The wind whipped against my body, cold off the ocean. Tears from the cold fell from my eyes. I was, at last, all alone. But I sought my refuge in Him. So I ran.
I ran to the fiery, burning lighthouse. The flames blurred my vision. I was sweating on a cold night. I burst through the broken doorway and stepped into the smoky stairwell. A wave of heat washed over my body. But I climbed anyway. Half way up, I could hear the crackling, it was a roaring above my head. I climbed further. I didn't know why I kept climbing. It was as if something had possessed me from the inside and now all I could do was submit to this inner urging "to run," and then, "to climb." I had lost all control, tears streaming down my face. Whether they were from the heat, or the cold, or my own loss I didn't know. I just climbed, furiously, my white hands clutching the railing, step after step.
Then the flames were before me and around me, the roaring in my ears was agonizing. I wept. I stood on the burning tower of the lighthouse, looking over the ocean, weeping. My soul was crumpling up inside of me, onto my knees, but I stood strong and proud, and tearfully in the flames.
I stayed that way for eternity it seemed, I saw everything, and remembered all of my life, now gone in the flames. Then I was back, the heat was real, my flesh was burning. I had control again and screaming, I jumped off the tower.
The water wrapped its arms around my soul and loved me again, but this time it took me with it. It took me down to its very depths, a new, more intimate love. Everything was silent there as I sank slowly to the bottom of the ocean. Air was not needed here, only spirit. I could hear His voice again and his hands on my skin, "my God, my God, you have not forsaken me," I cried as He held me in his arms. Then a flash of pain, and I was suffocating. I was dying. In the depths of the ocean, I saw one burning coal. Blackness, and a burning coal. It was time. I would not survive. So I let go. I gave up my soul to the one who judges justly, ready, ready to die.
Suddenly, life surged into my wounded chest, coursing through my veins. I could hear the burning coal beating with life in it, and that life was in me. I stared through the dark blue water, at my chest that was glowing red from the inside out. A new power came over me. It was love. It was freedom. And I knew that I could live. I was swimming towards the surface. And the only thing that I could feel as I immerged was the overwhelming heartbeat of God's love.
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you," He said, " I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And this new heart, it will be the fire in your bones that you will be unable to contain."
