joyindestructible

Caste into the outer darkness by the forces of illness and neglect, a child grows in the absence of the comfort and nurture that ensures a child’s becoming whole. Suspended in isolation with nothing but childish, undeveloped thoughts and the voices from the outer-world (of the family) to keep her company, Ester gives into sleep. In her dreams the door to freedom opens and allows her to escape the loneliness of her dusky room. If it were not for sleep and dreams, the vacuum would consume her and she would evaporate to nothing. However, the benevolence that surrounds Ester, the presence she can feel but not name, enters her dreams and speaks the loving words she so desperately needs to hear. Ester has a destiny greater than the one assigned to her by poor health and negligent parents.

Floating in the void of aloneness, Ester knows nothing different and is unaware of the threat to her existence. The void wants to swallow her whole before the world knows of her but Ester has a gift; the ability to fight the void by the power of imagination. The presence never leaves her and though the isolation she endures would destroy most adults, Ester never feels lonely. The warmth of divine love surrounds her and keeps her alive in her dimly-lit room and fills her dreams with joyful images, experiences, and even a sense of self. In the world of flesh and blood, Ester is small and weak. However, in the world of her benevolently guided dreams, Ester is very strong.

In this gloomy room, Ester will face death and win. Even though she’s been in bed for many months and her legs are too weak to support her, she will learn to walk again. She will leave this room one day and enter the real world because the One who loves her has predestined it so. Though Ester will embrace the void for a short period of time, in a wrong-headed effort to subdue and overcome it, the void won’t be able to destroy her. Instead, the emptiness she will for a time internalize will make greater room for the filling of the Spirit of God, who hovers around her, limiting evil and working all to ultimate good. Though Ester has no definition now, of either the loving presence or the void, she knows each as her constant often, only companions. Though she is nothing in the world, even valued little by her parents, God will be glorified through her. Her life, her very existence will be a testimony of Jesus; when she lets go of the void and knowingly invites Him in. Though the world views Ester as having no identifiable purpose, as only a sick little girl wanted by no one, God has predestined His purpose for her in Christ and her purpose will be completed. The void will be filled by the divine light that is Jesus and Ester will know the outer darkness no more.