An old, old story.

Heather's Piece...       

      "I love to tell the story, 
   for those who know it best 
 seem hungering and thirsting 
 to hear it like the rest."

Winter. The very word whispers of soft, crystal snowflakes and crisp, gray winds. Under the subtlest of mention, we understand the implied affect. The stories beneath it lie dormant through months of heat and rain and decay and growth, waiting patiently to be resurrected and retold to the eager ears of a hungry generation. Each ear that hears, and heart that feels, and eye that sees, is then in turn burdened with the story and the command to tell it again. But if you have known the story, and are a bearer of the mission, then you know that it is no grievance. It is joy in the simple retelling, and bounties more in the story itself.

It is a story of wholeness. Or, even more so, a story of how we became whole. It is the story for which all life yearns the completion of. Have a seat, dear hungry soul, while I do my part and share it with you.

It began with a breath, deep in the heart of void and absence of form. A Great Spirit moved over the waters, and they swayed and trembled under His power. With a word, there was light. With another, there was land. With a final great and mighty breath, there was life. In the eyes of this terribly holy and infinite Maker, it was good. He loved His creation, and sought fellowship with them. There were only two in the beginning: Man and the Mother of All. They lived in completion and wholeness, and knew their Maker as they were made to. They took their every breath in the prime and opulent moment when something that was made works in its purpose, where and how it was purposed to. They lived in wholeness, and it was good.

And then came the great separation. There was one who had been created by the Great Maker, but had fallen by his own pride. This spirit groaned with writhing anguish at the sight of these two perfect creations, and he knew how to share his pain. He would cause separation. “The Maker does not love them,” he mused to himself, “and all that they need is to see it. These objects of His affection are not like the ones I’ve seen… They are simple, and physical, and very, very breakable. They are so simple, unlike us spirits. They can be deceived, certainly. For how would so simple and stupid a creature know the truth from a lie, when all that they have known is the Truth? They would not need but one sin to corrupt this sickening paradise. One sin, for all of eternity…”

And so, the infernal Separator began his work. With disobedience, these creatures fell. They fell from their wholeness, and into brokenness. The perfect temples that they were made in began to separate from perfection, and decay. Their lifestyle separated from perfection of ease into toil and pain.  But worst of all, their own spirits died. That was the beginning of eternal separation, and it was not good.

The Maker ceased not in His perfect love. Though His fellowship with His darling children was broken by one vile speck of sin, He chose to redeem them. Though for hundreds and hundreds of years, Man continued to break His heart and chose to run after darker and viler sins, the Maker still loved. He spread hints and threads of His plan through men who chose the pursuit of wholeness over wickedness and ignorance. These storytellers carried the hope of the Maker’s plan, until that blessed night. All of history and time gathered into crescendo, when at last, the Maker gave Himself. He gave His Son, that He may know loss. He fasted, that He may know hunger. He bled, that man would bleed no more. It all began on that night, and it was very, very good.

But the Maker was not done. Spilled blood satisfied death for a moment, but spilled blood of the holy silenced it forever. The chains of death that had been employed by Separation were broken with glorious victory, and it was indeed good. The Maker’s Son restored fellowship between the Maker and Man. Heaven rejoiced, and so did those among Men who knew. Since the beginning of time, man had pined and groaned from the Separation. The Maker had redeemed them. There was nothing to be compared to how good this was.

The story ends not here, dear friends. The story lives on in you. For the true heartbreak and tragedy of this story is not of the inflicted Separation in the beginning, but of the self-stricken Separation of man’s own wicked heart. Men still choose Separation, because they do not know. I have told you the story, and shown you the hope. Now, the glorious story is bestowed upon you. Bear it with urgency, for the time is drawing near when the final chapters shall be written and all will have their fate. Tell the story, dear friends. The Maker has given it, and it is good.

 "And when, in scenes of glory, 
 I sing the new, new song, 
 'twill be the old, old story 
 that I have loved so long."

(lyrics taken from the lovely hymn, "I love to tell the story")