He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquity,
The chastisement of our peace was upon him,
..And by HIS stripes, we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5
The vigil had turned into an intercession prayer. Three hours had gone by and still nothing had happened.
Zebu had been gently lifted and moved over to the bed. He lay as still as a corpse, his breathing, very shallow.
Still the prayer band didn't relent.
************
Zebu is engulfed in darkness.
It is all around. It is within him. But he senses something else,..no..someone.
That someone seemed to also be within, just like the darkness.
Who are you ... . Why is it so dark ..so dark! , his voice echoes
Laughter rings like a doorbell all around him, swirling higher and higher then suddenly dying down.
Where is this .. why won't you talk to me.
Silence
Then a giggly sing song voice replies.
I am you, you are me, we have merged as one
Down down we will go, for we are one
I love you and you, me, and together we will be as one
Fear grips at the lad's heart . Somehow he knows he is trapped once again, just like before.
Ethjab!
But no. This is different. He feels like a caged animal, bound hands, chest, feet and all.
Thick darkness chokes him.
I don't love you, replies the boy in his sub conscious, to whatever was talking to him, and I don't want to be here, ..let me go!
Then hate all you want , the voice thickens and snarls , ..because you are going nowhere!
I want out of here, the lad gulps as if drowning within his soul
someone..anyone, ..please help me, he whispers
Laughter.
No one can hear you_no one can help you. Can't you remember, ..just yesterday, they kept trying to persuade you to accept the Nazarene
But thankfully you didn't, ..did you , my bad boy, sneered the horrible voice, and since HE is not your master , I have decided to be just that to you , the voice cooed mischievously.
Zebu's mind is running around now like a roller coaster. O LORD, what have I done..Jesus help me ..please .
Don't you dare call that name here zebu, hissed a new voice
Suddenly he can hear voices from a far off place . Barely audible_ yet there.
The voices begin to grow stronger. Their words begin to cut through the darkness.
As a bright blinding light shatters the darkness around him. A force lifts his spirit out of his trapped body transporting him through space and time to another dimension all together.
Passing at accelerating speed, towards the bright light, the darkness tries to pull him back but to no avail. The power in the bright light is stronger,.. so much stronger.
He feels it . It's indescribable. The power in the light is so warm, beckoning to him, welcoming him home.
*************
Zebu finds himself sitting on a beach. Before him is an ocean . Curious, he stands up and approaches the edge of it . It seems to reach purposely for his toes, as if having a will of it's own. It's colors were of different shades of greens, swirling within each other. It was so unusual.
Somehow he knows it is as deep as it is wide, going out for miles, yet he can see to the very bottom. Gazing more intently, he notices various unfamiliar fishes and sea creatures swimming around. All shaped in different sizes and forms . And their colors,..exquisite and more brilliant than the ones he caught at Krotoa river occasionally.
Zebu stands up and glances around.
For the first time, he notices he is no more in Darinwa, He laughs at himself . This isn't even Central Afrique.
The light is so bright . It seems to light up everything . And the beautiful_somewhat touchable feeling of ..joy.
He has no idea how long he has stayed at the beach, wading in it's waters and gazing into the rainbow streaked sky, observing colors of a new spectrum that he has no names for.
As he is about to take a short nap on the cool sands, he hears a soft roar. He leaps up and glances around.
How Zebu hadn't sensed the creature before now is beyond him.
*********
Barely fifteen yards from the lad was a huge golden lion. Somehow it seemed to be engulfed in colorful flames . The lion towered as high as a mountain, striding ever so elegantly towards him.
It's beauty was so captivating , all Zebu could do was stare_transfixed to the spot.
It's eyes were the most powerful yet strangest thing about it. Zebu saw that it changed colors at will. From a deep gold, to purple then brown...and the colors just went on and on, but later seemed to settle on an ocean green , just as the sea behind him.
The lad had never seen anything so magnificent.
Unconsciously, Zebu didn't feel threatened by the magnificent creature, but instead, Zebu closed his eyes as a soft wind blew through him. Instinctively, he reached out to touch its snout.
Soft voices began to proclaim all around him..
" His love is deeper than the ocean,
wider than the skies above,
his mercy endures for ever,
behold.. the Lion of the tribe of Judah,
Jesus! Jesus !Jesus!
A firm hand encircled the lad's wrist and pulled him into an embrace.
With his eyes still tightly shut, Zebu began to weep. He had never felt so much love as he did now in this embrace.
Every wall he had raised ever since he found his mother's loveless letter at the Superior nun's office, came crashing down.
All his hurts and pains seem to sip out like dark smoke . Yet the embrace only grew tighter, ..more loving, more life.
Even before the voices proclaimed HIM, Zebu knew .
Years had passed, yet he remembered how he sometimes read the Bible at the Orphanage chapel on Saturdays and Sundays, and how he had loved the title of Jesus as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The title sounded so ..powerful.
Only to him, they were just stories. He didn't believe much in them and couldn't fathom how a stranger from a far off land would die for people he didn't even know or had never met.
But here He was,.. in the best way He knew the lad perceived Him in his mind's eye.
Neither said a word.
Only deep seethed unspoken feelings of being lost, then found, flowed through the lad.
At last, Zebu was spent. All his energy and resistance, ..gone.
He finally pulled away and for the first time since their meeting, glanced up at the one called ..Jesus.
He saw a simple looking man, dressed in a clean white robe with a red sash around one shoulder which had a writing on it which said, 'My blood, shed for all'.
" Zebu you have great works to do for me", said a smiling Jesus, "many souls are tied to you, waiting for the healing ministry I have established through you even before you were born"
"I would do anything you ask me to LORD" answered a sober Zebu
"Then, ..feed my sheep" said Jesus
"Your sheep?" this was a new phrase for Zebu. "What do you mean LORD. Who are your sheep?"
"People lost in the world, Zebu. Your brothers and sisters who need to hear the word of GOD and be healed both physically and spiritually by it. I am the word of GOD, ..Him whom even you, have forsaken".
Zebu's face became downcast. He knew he had refused salvation over and over again.
Jesus laughed, to Zebu it sounded like many waterfalls, .."but I still love you, even though you are a sinner. But I hope that one day you will receive me. Behold I am knocking at the door of you heart" He said, placing his hand on the lad's chest. "If you open to me, I will come in and dwell with you, and you with me.
Suddenly the rainbow skies above them became dark with thick grey clouds.
Zebu sadly looked at Jesus and knew his time was up, it was time to go back.He tried to grab a hold of Jesus but there was nothing there anymore.
The ground below Zebu gave way and he began to fall. As he fell, the last thing he heard the LORD say was "if you trust in me, I will carry you all the way through this journey, in both good and trying times, ..I will be with you, even till the end of time".
As Zebu fell, his throat gave up screams that rang in his ears. All the while, his hands, snatching at the blackness that suddenly overwhelmed him.
With a mighty cry, Zebu woke up in his bedroom at Mama Sai's , to a strange rumbling of people speaking in a funny tongue.
"Praise the LORD!" someone shouted, "he is alive!".
===============To be continued =================