Story II

Then the darkness came...

Now, when I say darkness I do not mean you to understand that it was always night. Nor that I went blind in the waking world. What I mean is that when I went to sleep, and was in that state where dreams are created I found myself to be incapable of creating them. It was as though a hand was holding back my ability to create in the dreamworld. Indeed, as time progressed and this occurred more and more often I decided that something was actually stopping me from dreaming.

I am not about to let something stop me from resting properly, so I did the only sensible thing: I changed my diet. As this failed to change anything at all, expect my experiences in the lieu, I started to pray about it instead.

And nothing happened.

Now, in the modern American Evangelical Church this is of little consequence. So I kept praying, expecting that some sin in my heart was getting in the way of my being a vessel of the Holy Spirit. I forgave everyone that I could think of. I kept myself from all the sins I knew. I stopped speeding. I said please and thank you. Nothing worked. My prayers and requests still seemed to get stuck in the walls of my room, echoing in the immeasurable void that separated me from my maker.

Then one frustrated night at a youth service I decided to ask my pastor to pray over me. I would not explain to him what it was that I wanted, I simply ask him to pray for me. I had decided that if this truly was a spiritual problem then the Lord would show him what he needed to know, and he would be given the words that needed to be said. I went forward after the service hoping for guidance and peace, though not at all sure I would find it.

I cannot say what I expected to happen, but I can say that it was not what occurred. When I went up to my pastor and asked for prayer he simply closed his eyes, placed his hand on my head and said, "Father, help your child to hear your voice clearly, and open his eyes."

I was, without a doubt, disappointed with my pastor. I had come to him in what could have been the crowning moment of spiritual revelation in my young adult life, and he had blown it. I consoled myself on the way home by telling myself that he was just having an off day, and that maybe if I did the same thing next week God would be able to work through him then. I soon arrived home, having never doubted that relying on someone else's spiritual life was my key to happiness and a good nights rest.

That night I slept very poorly.

No longer was there just darkness swallowing up my mind, but there were sounds in the darkness. Not voices. No, these resembled nothing made for communication. These were just sounds of horror. I cannot explain it properly. Just as pure silence can be the most distracting of noises, so these sounds told the most putrefying tales of torture and pain. Try though I did throughout that long darkness I could not wake myself from this hell. Though I had gone to bed late into the night, when I woke with the rising of the sun I was thankful for it.

It was that morning that I did the most sensible thing I've ever done in the entirety of my life: I got on my knees and prayed with the whole of my heart. I acknowledged that I was small, I confessed that I was a fool and I pleaded for forgiveness and help. I'd never felt like less of a person in my life, but I've discovered later in life that this is how one feels when being completely honest about oneself before God, and I've come to realize that this was the real moment of my conversion.

Do not doubt me, I had certainly believed in the existence of God before this morning. But who can say that when they first believed as a young adult that God existed that they understood just what it means to be completely below Him, and powerless in comparison to Him? If anyone can boast that they have been humbled in this manner since childhood then may God rain blessings down upon their head, but I am not such a one. I believed in a maker, in an ordainer, and in a fixer of my larger problems. And I took it on other's witness that the relationship between man and this maker could be a very personal one, but I had never experienced it myself. I respected this "God" fellow, but kept my distance. I had always preferred to say my prayers to Him, not converse with Him.

But now I was humbled. No longer the proud boy who mistook a pastor's blessing for empty words, yet I had no confidence to go on. I had been a fool and I knew it. So conversation with that Maker was beyond me.

The rest of that day was a miserable experience, as was the following night, for I would not let myself sleep for fear of the return of those evil sounds in the darkness of my mind. But by the next night it was too much for me; I found myself once more in the place where I used to create my dreams, the place where the darkness was.

[[: To Be Continued:]]