stored up as a little girl. The trauma. There she was, inside of me, captured and waiting to be let out, the lid to Pandora’s box. This is what you want from me? This ultimate test?
I closed my eyes and let my breathing deepen, focusing on my chest, listening to it, trying to loosen up and let go, surrender, like falling backward through the air down a cliff. If it killed me, it killed me.
As if by a push of a button, the Pit began to grow, awakening in me with a startle and then quickly beginning to expand, furiously climbing up the walls of my mind, ready to crash into the wide open. Winds of terror blew through me; I started shaking and sweating. It was immediate — the death agony. My breathing locked up, my ears began to ring, and my body went dead. I was sinking, losing the battle, covered in cold sweat; I stopped.
I can’t do it. The realization shocked me: The dead failure. There was not a question about it in my mind: This thing would truly kill me. Literally. The trauma was too extensive, and my body and mind — too weak — it was too much for me. Staring blankly at the ceiling, I understoo,d I’d failed myself and God.
It’s impossible for me.
That’s when the second thought chimed in my head. It was a reminder of a scripture:
What is impossible for man is possible for God. For all things are possible for God. (Lk 18:27 and Mt 19:26)
I’d read it from the Bible before. It made me pause. I thought about it: If ALL things were possible for God, absolutely ALL things, then would my Pit also be included in those things? And if so, did that mean that God could remove it? Actually, get rid of it. Could He do that for me? Since it was impossible for me?
And then, in a split second, I thought the following thoughts:
I said I’ll make a deal with You. I’ll be Your little Jesus freak if You want that. I’ll be that guitar-playing fool on the street corner. I’ll sing sentimental love songs for You if that’s what You like, if that’s Your thing. I’ll be that goofball in a Jesus T-shirt who hands out endless tracts to people who don’t care about them, if these are Your requirements, if that’s what You want.
As long as you take the Pit away from me.
Except with this ONE CONDITION: that it doesn’t hurt.
This is the gist of the thought, and it only took a split second to think it through.
And then — soap bubbles.
That’s what it felt like. Soap bubbles rose from my chest, from the Pit, where the mass of pain sat. They said “pop, pop, pop” as they rose, tickling me, causing me to feel so light and airy. What’s this? I tapped on my chest between the bones in that area of heaviness. But where was it? That area? I couldn’t find it! I kept tapping around, looking for it, feeling for the familiar weight and pressure, but it was nowhere to be found. Surely, it had to be somewhere in there. But all I could feel was lightness and that tickle.
What just happened? I thought. What the heck just happened?!
I kept tapping on my chest. Nothing. Only light. Air. And then something else. Images. Impressions. Somehow, I was transported back to my childhood forest underneath the spruces, beside the grieving flowers, next to my mom’s heavy shadow, into that old prison of sorrow and death. Except, I wasn’t alone anymore. Someone was there with me, in that silent prison, by my side in that barred cage, someone I KNEW—my best friend!
It’s You! I thought. Hey, I know You!
Like I’d always known. I’d just forgotten all about it. But now, to my surprise, I remembered, realizing how He’d always been there, walking silently by my side inside that forest, never leaving, patiently watching over me while I went through the pain, convinced of my solitude. He was there, my best friend, sitting quietly next to me, keeping me company inside my prison, keeping me safe and the worst flames at a distance. I could see it now. I understood. With tremendous power, I felt His love rush into me and completely take over every part of me, every corner, sweeping up everything in its path and illuminating the forest and the whole world with its inevitable light. It was natural, disarming and magnificent. It was beyond description. No words could do it justice. It just WAS.
It was the Sun!
Only doing what the Sun does naturally; expanding its light until I was completely immersed in it. I’d never felt a greater feeling of love and acceptance. Yet I already knew it. I was home and knew it, bathing under the midday sun for the first time in a long time, after having already stopped believing in its existence, but immediately recognizing it when it finally revealed itself from underneath a veil of clouds. I understood that its absence had only been an illusion. The previously cool, gray forest floor was suddenly saturated in light and warmth. I watched the shadows run from it in terror. I watched the lies and illusions fall away like cobwebs and smoke; my old mental cages melt into laughable puddles, iron bars turned to dust, evaporating before my eyes as the light chased them away with such ease, laughing at the face of darkness.
What could the darkness do but recede? It was nothing.
WHAT HAPPENED?! I asked myself and stood up beside my bed, shaking my limbs and moving around, suddenly realizing that my mind felt strangely expanded. All these new feelings and thoughts were in my head, all these colors—how strange, as if there was more of me now. Where did it all come from? It was as if I’d jumped from a three-dimensional reality into a five-dimensional one in a split second.
WHAT DO I DO? I asked myself. I didn't know what to do with myself.
What do you do after being born again?
You go to the grocery store.
I needed groceries anyway. I was out of everything.
I decided to walk instead of taking the bus, so I continued past the bus stop in front of the apartment building, past its plexiglass-covered booth, with the trashcan filled to the rim. I looked around me curiously as if seeing the world for the first time. The spring sun was out, and the snowdrifts by the sidewalks were melting; everything was golden in the sun and glittering. I gazed around me in amazement, walking down golden streets, wondering why everything was so beautiful, even the people — like flowers! I observed them secretly as they passed me by. How different they all were, and how wonderfully beautiful, each of them beyond words, all in their own special way, revealing different varieties of the richness of creation. I saw all of them as different kinds of flowers: sweet, shy violets, cheerful daisies with playful faces, bold roses, and friendly marigolds with kind eyes. Yellows, blues, and reds, faces of creation, passed by my eyes in rows!
At the grocery store, I lost myself watching an old lady. Her face was gray already, and her hands – so tired and wrinkly. She picked items from the shelf laboriously, bringing her face close to them to observe them. I saw her select a pack of cheese and hold it before her face, carefully reading the label. My heart shook as I watched the cheese in her hand. Her hands shook so dreadfully that it looked like she would drop it any second. I admired her bravery for the long journey she’d taken and was still taking. I wanted to reach over and tell her that. I wanted to grab her by the sleeve and tell her she was beautiful.