Zero Hour

Looking back on years when I wandered to give meaning to my existence makes me realize how much of life I was not able to live the way it should.

For five years, I suffered a headache for the one question I cannot answer and there was never a night I did not cry to sleep. In my mind, I cursed my Maker and even made a declaration that he does not exist. Spent long hours in the net searching for the meaning of life, bought books that could somehow hand me an explanation, talked to strangers whom I thought could share the same sentiments, and even explored the possibility of finding the answer in the afterlife, so "What if I take my life?" Yes, I saw beautiful things surrounded me but I thought they were just lies. I felt I was in a banquet of lies. I used to believe that "beauty is an illusion". "Yes, they were good. But do they matter? I don't even know why they exist."

I masked my desperation with neglect. I faked my sadness with preoccupation. It was exhausting to chase the wind, you know.

No friend has ever heard this agony. But I was wrong.

From total darkness a thick voice had to speak, "Where are you?"

And things changed. It was as if I am brought into the open from an empty closet.

I responded with a question to myself, "Where am I?" --- an epiphany that turned my life upside down. Just when my world was about to crush, I realized that being lost is not that I do not know where I am heading; being lost is not knowing where I am standing.


"I am standing in a blind alley before the Creator of all things seen and unseen. I am standing before the Love I cursed but ran after me. I am standing before the Breath who gave me this life. I am standing before the Answer and the Truth. I am standing before a Knight who came for rescue to offer me a clothing for my nakedness. I am standing before a Father who welcomes me with arms wide open. I am standing before the Cross whose blood cleansed me. I am standing before a holy God, compassionate, gracious, merciful, and whose love is patient and everlasting."

You see, sometimes God has to allow a shipwrecked life to save a life. He is good at bringing someone at the end of self-sufficiency. Sometimes God has to turn off the lights so we can appreciate the fire in his campground. And when I succumbed to his light, I saw life as extraordinary. My mourning was turned into dancing. Winter has gone, springtime has come.

That was sweet torture and I am grateful that God let that happen. For if he did not, I would not have known and treasured him and the life he gave. If things were not, I would not be able to see that only he can make the difference. And to intrude, he did not, I would not be able to live this life I am living --- at its full measure.