The Death of Me
"And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. "
~ Eustace, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis
You know that point at which everything falls apart? The end of it all as you know it? It comes with a wrenching in your guts, a clanging in your head. It tears you to pieces and leaves you bloodied and broken, a stray dog hit but not killed on the side of the road. It flays you callously, efficiently - exposing nerves so that you are soon shocked senseless. You think you hope you are done but more peeling comes, deeper cuts into your flesh so that your very muscles are ripped away from your bones and you are just a slab of raw meat on the butcher's hook. The final blow, a snake's venom that paralyzes you, shuts down your lungs and heart so that you begin to suffocate leaves you helpless and in mind-numbing pain on the floor, wondering how long it will go on, how much you can endure.
You want to die, you wish you could die. It's agonizing and cruel, devastating and humiliating.
And then something strange happens. A liberation of sorts – a freeing of your soul so that you find new hope, new strength. You find you are clean underneath, the rotten layers that had been you lie in a heap behind you. You are pure and whole and shiny and fresh. You shiver but with excitement at what is to come, with longing to start anew. The world around you has changed. No longer a maze of greed and destruction, you see only clear pools and clean forests. The people have changed too – they are bright and good and hold out their hands in friendship. You step timidly into this new world, this new you, grateful and humble.
Thus it was that the death of me brought forth my new life when I confessed all to Isabel.