can you hear me?

He asked, "Father, where am I going?"

Silence.

He asked again, "Father, where am I going? Spirit, why did you guide me into this wilderness?"

Silence.

He looked at the trees lining the darkness around him. He was engulfed in what seemed like a sheet of black. The conglomeration of branches hanging overhead sliced through the ray of light that the moon tried to provide. He couldn't see anything. But he slowly tread through the thick carpet of leaves under his feet, each step echoing a loud crunch.

He asked, "Father, can you hear me?"

Silence.

Frustration amounted. "Why would you lead me out here and abandon me?" He yelled into the black. Only his echo responded. "Can't you see that I don't know where I am going? I don't know where you're leading me." He closed his eyes and let out heavy sighs as the Tempter crept out from behind the trees and began whispering lies into the boy's ears.

"You're alone," the Tempter said.

"My Father is here guiding me," the boy responded.

"Where is he? Can you hear him?"

Silence from the boy.

"That sounds familiar, doesn't it?" The Tempter moved from one ear to the other. "You have to suffer alone, just like how it's always been. Aren't you used to it by now? You can handle the pain on your own, isn't that what your Father said? He wont give anything to you that you are not ready for. You were meant to go through this alone." The Tempter laughed knowing he had found his way into the deepest crevasses of the boy's heart once again. He watched as the lies started to form the boy's reality. "You are strong enough to handle this on your own. You don't need anyone else."

"I'm not strong, I'm weak," the boy said, exposing his tears.

The Tempter did not expect the boy to admit this but gladly followed a potential new way to break him down. "You are weak indeed. So weak. A little boy. Alone. Scared. Weak little boy. What kind of man are you?" The Tempter giggled in delight as he circled around the boy with a little hop to his step.

"When I am weak, He is strong," the boy said slowly between heavy breaths.

The Tempter stopped and tilted his head. "Who's 'He'? Your Father? Where is He now?? You're alone!" He let out a hideous laugh that quickly turned into rage. The Tempter began shouting. "Look around you! There is no one!"

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

"Lies!" Screamed the Tempter.

The boy kept going, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of-"

"Don't say His name!" The Tempter covered his ears and scurried to a nearby rock. "You're alone! You're meant to suffer alone!" He shouted in desperation. The Tempter knew the power in His name.

"-so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." The boy let out a breath as the Tempter let out a shriek that cleaved through the entire wilderness. It sounded as if he had been stabbed by a sharp sword. The tempter fell on all fours, panting heavily. He tilted his head upward to see the boy still with his fists clenched and his eyes closed. His face was lined with wet streaks but not the same ones from before. These were different. The Tempter knew he had no foothold for his lies and fled quickly into the wilderness.

The boy slowly opened his eyes and recited the verse again but this time as a prayer. "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

He listened to the stillness around him.

"Father, why do I need to go through this? It's so painful and so lonely sometimes."

A gust of wind penetrated the black and rushed towards the boy bringing with it a whisper that said, "Because Christ did, and you are being made to be more like him."

hallelujah forever

Though I really want to write how I feel, sometimes songs say it much better than I ever can.

emerging from the little while

What is true liberation without the stripping of everything that is holding you back? The freedom experienced only when the shiny, seductive, and stunning are revealed to be fleeting and temporary. The cry of your heart as the tools are inserted to remove the idols so deeply rooted. For a little while all you feel is the torture and the tearing of the flesh in search for the enemy decaying everything within. You must hold on for there is hope waiting for you in the end. Patching the bare flesh is the seal of our most high God. Some call it a scar, but with how much love is it truly made? We think it defiles our complexion but isn't it a process to make us into something even more beautiful? A new creation. Christ too had scars, and because of his ours can heal. And in this journey we find the redemption that is provided always, but only, by our God.