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A Nighttime Enlightenment (Fear VS. Faith)

I slept - I really slept. It seemed that was all I could do to try to escape the depression that seized me after my best friend died. To make things worse, I began to lose the very sleep I needed to escape the world of misery I had fallen into.

A crippling fear robbed me of a good nights rest for days, once I had relished sleep, but I found myself constantly preoccupied with the thoughts of impending death. When I did get a moment of fleeting peace, a nagging terror would awake me.

It was a terror of psychological and spiritual torment, but why am I so bothered by it now? That's what I was thinking in the middle of the night as I tossed and turned in bed. Recently, my very best friend had died and I was stricken with sorrow, much as most people do on such somber occasions.

However, something sinister and oblique was tearing at my insides. My heart was aching and the anger and fear of some inevitable dread was slowly taking over my consciousness. I had seen death before, but it never brought the type of doubt I was feeling at that moment.

Essentially, I was loosing faith, or more so, I was enveloped in fear; fear that death was the ultimate destiny for everything alive, including myself. I tried to shake the doubt off, but that insidiously, nagging doubt kept returning.

It was mid-July and I was laying down in front of the fan as the hot air of summer whisked pass my slumbering body. But the comfortable affects of nature could not calm the hectic stirring in my soul. I was gripped by fear as I thought about dying.

It was the thought that there might not be a God and no afterlife, which paralyzed me with this mental terror. What if we existed in the same sense that the atheists claim? What if we died and nothing happened?

Suppose I died and simply vanished into the realm of nothing.no pleasure, no pain, and no thoughts, just a state of nonexistence. The thought of losing everything I had, all my memories and everyone I loved, had put a stern fear inside of me that made me panic.

I was slowly dipping into a fever of fear. I had heard countless preachers on radio shows and in the church confines, but I never felt assured that there was an afterlife, or even a proven God.

However, I had always considered myself to be a Christian. I wanted to believe and accepted that common message about life after death, but in reality, I hadn't accepted it as a stark fact. I simply hoped that the promise of an everlasting life was true.

In retrospect, I never believed in the cartoon-like visions of heaven. Till this day, I don't believe people will be walking on clouds or greeted by winged angels. My vision of heaven is much different.

It is one that I believe is more real and in synch with what is written in the Bible; a kind of utopian version of earth, where we could take pride and interest in doing some work and living for God, as well as helping others that may be on their way to that heavenly dimension.

I often pictured myself walking through a fantastically, beautiful forest of giant trees as I tended to the great works of nature. Nonetheless, those beliefs and hopes I had were dashed to floor as I realized that my friend was gone, that she was never to come back again!

I turned around in my bed and pulled the covers over my head, while my mind tried to make some sense out of the unbiased power that death held over everyone. It was a terrifying realization that death was a terminal disease, in which no living thing was immune.

I thought about all the people who died tragically, such as those murdered or in accidents where they knew they were going to die. I thought about those stricken down with fatal illnesses and their desperate clinging to life.

I too, would cling to life with every last breath, because I would be so very scared to die - to cease to exist. What a terrible horror it is for mankind to be smart enough to recognize death, yet be powerless to stop it!

It is times like this when I envy animals, because they are oblivious to the reality of death, while humans have the unfortunate intelligence to comprehend the mortality of their own fragile lives. In this sense, ignorance is truly bliss!

But as I lay down in the darkness, trying to ease my worried mind to sleep, I caught the glimpse of a star. I had been staring up through my bedroom window and noticed it sparkling in the sky.

There was nothing special about this star, in fact, it was very much like the thousands more the crowded the dark night sky. However, I realized something important, I understood that the world was just one part of a vast galaxy.

More so, I grasped the notion that there were no known limitations to the universe or the micro-verse. I understood that no matter how deep you look into a microscope, you would always see things that are smaller than before.

And if you look out toward the deepness of space, you would quickly realize that there is no end. If there were an end, what would be there? Nothingness? No, there is no such thing as nothingness; quite simply, the universe must have been created, probably from a being that always existed.

In keen observation, anyone can tell you that no matter how hard you try; you can't get something from nothing. This statement is true both mathematically and conceptually and understanding this, something must have always existed. Is this philosophical proof of God?

Maybe, but perhaps this eternal existence is due from some tiny, basic building blocks like the general ingredients to a vast soup of the universe; ingredients that could create all the things we know of through an endless myriad of combinations.

Perhaps, these subatomic, primeval ingredients are cosmic conduits that conform to billions of combinations - combinations that have no limits. If so, would these elements be a part of God?

As far as the best scientific minds could tell, there is no limit to the universe. At this, I asked myself a question. Do I really believe, that the entire vastness of the universe and all the limitless things in it were derived from some cosmic accident?

I honestly answered, and that answer was no! There must be a greater force that had created the universe and all the physics that dictate its nature. Truly, there must be a creator, and that creator is God.

I'll admit, that I don't know what happens when people die, but I believe that a metamorphosis takes place. I believe people transfer and change shape; all living things somehow change energy forms when they die.

I think it's much like water can change from steam to ice or how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Then I think about the Nazarene. The one they call Jesus - the Christ.

He was a real person, new scientific evidence and historical accounts from many sources, even those outside the Christian realm mention him and had recorded his existence. He was a real person, not a mythical figure!

He sacrificed his life for us; people he never met or knew. Never the less, he paid the ultimate price for our survival, a survival that transcends death. After all, wasn't it he, who had first defeated death and was resurrected?

I used to believe this, only because I was afraid of death. I needed some hope to sustain me from the burden of worrying about the dismal ending of my life. Now, I believe in Christ's resurrection not because a preacher told me too, or to escape from my own fear of death.

No - This time, I believe, because it fits in with everything I see, understand and feel. The world, the universe, every science and philosophy leads to a wonderful conclusion - that death is only a step to another life.

I'm now sure that my best friend didn't really die, but simply changed. I know that God instills those changes. I don't know how, or even why, but I realize that there is no such thing as nothingness.

Faith is a commodity that remains the most vital aspect of importance. This noted, I turned around and let go - I let go of my fear and gave into the faith I always knew I had, but was never secure enough to truly accept. Finally, I believed.

Yes, I had faith and as I lay resting, a smile grew over my face and for the first time in many worried nights, I slept - I really slept.

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