under attack

Trigger Warning: mention of self-harming behavior such as suicide.

Ada drove herself from her favorite coffee shop in a state of somnolence. Doing 100 in a 50 zone, she defied safety, hoping to win. She wished to lose herself. To numb her mind with substances and inexistence

She arrived home, set her keys down, and while taking off the shoes that had been troubling her all afternoon, a strange face caught her attention. She could not recognize the dead person looking back at her. Their dark eyes fixed on one another, questioning their presence. Had they been staring at each other for seconds, minutes, or forever? Had they ever met before this day?

Ada tilted her head to get a better look and saw that the face mimicked her actions. Wait. She whispered something, and the person answered, "it's me."

She realized that it was her reflection looking back at her, suggesting something. But was that her from the past or the future? Was that the her she yearned to be, deep down and non-admittedly?

She made it to a chair and sat down, unable to carry her body somewhere else to ask for help.

"Is this how she felt?" This thought, considered once before, was back again. Images of her high school friend's lifeless body replayed over and over again.

"Is this how she felt." The pain so strong, the end so near.

Ada tried to choke back her tears as she struggled to carry herself to her bedroom. And while she was two steps away from her bed, a figure unknown behind the bathroom door called her name.

"Is this how she felt?" This thought again.

"Is this how she felt?" Find a rope, something sharp, a plan, a friend.

One last time, "Is this how she felt?"

Descending into darkness.

Silence.

The end.

A few hours later, Ada awoke from this state with life in her eyes and strength in her voice. She grabbed the book that had been saving her for many years and read from it aloud for all of her unseen visitors to hear.

Searching for the dead reflection, she realized that was the her that could have been. But not today.

She slept through her death and woke up knowing who had saved her–knowing that He helped her to bed and placed His hands over her ears as death beckoned her.

But what she did not know then was that this was just the beginning.

​

“Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah.

For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

But woe to the earth and the sea for the devil has come down to you with great fury because he knows his time is short.’”

Revelation 12:7:12

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this [present] darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 6:12