Life After: The Complete Series

by Julie Hall

  I took a more discerning look at my immediate surroundings. The area was completely covered in a blanket of pristine white snow. It was flat for a twenty-foot radius around me, but beyond that was a straight drop. I was as trapped as if I’d been buried in the ground.

  How had I been plucked from the valley and set up here? The mountain was far too steep to hike. My last recollection was of lying on a stiff bed with a bloody wound, Logan’s concerned face floating above me. And me, a bundle of emotions too painful to explore. But that wasn’t where I was anymore, and the pain, both physical and emotional, was absent.

  I jerked my head to the left to check my injured shoulder, but I couldn’t inspect the gash because I was covered from neck to wrist in white. The unfamiliar dress was tightened at my waist and flowed down to my feet. A few of my toes, still painted bright pink from my salon day with Romona, poked out the bottom. I took the material just above my knee and rubbed it between my fingers. It felt like soft linen. Lifting the hem, I found I was wearing white leather sandals, the style at odds with the cold snap of the snow at my feet.

  Still bewildered, I had a sudden urge to look straight up and saw a small, dense cloud descending. Strange because it was the only cloud in a cloudless sky. Strange because it was moving vertically instead of horizontally. Strange because it was changing altitude at a rapid pace. I stood with eyes transfixed on the mass above until its white brightness enveloped me.

  The first few moments in the midst of the cloud were eerily quiet. I held my breath in anticipation, realizing something was coming but not knowing what. I may have been standing on the edge of the cliff, only a small nudge from plummeting into the nothing.

  A crack of thunder directly on the heels of a blinding lightning bolt broke the tension in a terrifying way. I jerked and gasped in shock, breathing rapidly. The wind picked up, and a tiny piece of hail, no larger than a mustard seed, hit my hand. I was pelted on my left shoulder by two more, this time the size of small pebbles. The hail increased, mixed with snow in an aggressive wind.

  With another flash of lightning, a violent storm erupted, and the force of it sent me to my knees. My very breath was pulled from my lungs as wind, hail, and snow whipped, wailed, and whirled around me in an angry tornado. Fear, as icy as my surroundings, gripped my insides.

  Thunder vibrated deep in my chest until my entire being trembled with aftershocks. I was in the presence of a power so enormous I could do nothing but cower before it.

  I buried my head and clasped my arms around my knees, pulling myself into as small a ball as possible. This was more frightening than looking into a swarm of battling demons. In desperation, I cried out for help to the only being I was certain could hear. The one I’d been running from since the beginning. The torrent raging around me instantly swallowed my voice.

  And then the thunder formed words that spoke to the very core of me. “Audrey, do not be afraid. I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.”

  Despite my turmoil, my trembling stopped, and I lifted my eyes in search of the one who had spoken my name.

  He was walking toward me. My lips formed words that were stolen by the wind. This was the Lord. This was my God.

  He appeared brighter than the whiteness all around, His features obscured by the light emitting from Him. The closer He got the brighter He became, until the brightness was so intense that I could no longer look at Him and was forced to shade my eyes.

  When I looked away, the world was silenced. The only sound was the hitch in my breath. The wind evaporated, leaving only the cold in its place. I shivered.

  A hand settled on my shoulder, and liquid warmth spread from the spot outward, replacing the icy bite of the snow and air. It wasn’t a moment before I was encased in a heated bubble even as I remained crouched on the frozen precipice.

  It was then that I became ashamed to look up at the God I’d forgotten along with the rest of my life. What could I possibly say or offer to Him that would be good enough? I bowed my head low to the ground, pressing my forehead to the snow. I had nothing more than humility to offer.

  The snow crunched beneath Him as He stepped even closer. His hand had left my shoulder, but the warmth He’d given remained.

  “Why do you hide yourself from me?” His voice was now a whisper in my ear. A loving caress to my soul. But despite the affection in His voice, I remained bowed at His feet. Like a servant to her master.

  I forced my mouth to move, the words barely a breath from my lips. “You are El Shaddai—God Almighty.” I spoke it as if it were an answer to His question.

  “But am I not also Abba Father? You did not receive a spirit that makes you a fearful slave, but rather you received My Spirit and have been adopted as My own. You sought me in life and so have been given the right to be a child of Mine.”

  He paused while I remained paralyzed at His feet.

  “I created your inmost being and knit you together in your mother’s womb. My eyes saw your unformed body, and all your days have been written in My book before even one of them came to be. Shall I continue, dear Audrey, to tell you how great My love is for you? Shall I tell you how I have always known the plans I have for you, plans to prosper and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future? Shall I remind you how you came and prayed to Me and how I listened? How you found Me because you sought Me with your whole heart?”

  Words I had once known came up from a deep place within my heart: How great the love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called children of God.

  With those words, I knew that what He said was truth. I knew that He was love and that He loved me. And His love had been made complete in me so that I could approach Him with confidence.

  My face lifted. Unshed tears blurred His image hovering above, with arms open wide, waiting . . . waiting for me.

  With a cry, I half-stood, half-stumbled toward Him and was caught in His embrace. He lovingly wiped the tears from my eyes, and I took refuge in the shelter of His arms, awed that the Creator of the universe truly cared for me.

  Eventually my tears dissipated enough for me to absorb the suspended world around me. Intricate ice crystals and water particles hung in the air as if attached by string to the sky itself. Twisters of snow stood frozen mid-turn. An encircling mist so thick it was tangible shielded us from whatever reality lay beyond. I held my breath in wonder.

  “Are you feeling better, Dear One?” He asked.

  “What’s happened?” I whispered.

  “I have stopped everything to show you how important you are to Me.”

  “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  He smiled. “But of course. For Me a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

  “So nothing else is moving forward in time except us?”

  “You need only know that I’m here to be with you. And to answer a few of those questions you’ve been throwing at Me like darts these past few weeks.”

  With those words, I hung my head and stepped out of His embrace.

  A soft sigh emanated from Him. “Always pulling away from me.” In my mind’s eye, I saw Him shaking His head sadly. “When will you learn to stop hiding behind fears and realize the depth of My care for you? It is not your questions I’m disappointed in, but rather the doubt of Me reflected in them. I cherish a heart bent toward understanding. But you must learn to stand firm on the truth as well.”

  “But I forgot the truth with the rest of my life,” I protested.

  “No, it was always there with you. More a part of you than those memories you missed so much. There was nothing in the Heavens or on Earth that could separate you from the truth. Nothing that could separate you from Me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I sobbed, despair and shame leaking into my heart.

  “Audrey, what is the first truth you learned about Me?”

  I experienced a moment of panic before I realized I knew exactly what it was. God is love. That was th
e first verse I’d ever memorized. The first memory I had of my Creator.

  Without me having uttered a word, He knew I’d captured the memory.

  “And what has happened to make you doubt that?” He asked simply.

  My head lifted even as my eyes struggled to remain downturned. Some hesitancy lingered in my soul up until the moment I looked at His face.

  His eyes, set in a wrinkle-free face, spoke love. From forehead to chin, He radiated strength but also compassion. It was an ageless face full of grace and mercy. A human face, but somehow different, eternal, powerful. Beauty personified.

  “This is what you look like?” My voice was hardly above a whisper. I’d surprised myself by getting anything out at all.

  “This is how I choose to appear to you. This isn’t the time to reveal My full glory to you. It’s safe to say that would be a little overwhelming right now.”

  “So you look different? I mean on a normal day or whatever?”

  He smiled down at me. A smile that spoke of both amusement and patience.

  “I have as many different faces and shapes as are possible to imagine. Each one reflects a different part of who I am. I can manifest for you in whatever way I want, yet My form in its true glory is not able to be looked upon. For now, this is how I choose to appear. In time you’ll learn to recognize My other faces as well.”

  That sounded like more riddles to me.

  He chuckled warmly.

  “They are not riddles, Dear One, meant to confuse or deceive you, but rather mysteries that are best unraveled over time. Discoveries are intended to be searched for. It makes the prize that much more precious. But I am here now to set some things straight and ease your mind. Come sit with me by the fire so we can talk.”

  I didn’t have a chance to ask what fire before I spotted the flames to my left. The burning wood crackled and popped loudly as if carrying on its own conversation. The air twinkled with frozen water still suspended in place. Snowflakes felt like butterfly wings brushing my cheeks as I moved through them. We settled on white pillows positioned on the snow. The snow no longer held the chill it had before He arrived. He wore a robe much like my dress, but with a golden sash tied around his middle. His sandaled feet stuck out as he sat cross-legged facing me. The experience was normal and surreal at the same time.

  “Is this real?” I asked.

  “More real than anything you have ever experienced” was His answer. I believed him.

  “Shall we finally talk about some of the things that have been on your mind?”

  I teared up at the question, and my mouth spoke the words my heart had been crying. “Where have you been?”

  He leaned closer yet made no move to touch me. “I’ve been here all along. Here with you from the moment you arrived. I never once left you. You have been too blind to see.”

  I was taken aback. Yet, I thought I understood. I remembered the moment by the lake when I’d felt His tug on my heart yet had denied it. I thought of the time I lay crying into my pillow and was comforted. And then I realized that if He’d been there all along, He knew all the times I had lashed out in anger.

  Once again knowing my mind, He spoke. “As I said before, you were wrong to doubt Me, Audrey, but not to question. I want you to question things, to find deeper meaning in circumstances. To seek My will with all your heart. But through ups or downs, you should never doubt who I am. You should never doubt that I’m going to do what I say I will do.”

  I chewed on that a moment, debating whether to speak. But when I considered who He was, and that He already knew what I was thinking, I didn’t see a point in holding back.

  “I’m so sorry,” I began, “but how am I to know that? How am I to believe that? I just feel so much fear sometimes, and I don’t understand what You’re doing.”

  “Believing those things is a choice, not a feeling. True faith is believing in Me even when you don’t understand. Believing in Me even when you can’t see the evidence with your own eyes. For there are times when your eyes will be deceived, and you will need to rely on the truth buried in your heart to overcome.”

  I was both overwhelmed and unsure.

  He gestured toward the fire. “I have some things to show you. For us to watch together.”

  The crackling had subsided, and embers started to swirl at the base. I squinted and cocked my head. If I looked just right, it almost appeared as if I could see something other than the fire-eaten wood within its depths. And then, like a movie screen brought to life, the flames snapped into a flat line, and images sprang from the embers.

  We sat together and watched moments of my life. Moments I had lived on Earth but now saw with the veil removed. He showed me the times in my life I had cried out for Him, and that He was there. He showed me the places I was too weak to go and He had carried me. He showed me the protection given to me by a multitude of angels and hunters. He showed me the things He’d protected me from. I was ashamed when time and time again that He went unthanked—that the blessings He gave me went unappreciated and the opportunities I had to love others passed me by.

  When it felt like I was in the pit of self-loathing, He stopped the images, His attention fully on me.

  “Audrey, I’m not here to bury you in guilt, but rather to set you free. You cannot do a single thing to make Me love you more or less than I do. My love for you is unconditional and everlasting. Its depth surpasses knowledge. It is not based on anything you may or may not accomplish.”

  I tried to grasp what He was saying, but it was simply too big, too overwhelming for me to process. I had a family on Earth, and I knew they loved me. In fact, they loved me a great deal, but the love He described was altogether different.

  “I know this is something you will grapple with, but remember the words I just spoke to you. My love is not given by the measure of works you complete. In truth, you could never do anything good enough to earn it. It’s given without regard to accomplishments when you became a child of mine.”

  Dare I believe something so radical, something so unbalanced as that? A part of my heart clung to the old feeling that I needed to do something to be good enough for Him despite what He said.

  He sighed and shook his head, assuredly knowing what thoughts were bouncing around in my brain. “Just remember My words. There will inevitably be times you will be challenged and need them. Now, let me show you a few more of My favorites.”

  The images in the fire blazed back to life.

  I didn’t know how long we stayed together like that, watching the moments of my life in the burning fire. I was mesmerized. He’d lifted the veil and opened my eyes to what my life on Earth had really been like.

  “You have got to be kidding!” I burst out as one of my chubby toddler moments appeared in the flames. We were having a family picnic, and I’d followed a butter-colored butterfly into the woods until it flitted over a stream. Wanting to follow it yet scared of the water, I danced a foot in and out of the riverbank. To my shock, I now saw that a sinister demon lurked in the water, silently teasing me forward.

  A flash of light blinded me, and the demon was gone. An angel disguised as a human appeared on the path behind me. He explained to my toddler self how badly my family was missing me, and we agreed that a pretty butterfly was less important that my loving family. He pointed me in the right direction, then was gone.

  It was my grandmother on my mother’s side who found me as I waddled down the path the angel set me on. Her long hair, twisted into a braid, was dark mahogany with only a few grey streaks running through it. Even in her elder years she had remained beautiful. She picked me up and squeezed me tight, then pulled back to look me in the eye.

  I gasped. The slight wrinkles and sags were not what I was most familiar with now, but her youthfulness shone through them anyway.

  “You have mighty deeds to do in the future, little girl,” she told me. “Things the Lord has prepared for you. I don’t believe getting lost and scaring your family half to death is one of
them. Let’s get you back where you belong.”

  I’d grabbed her braid with my chubby hand and tried to tell her about the shiny man who’d said to return to them. She smiled and whispered in my ear that I must have a guardian angel watching over me. I giggled and squealed when she tickled a rib. But no one else believed me about the man. It was our secret forever after that. Whenever I was scared or discouraged, my grandmother would remind me that my angel was there looking out for me.

  But I was trying to process what I now knew. “Romona’s my grandmother!”

  He chuckled at my reaction. “Yes. So much of who you are is because of her. She asked for you, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She asked for a legacy, that a great warrior would be placed in her family. A person of integrity who would be used as a light in My kingdom. Her prayers for you and for the generations to come were frequent and heartfelt. It was because of her faithfulness to Me that you were placed in her family. You, my dear one, are the fulfillment of a promise I made to her.”

  Fulfillment of a promise? That sounded serious. The magnitude hit me hard.

  “But how can that be true?”

  “Just like all my creations, you have a great destiny.”

  I had a hard time swallowing that, and I told Him as much. “But what of real value did I ever do in life? I didn’t live long enough to fulfill any type of great destiny!”

  “Your destiny is far greater than what you accomplish on Earth. You forget there’s an eternity to think of.”

  “But . . . look at me.” I waved a hand to indicate my whole 5'3" frame. “What great feat could someone like me possibly accomplish?”

  His eyes softened, and His voice took on a gentler note. “I am looking, Audrey, but I don’t see as man sees. Man looks at the outward appearance, but I look at the heart. I’ve chosen you to carry my light. You were created with a specific mission in mind, on Earth as well as throughout eternity. You have the passion, truth of spirit, and character to be the one person to take on this task. You have my noble strength.”