O Resplendent Light

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc2bg5HqId4

I am bloody. Clothes torn from my shoulders, grime smeared across my face, blisters on my feet, cracked knuckles, weary back. My heart is still racing in my chest and I can feel my own pulse under my jaw. I close my eyes, only for a second, breathing deeply.

I am empty. Everything I had, every ounce of strength, every gift... I have used it all. Empty handed, broken, and weary.

I am not the only one.

I look around me and realize I am surrounded by hundreds of thousands more. Fog rises from the ground around our feet, the sky above our heads has been torn apart - the veil between Heaven and Earth has been rent in two.

All I hear is breathing.

I search the faces of those around me, but my heart does not mourn their brokenness. No. Even through the haziness of my own sweat and blood I can see: on each of their foreheads is a seal. An imprint.

And while I would have once mourned such devastation... while I once would have sunk deep into my own emptiness... I know I too bear the seal. Even in my weariness, something within me rises.

One last time, the earth groans beneath our feet. A cry - a birthing pain.

It is over.

Deep, black clouds churn on the horizon. Pushed back. Pushed down by Heaven itself.

Reaching up, I try to wipe away the sweat and grime dripping into my eyes. But before my hand even reaches my brow, I feel my face being cupped by hands, callus and rough.

With His thumb, He wipes away the dirt.

I look up into the eyes of the One for whom I'd been fighting all along.

Into the gaze of the One who'd been fighting for me all along.

And as the blood red moon pours out into the dense clouds, I realize He is bleeding too.

Sweat and grime and blood drip from His forehead, and in the moment when the light in His eyes meets the weariness in mine, I reach up with rough and callused hands and wipe His brow.

"Well done, my love," He whispers.