“You…you died!” Laice gasped. “You were dead!”
“I was,” he said, nodding. “I sacrificed myself for you, and I was raised back to life. I defeated death so that you would have the chance to live forever here with me.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, her brow furrowed in confusion. “I’m not alive, I’m still dead.”
“Laice,” Eli began, placing his hand on her cheek and gazing into her eyes. “That place isn’t life. That place is just the journey, but this…” he lifted his arm, gesturing. “This is the destination. This is true life, this is eternity.”
As he spoke, the blurry smears of color around her began to melt into focus, and Laice gasped with wonder as her mouth dropped open in awe.
She was sitting on a blanket of soft grass that lined the bank of a crystal-clear stream, the trickling water singing as it rushed over a bed of sparkling gold. The stream flowed away from the bank towards the opposite side, where towering trees hidden in bright, billowing clouds of snow-white fog stretched their leafy branches high up into the sky. Millions of flowers grew along the water’s edge, their colors seeming alive with vibrancy, and the air smelled of roses and sunlight.
“What is this place?” Laice breathed.
“This is the threshold,” Eli told her. “The doorway to the place I have prepared for you.” She glanced up at him, her heart filling with guilt and shame as his words sank in.
“I…I don’t deserve this,” she whispered, wincing against the now-familiar pain in her throat. “Not after what I did.”
“But that’s why I gave you a second chance, Laice,” he answered, smiling warmly. “I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. It takes seven seconds to walk from life into death, and I used them to give you the chance to choose to trust me.”
“Seven seconds?” Laice echoed in astonishment. “You mean to tell me all of that happened in just seven seconds?” Eli nodded. “But how? How is that possible?”
“It’s just like in a dream,” he explained. “Where a single second can feel like hours, even days.”
“So it was all just a dream?”
“In part,” he told her. “The camp was an illusion you created within your mind, it was your mind’s attempt to make sense of the moment your spirit left your body. But while some of it was born from imagination, it was still built around the truth of what you were facing. The visions of Amy and Dylan were the fears in your heart, the torment of the consequence of what you had done. Your spirit could see it but your mind couldn’t understand, so you envisioned a setting that tried to make sense of it all.”
“And I chose to be a soldier?” Laice snorted in disbelief.
“Of course you did!” Eli laughed. “Don’t you remember when you were a child, how you wanted to be a knight when you grew up?” Her eyes grew wide.
“I do remember that!” she exclaimed. “I asked for a sword three birthdays in a row!”
“And a horse,” he reminded her, chuckling. He nudged her playfully, his eyes sparkling, but her face grew solemn.
“But the camp felt so real,” Laice said, shuddering as she thought back. “I really thought I remembered the sword and armor, they looked so familiar to me.”
“It was all part of the illusion,” Eli replied. “The mind is a powerful thing, and Seph was able to manipulate that illusion, like creating the idea of your missing arm when you first woke up or causing you to remember things that weren’t real. It was meant to suppress your memories and to make you feel like you weren’t safe with anyone but him, and he did his best to cast doubt on what little you did remember.”
“Like sleeping and eating,” she mused, and he nodded.
“That’s also why he tried taking the watch from you,” Eli went on. “He knew it would make you question him, and he didn’t want you to know when the countdown began.”
“The watch wasn’t moving at first,” Laice remembered. “Why didn’t it start until after I saw the burning people?”
“Because I would not allow it,” he answered. “Until that moment, you were still trapped in the illusion of the camp, and your time would have run out without you ever knowing what was at stake. I would not allow your time to begin until I could see that you were ready.”
“So deciding to leave was what started the countdown? That’s when I was ready?”
He nodded.
“When you chose to leave the camp, your mind broke through the first wall that separated you from me. You were no longer lingering in the moment your spirit left your body, you had crossed into the veil, the place between the world and eternal death. Only there could you choose to trust me before reaching the final end.”
“But why didn’t you just tell me I was dead in the beginning, the first time I saw you?”
“When you died, your mind belonged to the enemy,” Eli explained. “You weren’t able to hear me, I had to break through to you first. The battle for your mind began the moment you saw me beckoning to you when you first woke up in the camp, and it continued throughout your journey with each temptation you faced. I never left your side, but I could not force you to see or hear me until you were ready. Instead, I was the voice in your heart that led you to the cave, the silent reminder that prompted you to keep going.”
“But you spoke to me right after I woke up in the camp. Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“I was able to speak to you, but you weren’t open to hearing very much,” Eli told her. “You had to walk through tribulation until you were willing to open your mind, to fully let go of the deception. You had to realize that Seph was a liar, but you also had to choose to trust me without reservation.”
“I listened to you when I chose to leave, though,” she pointed out. “Why wasn’t that enough?”
“You chose to leave out of fear, not out of trust,” he said. “You were afraid of what you had seen, nothing more. I gave you the mountain as your destination to provide you with the journey, but the left-handed path represented the chance to trust me along the way. You had to choose to trust me, to heed my words over those of the enemy. And like he often does in life, the enemy used your greatest fear, the demise of your son, to try to waste your last moment, but ultimately that is what broke through the final wall that stood in the way of you trusting me.”
She sighed, the memory of what she had experienced flashing through her mind.
“You didn’t really have to wait for me to do anything, you know. You’re powerful enough, you could have made me listen.”
“And force you to trust me?” Eli countered, giving her a meaningful look. “Yes, I could have taken away your choice. I could have made you a slave to my will, to my command. You would have had all of paradise in exchange for your freedom to make your own decisions.” He shook his head. “I told you once before, I have no kingdom of slaves. I offer eternal life to those who choose to trust me of their own free will, that is all I require of anyone.”
“And those who choose not to trust you? You just forget about them?”
“I honor their choice,” he said, his eyes growing sad. “Their hope is gone now, lost beyond my reach. But everyone gets a chance to decide for themselves, whether it be in life or in the last moments before death, and sometimes both.”
“Did I have a chance while I was still alive?” Laice asked.
“Many times,” he answered. “But it’s all the same, either way. The path you walked in the moments of your death is no different than the path others walk in life, except you could see clearly. Because you were crossing through the veil, you saw temptation and fear and evil for what they actually are, as creatures that hunger after your soul. In life, those things look much different, but the danger they hold is still the same. Many choose to wait like you did and many make the wrong choice in the end, but I walk beside each and every one of them throughout the journey just as I did for you.”
Laice thought of Dylan, and she swallowed hard.
“What about my son?” sh
e asked, her voice breaking. “What will he choose?”
“That isn’t your concern, beloved,” he responded gently. “He must walk his own path, he must decide for himself.”
“Will he…will he follow in my footsteps? Will he repeat my mistake?”
“He must decide for himself,” Eli repeated. “Only he can choose whether or not he will do things differently. But what you need to understand is that all of the pain and heartbreak and joy and laughter of that life will pass away, and the only thing that will remain, the only thing that will matter, is whether or not he chooses to trust me in the end.”
“I just want to know that he’ll be okay,” she whispered, looking down at her hands. Eli stood to his feet, reaching to help her up.
“Do you trust me, Laice?” he asked, gazing into her eyes. She nodded. “Then trust me to care for him.”
“Is there at least some way to let my family know that I’m okay?” Laice asked hopefully.
“Death is the one experience in life that no one else can share with you,” Eli answered, shaking his head. “It is yours alone to bear. It isn’t their place to know how your path ended, that knowledge is reserved for those who have crossed their final bridge. Many know that the chance to choose me ends with death, but forget that only I can mark the exact moment. A lifetime can be contained in a single second if I so will it, and those who know me must trust that I will do everything in my power to keep my children from being lost. The ones you left behind must decide to let go, to accept that some things are beyond their reach until their own time comes.”
“That isn’t exactly the answer I was hoping for,” Laice sighed, and Eli smiled.
“I know, beloved,” he chuckled, hugging her tightly. “But it’s the truth. Now,” he said, his face filling with excitement. “Are you ready to come home?”
She nodded, and he took her hand.
They stepped into the shallow water, and Laice felt her heart begin to swell with an indescribable joy. The gold pebbles that lined the bottom of the stream were soft beneath her bare feet, and the water seemed to soak into her skin, creeping up through her toes until it reached the top of her head where it burst forth, transforming her body into radiant light. She looked at Eli to see that his tattered robe had vanished, replaced by garments of gold so pure they seemed to be made of flowing, white glass, and when she glanced down she saw that she, too, was now clothed in the same.
She heard a child’s giggle, and she turned to see the little girl from her dream playing in the water.
“It’s her, Eli! She’s here!”
As Laice stared, recognition slowly set in, and she gasped.
“She’s me.”
“She is who you used to be,” Eli said, smiling. “She is your innocence, your hopes and dreams, the part of you that was stolen away by the darkness of the world. She has been waiting for you.”
The little girl laughed, her blue eyes sparkling as she stepped closer. Laice’s heart filled with longing as the child opened her arms, and she knelt down, enveloping the little girl in a hug. Happiness bubbled up within her as the child suddenly disappeared, transforming into a cloud of light that flooded through her body, and as she straightened, she felt somehow whole.
“Come, Laice. We’re nearly there.”
With each step she took, Laice felt the memory of everything she had left behind slowly begin to fade from her mind. Nothing in her past mattered anymore, lost to a time and a life that were no longer hers, and she felt the pain in her neck suddenly vanish. She glanced down at her reflection in the surface of the water; the bruise on her throat was gone.
As they drew closer, the trees and flowers on the opposite bank began to bend and sway, and Laice could now see that they were crafted of light that had been gathered up and shaped to form each leaf and petal. The snow-white clouds of fog that hovered along the bank breathed a whispered welcome, parting in the middle to reveal what lay beyond their mist.
“We’re home,” Eli told her, and pure exhilaration washed over Laice’s body as she gazed out upon what lay before her.
She could see now why the water had flowed towards the tree-lined bank instead of downstream; it wasn’t a bank, but the edge of a waterfall that poured down into a brilliant crystal sea. Diamond waves sparkled as they crested and broke upon jeweled shores, and beaches of golden sand faded into an endless garden that stretched on and on as far as the eye could see.
Even from where she stood high above it all, Laice could clearly see the faces of the people that laughed and played there, all of them wearing shining robes. There were so many, it looked as if all the stars in the heavens lived in this place, a dazzling, infinite universe scattered with a billion individual rays of light and happiness and laughter.
The hills and valleys were dotted with trees, their transparent, brightly colored leaves rustling in the rose-scented breeze. Animals raced back and forth, frolicking in the fields and masses of wildflowers, and Laice giggled with delight, breathing deep of the joy that filled the air.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, turning to look at Eli, when she caught sight of what was behind her.
The tree-lined bank she had crossed only a moment before had disappeared, revealing a vast meadow of roses that sprouted up through the clouds. Gold cobblestones cut a path through the center of the millions of flowers, and Laice’s eyes grew wide when she saw where it led.
Twelve majestic mountains, tall enough to reach the sun, encircled one mountain that towered high above them all. A massive city of gold was etched into its sides, carved out of the very rock itself, and on its peak was a fortress with twelve gates, its foundation inlaid with jewels.
An ocean of people were gathered around a golden fountain in the center of the city, their faces bright with happiness as they played in the sparkling water. She watched some of them duck in and out of the doorways of towering mansions that lined the endless maze of streets, racing about with unbridled excitement, and she could feel in her heart that one of those doorways belonged to her.
A trumpet sounded, followed by a symphony of singing voices that were joined by more trumpets. A hush fell over the people in the city, and they grew still, turning to look. A golden staircase appeared at the main gate of the fortress above, pouring down the side of the mountain and zig-zagging through the city, and a procession of light began making its way down the steps.
Thousands of tall, radiant beings trickled into the city, lining up along the streets, and Laice’s breath caught in her throat. She recognized them; they were the warriors Seph had fought on the battlefield, but their armor looked different than before. The dark steel had been replaced with shining, polished silver, and their backs were now bare instead of appearing misshapen, revealing diamond wings that moved gently to keep them aloft as they hovered just above the ground.
They seemed to be standing at attention as if waiting for something, and as she stared at them, she caught sight of a familiar face.
It was the man who had saved her on her way to the cave.
His dark skin seemed even brighter now, and his golden eyes were full of happiness as he turned to meet her gaze. He smiled, giving her a quick wink before facing forward again, and she burst into excited laughter. It all made sense to her now, just as she had been promised.
“They’re waiting for you,” Eli told her as the singing voices grew louder. “To escort you into the city to meet my Father.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“They’re all here for me?”
“These are the ones I commissioned to fight for you in life and in death, and now they’re ready to celebrate your homecoming.”
“And your Father…the King…He wants to meet me?”
“Of course,” Eli answered. “He’s the One who sent me to save you.”
Laice turned to face him, utterly overwhelmed.
“Why have you done all of this for me?”
The music swelled as Eli opened his arms, and a pulse of dazzling l
ight surged from within him, rushing forward to fill the sky and bathing everything in its path with splendor. He smiled warmly, his eyes full of peace as he stepped closer and wrapped her in an embrace.
“Because I love you.”
The Beginning
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS.
The first time suicide impacted my life was in 2004, when a high school friend killed herself, but it would not be the last. In the five years that followed, two more people I knew made the same tragic choice, including my sister-in-law who left behind the children that I would come to call my own.
It was from that first encounter with suicide that the concept behind The Moments Between was born. I felt so much guilt and shame knowing that I had held the answer to my friend’s problems within me the whole time: the truth of Jesus and His hope. The weight of responsibility I so arrogantly took upon myself was nearly unbearable, until I realized that if I truly trusted Christ, I needed to trust that He did all He could to offer my friend salvation.
Nearly everyone in this world has been touched by suicide in some way, and in my personal experience, the most difficult part of the healing process is working through that overwhelming guilt. For those like me who have Christian backgrounds, the guilt is usually accompanied by a deep sense of failed responsibility and one unrelenting, almost tortuous question: is our loved one in heaven or hell?
The Moments Between Page 13
