Dead.
Buried.
A grieving husband and three young children.
She used to call everyone "Hon." She always had a smile ready for me. Ready for anyone.
We had prayed. Over three years of prayer and support against the cancer. Over three years of hearing promise after promise that she would live.
Dead.
Buried.
I used to love speaking to God. I used to love telling Him jokes, stupid as they seemed. I used to love just sitting with my Papa. I had also enjoyed encouraging others to pray, and daring them to pray a little recklessly, a little beyond what they found "safe". And at times, I would enjoy a little feeling of superiority in my own praying abilities: I heard from God; I saw God answering my prayers. Did they?
Dead.
Buried.
Arcee had Starscream.
Optimus had Megatron.
Who did I have to rage against?
I slammed my knees into the sand, a scream tearing from my already raw throat, choking out through my tears, "Where were You!?"
Wind came, snatching my words away to the rolling waves and overcast night sky. Not a single syllable reached the cabins of the camp ground behind me. I almost wished they did; I was alone. The scream transformed into some twisted child of a snarl and a hiss, "Where were Your promises?"
Another transformation, this time into something desperate as I felt the very definition of my being for the past decade and a half slipping away. Just as she had. "Where are You?"
I began to alternate pleas and accusations choking through tears, "Just show me a star. One star to know that You are there. Like You were for Abraham. Why is she dead? You promised! There were people praying their hearts out!" – a twinge of guilt – "Perhaps I didn't pray enough, but don't You dare lay this on me! Not when others were! You promised."
No star showed. Just clouds. No answer to my demands. Just wind.
When I was a young child, I once asked my mother what happens if someone was a Christian and decided to leave God. She had told me that they would see Jesus calling them back. This intrigued me, and as I had laid in my bed that night I had told God I wasn't going to be a Christian anymore, that I was walking away. But no matter whether I had my eyes open or closed I didn't see Him. Realizing that He'd called my bluff, I had given up and gone to sleep believing. And kept on believing for over a decade.
One last cry, both desperate and furious, shook my body as I demanded Him to make His Presence known, to keep His damn promise. Salt and water still raked down my cheeks and breathing pained my ragged throat. I stood, weakly. Still no answer. She was still dead. Buried. I walked away.
Gravel slipped from beneath my sneakers. I didn't have the strength in my knees to stay upright, but I did not fall. I stumbled away, over roots and rocks down the path, leaving everything I had known behind me in two knee prints on the ground. I didn't have the strength in any of my being to stay on my feet, and yet, bent in half, I made progress, barely avoiding the trees that crowded me in. The wind was still strong enough to drown my sobs before they reached the cabins that I passed. I was grateful, and yet my lips betrayed me as a small plea slipped through to That which I had left behind, "Please, send someone after me…"
No one came. No star showed. And she was still dead.
I reached a clearing, alone, and staggered across on strength that was not my own. My thoughts drifted towards the meeting of believers I had left but moments before. Their prayers for me, their encouragement. "You've been an inspiration; I look up to you; you are so strong in God."
A bitter laugh came, twisting my heart in frustration as it rose from my pain. My lips betrayed me again, "How can anyone look up to me when I can't even pray to You? When I don't trust You?"
My bag, carrying a book I found so precious just minutes ago, dropped to the gravel of a parking lot and I began to pace around it, gesticulating wildly, snarls now directed more at myself then the Presence I suddenly felt standing in the lot with me. "I'm arrogant, selfish, I failed in prayer for her, I don't trust You, I'm…"
Something within me clicked.
"… I'm Starscream."
Thoughts raced back over all the times I found myself looking down on those around me, all the times I knew that I could do a better job of running the universe than That which I left. And That which I had left…
A grin of a new sort grew across my face and a laugh came out, one no longer owned by bitterness.
"And You," I addressed the Presence with glee that arose from hope and a nerdy sense of humor, "are far from Megatron!"
The antonym of me, You are divinity.
"The antonym of me," the treacherous Decepticon murmured, "You are faithful."
Show me a star, I had plead. Here Starscream stood.
Send someone after me, There He stood. I didn't see Him, but I knew exactly where His feet touched the gravel. I thought back to the beach where I rose and walked away, but never upright on my own strength. He had never left. Even as I walked away, He had never left me.
I don't know why she is still dead. I don't know why she died. But she is more alive than ever before. She is with Him; He is with her family. With us. And He is faithful.