the Requiest

I was at the gas station filling up my motorcycle when a young guy on a sports bike pulled in to do the same. He obviously notices me (motorcyclists see other motorcyclists like we have built in tracking systems) but doesn’t give me a head nod or any other recognition sign. He goes in to the gas station to pay and when he comes back out looks right past me. OK, so I’m riding a big ol’cruiser and he’s on a pocket rocket, but to my way of thinking we’re both out riding our bikes, “where’s the love?”

Oh well, what ever.  I get on my bike and work my way over to 270 heading up to Frederick for a quick ride. I haven’t gone but a few miles up the road when I realize something odd is coming up in the left lane. Here goes mr. pocket rocket, standing up on his rear pegs with the front wheel of his bike a good 4 feet off the ground. Yup the show off was going down the highway at 70-75 mph doing a wheelie. So he goes on past me and I’m riding my ride, shaking my head at his little show, when he decides to bring everything back to earth – and that’s when it all goes bad.

Something happened when the front wheel touched the road surface, maybe the tire wasn’t lined up perfect, I don’t know, but what I saw was the front end violently wobbling and then the whole bike shaking. In an instant the bike flipped itself onto it’s far side creating what’s termed a “high side” fall for the rider. The rider was tossed to the ground in front of the bike with the bike then running back over him. Needless to say there was general pandemonium on 270 as everyone locked up their brakes trying to avoid hitting the downed biker.

So what if you were me in this story? What would be your initial reaction? Are you thinking, “what an idiot – that’s what you deserved”, or….? Do you have compassion and care how badly he’s injured or if he’s even still alive?

If you reminisce about your more youthful endeavors, how many hair brained, lame things did you do? How many of them can you look back on now shaking your head in wonder that you’re still around to tell a “story”?

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Sometimes it’s so hard to have what many times feels like a one way conversation.  While we rest on the many promises, it’s still difficult to feel like our prayers are being heard. Do you ever feel this way? Do you sometimes feel like shaking your fists at Heaven and just yell out, "Give me an answer. Show me your face. Let me know that you’re here with me."

Well if this has ever been the case then I’d like to share with you something that a good friend at work just shared with me this morning.

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I was standing out on Lake Frank, in the middle of the night. The lake was well lit by the light from a full moon. I could tell it was well below freezing outside but never really felt the sting from the breeze that blew the light powdered snow about. For a crisp clear evening the quiet was almost deafening in it’s obviousness. The only sound was the scuffling of my footsteps as I slide walked ever further to the center of the lake.

The lake was ringed by the leafless, barren, winter trees that stood about like spectators waiting in silent expectation for some as yet unstated play to unfold. Their stark shadows splayed out foreboding and ominous. Spectral dark fingers that reached out to take hold of me and pull me into their bosom, hurrying my steps ever toward the center of the lake.

If you’ve ever been to a frozen lake then you’ll know the sounds that the frozen ice will make as it expands and heaves. There were deep boomings that sounded like they were coming from the bottom of the lake. The echoes from the sound rippled from shore to shore, coming back to me off the hills. Popping and cracking sounds that I could feel beneath my feet leaving me to wonder if my next step would leave me floundering in the icy water. But now there was a muffled sound reaching my ears, and as I continued to make my way to the center of the lake the noise became more distinct. It was a lite pounding or hitting that I was hearing and it seemed to come from directly beneath me.

I looked down and all I could see was the milky white ice. But as I continued to stare downward and the noise grew increasingly distinct I saw the ice become clearer so I could see the water beneath. But it wasn’t water that I was seeing, but upturned faces, pressed up against the underside of the ice. Fists pounding, nails futilely clawing against the bottom of the ice. The faces of a multitude silently screaming in the horror of being trapped beneath the ice with no way to escape. Each person alone, raging in anguish against the nightmare in which they found themselves.

All of this happened in mere seconds. And as I continued to stare down at my feet and the faces looking back up at me I realized that they couldn’t even see me. They weren’t pleading with me directly to release them from their prison, they were just trying to escape. And it wasn’t to get out of where they were but to get to where they wanted to be. Even as my mind reeled at what I was seeing I understood the meaning of this nightmare. This was an image of the damned, each trapped, frozen in isolation, separated from God. It was with that heart rending knowledge that I startled myself awake, drenched in a cold sweat.

It’s been years since I had that dream, but the memories and the images have been burned into my mind. Time has not lessened the feelings of horror and dread that I witnessed in that dream, if anything time has further clarified my understanding. I believe that coming before the Judgment Throne of God, we will all be allotted the opportunity to not just see but know who are Creator truly is. We will feel His majesty to our core. Our spirits will leap in recognition. We will smell the morsels from our Masters table and our souls will taste the mist that blows off the fountain of living water. And just as quickly, for those who never called him Lord, they will find themselves torn from his presence, cast into an eternity of separation. Hell is knowing what you could have had. Hell is feeling the Glory of God wash over you (even while being condemned) and knowing that you will never feel anything like it again. Hell is finding yourself alone, without any contact or comfort and where the only solace is the memories of your own pitiful existence played out over and over and over and over till then end of all…

There is no end that’s the hell of it.

Sweet dreams,
Rong