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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 3 years ago

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Hi love, so I was wondering if u had any thoughts about Edward panic changing Bella if she was close to death while he was near. Like if they were in a car accident or whatever and medical help was too far away. For all his refusal to turn her and let her die naturally, he seems like he would panic and bite her when in the actual situation. (Regardless of whether or not he succeeds in turning her or mercy kills her after, because I totally agree with u about those two lmao 😭😭😂)

Hello, anon.

Well, this actually happened in canon.

The Fiasco of Bella's Emergency Birth

Bella's emergency C-section was a complete shit show and almost like an act of God to make sure Carlisle was not there. The date for the operation had been set, after weeks of starvation Carlisle finally leaves the house in order to prepare for surgery, and the second he steps out side what happens.

Bella's spine snaps like a twig, Edward has to eat his daughter out of the womb, and Bella's goes into cardiac arrest.

Bella's heart stops in the middle of this, her spine was broken, and she lost a massive amount of blood. Bella was a millisecond from death.

Edward stabs her with a syringe and chooses to turn her.

Before that point, it was unclear that he would.

He starts Breaking Dawn trying to coax Bella into postponing the change or even delaying it inevitably. His plan is to attend college with her, something Bella would physically not be capable of as a typical newborn.

Given the Volturi, this was absolutely not an option, Edward insists it is anyway.

When Bella becomes pregnant with his child, his plan is to abort her (forcibly if need be) and supply her Jacob Black as a stud in order to deliver all the human babies she could possibly want. Bella by this point cannot digest human food, her stomach has turned to stone, and Renesmee has likely damaged her internal organs beyond repair. Bella cannot go back to being an ordinary human, not without significant health issues, and that's if she survives at all (which I find doubtful).

I'm sure Edward had it in his mind that, even with Carlisle cutting Bella's uterus open with his teeth, that somehow, in some miraculous way, they might not have to turn Bella. Bella can remain human and everything will be fine.

But then Bella is dying in front of him, he sees her heart stop, and he makes the panic decision to save her life. He shoots her heart full of venom then begins CPR. Bella survives through the transformation and is turned.

To me though, this was very much a panic changing and something that was up in the air. Edward in that moment had to decide whether or not he could live without Bella, even if she's a vampire. He chose to keep her, he likely will always wonder if he made the correct choice.

But Back To Your Question

By Breaking Dawn Bella's been around a while. She's made it repeatedly clear, many many times, that she wants to be a vampire. She and Edward have extensively argued both pros and cons of vampirism. Edward's not sure Bella really gets what his reality is (she doesn't) but they have gone over it.

Bella's also talked to Carlisle, Rosalie, and Jasper about the whole vampire package. She's met multiple vampires, been attacked by multiple vampires, even Edward can't deny she's seen the ugly side of vampirism.

Bella really wants to be a vampire.

Edward has also faced reality without Bella Swan. It's bleak, cold, and endless. There is nothing for him in that world, even separating from her if she were to remain human pains him significantly.

Even Edward, stubborn as he is, could read the writing on the wall by Breaking Dawn. The decision is ruminating in the back of his mind and the option, loathe as he is to admit it, is actually on the table.

Then you have Renesmee who really helps things along. Per Renesmee, Edward decides that vampires do in fact have a soul. He is not a damned, senseless, creature and turning Bella would not condemn her to be a monster. He still likely doesn't like the idea of it, for reasons he cannot explain to himself, but his major theological argument is now gone.

Without Renesmee's gift, he may very well not have gone for that syringe.

But say we're in Twilight or even New Moon, this is a Bella Edward is sure has no idea what a vampire is. One who has not had a chance to assert a billion times that, yes, she really really really wants to do this. He's still convinced he can leave her and she can live a human life without vampires or any supernatural nonsense.

We see this Bella get significantly injured in Edward's presence.

Bella is losing a lot of blood fast after her run in with James. Carlisle has to start stitching her up immediately and get her to a hospital. A little later, and even from the blood loss she might have died. She's also been been bitten.

To stop her transformation, the venom would have to be sucked out, something notoriously difficult to do even under the best of circumstances. Bella's currently bleeding profusely and is Edward's singer: this is a death sentence.

Rather than panic change her, Edward panic keeps her human. He sucks the poison out, nearly going too far and killing her, and risks her death to keep her human.

In that moment, though it's a flash decision, Edward would rather Bella die than turn her. (After which, of course, he would go to Volterra to kill himself and give Aro an aneurism).

He repeats this sort of idea throughout the series. Notable are the times that Bella gives him hypothetical scenarios, increasingly ridiculous, to see what he would come up with.

A car crashes? Edward never crashes cars, he is that awesome at driving. And if the car crashes anyway, he has the reflexes of a panther, he'll unbuckle Bella, vault out of the car, and heroically jump out the back window to safety and humanity. Bella will never be injured.

A plane crashes? Edward unbuckles Bella from her seatbelt, carries her bridal style to the emergency exit, and then throws them both out the window and to safety... some tens of thousands of feet below preferably in water. He and Bella are then photographed as the sole miraculous survivors of this terrible tragedy. (When Edward gave this answer, I had my answer as to whether or not Edward actually passed his basic physics class. The answer, children, is no.)

Granted, these are not actual scenarios, and it's easier to give these kinds of answers than talk about them. But it's very telling that in Twilight, when Bella point blank tells him that one day she will die and that is the truth of humanity, he essentially says, "Blue Screen: ERROR" back to her followed swiftly by, "THE SUBJECT IS CLOSED".

Back to Your Question (Again)

But let's say we have your scenario. The summer after James, in Bella and Edward's summer of love before the birthday disaster, Edward (say it ain't so) crashes the fucking Volvo.

What can one expect when making a sharp turn at 110 MPH? Well, Edward has the reflexes of a panther, so he never saw it coming somehow. Bella, of course, saw it coming the first time she stepped into Edward's car.

Edward walks out fine, Bella... does not. The car's down in a ravine, Bella's bleeding out, it is clear she is not going to survive this and Edward cannot get her to the hospital in time even with his speed.

Well, given this is Twilight, and given the shock of all of this and suddenness, Edward could very well black out and eat her. When Edward comes to, he's om nom noming on Bella's battered corpse.

Edward runs away to Italy to kill himself.

Say he doesn't though, Edward manages to hold his breath or else miraculously control himself. Bella's still bleeding out, and giving him this very dazed, expectant, look. From Bella's face, it's clear what she's thinking: Turn Me, You Dipshit.

However... I imagine if Bella can't say the words out loud, Edward while panicked and in terror of losing her, won't do it. He will not condemn her to vampirism without her explicit consent.

Let's say Bella gurgles out, "Turn me, Edward"

Well, things just got a whole lot harder. This is now Bella's dying wish, she's looking at him even as the light fades out of her eyes, and he can see the growing resignation and disappointment in them. Edward will have this image with him forever, the life, light, and love bleeding out of Bella and her undoubtedly final thoughts that Edward was never worthy of her.

Honestly? Toss a coin.

I could see it going either way.

Edward stalls so long, deliberating, that the time for action passes. Bella dies right in front of him. That, or he sees her life force flickering and before he can think about it he bites her (whether to eat her or turn her we'll never truly know) and then it's too late, it's done, he's turned her himself. (If, of course, he doesn't accidentally kill her in the process).

The Aftermath

If he turns her then Edward will forever be haunted by the guilt that he destroyed Bella Swan. He turned her into a monster, just as he feared, and has condemned her to this miserable existence where she becomes orphaned from everything she knew.

Edward in this situation breaks things off with Bella (very awkward as they're part of the same coven now), he can't handle the guilt of what he did to her or what she now is. He thinks about mercy killing her, but given it's his own damn fault, is probably very conflicted and feels unworthy of taking even this action. All of this just makes him the lowest of worms.

Bella is utterly devastated that Edward appears to no longer love her (just as she suspected) and tries desperately to assure him that she loves being a vampire. She's finally comfortable in her own skin. She certainly still loves him and more, even if she wasn't happy, she gave her consent and would never hold that against him.

Edward doesn't care.

Edward likely goes to Rio to try to wrap his head around everything and be miserable by himself. Alice and Jasper likely leave on Alice's journey of self-discovery (but mostly to just avoid the emotional turmoil of the Cullen household). Rosalie actively blames Bella for this and tells her so to her face, Esme is an utter wreck, and Carlisle's working triple overtime at the hospital. Bella is even more devastated, she's Yoko Ono breaking apart the Beatles.

Bella offers to leave the Cullens. If she leaves then everything will go back to normal, right?

Everyone protests. But everyone here is pretty much Esme and Carlisle. But mostly Carlisle. Esme tries to, but it's in between sobs, where she talks about how beautiful Bella and Edward were AND THEY CAN WORK IT OUT. Emmett would, but Rosalie views Bella as a home wrecker and he has to side with the wife. Which just leaves Carlisle trying to lamely insist this isn't her fault.

It isn't, but, well, things are very bad right now.

Carlisle likely sets up Bella with the Denali. This ends after a few weeks, Bella can't handle the lifestyle and being the ugly brunette sister. Bella likely becomes a nomad and catches up with the Cullens every few years or so.

The 'Cullens' of course, becoming smaller and smaller each consecutive visit as the coven utterly dissolves.

The last time Bella visits, it's just Carlisle. Esme ran off to support Edward in Rio, Alice and Jasper never came back, and Rosalie and Emmett are on their 23rd honey-moon.

And that's how Bella rejoins the Cullens (i.e. Carlisle).

It's very awkward.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #edward cullen #anti edward cullen #bella swan #edward/bella #anti edward/bella #carlisle cullen #esme cullen #rosalie hale #the cullens #meta #headcanon #opinion

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dailyaudiobible · 4 years ago

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01/28/2021 DAB Transcript

Exodus 5:22-7:25, Matthew 18:21-19:12, Psalms 23:1-6, Proverbs 5:22-23

Today is the 28th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is an honor to be here with you today as we just lock-in, come around the Global Campfire together and let it all go and let this center us where we belong and orient us to God. So, we are reading in the book of Exodus. We’re just getting started in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible and we've been introduced to Moses. Moses has been tasked to be the…the representative of God, basically, God's prophet and to go before the king of Egypt the Pharaoh and demand the release of the Hebrews who have grown to become strong and numerous as a nation themselves. But God is now wanting to set them free from their slavery and so far, that's not going well. And we’ll pick up the story. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Exodus chapter 5 verse 22 through 7 verse 25.

Commentary:

Okay. So, let's catch ourselves up in Exodus in the lay of the land. the Hebrew people, remember Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, who became Israel and had children, the children of Israel. And then Joseph goes to Egypt and then famine comes and those people, 70 of them, go to Egypt and are saved. Those 70 people, we are 400 years in the future now, and those 70 people have become tens of thousands and tens of thousands of people. Moses is one of those people. He was supposed to be as an infant thrown into the Nile River to die, to drown, because Pharaoh was doing away from…well…he was trying to eradicate the male population because these people were becoming…were becoming too powerful. In the end it's Pharaoh's daughter who saves Moses and he's educated, and he kills an Egyptian while defending a Hebrew and he has to go on the run where God appears to him and says, basically we’re gonna go back and set the people free and you're gonna be my mouthpiece. So, he goes back and starts making these announcements and we’re just getting going in the very famous story of the plagues upon Egypt that will one day set the people free. So far not going so well. And this is an important thing for us to look at here because God tells Moses it's not gonna go well, that He’s gonna harden Pharaoh's heart and he's going to resist until he has to be broken essentially. That doesn't seem fair, though, right? That God is going to somehow against the will of Pharaoh make his heart hard so that he has to resist God in order to be broken and he doesn't…like he has no choice in the matter. That’s not what's going on here. What would it take to harden your heart? Maybe way less than we realize. Suppose that you have a bit of authority at your job. You have maybe a whole department under you, representing hundreds of people or maybe, you know, you've a couple of people who have to answer to you. Let's suppose that a subordinate guess an appointment with you and comes before you, demanding that you do something that doesn't make any sense to you and yet they are demanding it it's. And, so, because of the situation and your flummoxed and your like, “wait a minute. Like I’m your boss, not the other way around. And are you trying to take my job?” And then all this kind of pride kind of begins to emerge. And, so, we want to push that person back and put them in their place because they've hardened our hearts. Or they come in with a threat. “If you don't do what I'm telling you to do then bad things are going to happen to you.” And they say that God is going to do this, but they happen to be of a different religion than you and so you don't really respect any of their traditions. And, so, you're like, “I don't know who this is. I don't know what you’re…I don't know what you're trying to do here. Get out of here if you want to keep your job”, right? The heart gets hardened when we are pressed to do what we don't want to do. We don't want to submit anybody's authority. This is exponentially more difficult for Pharaoh because Pharaoh thinks he is a God. And, so, what we have going on here is that the most-high God is speaking through a Hebrew man demanding that the Hebrew people be let go. And Pharaoh is like, “I don't know you're God. Who cares what your God thinks? I am a more powerful God then you're God or you wouldn't be my slaves. Get back to your job. And I'm not supplying you anymore. Get back to your job and find your own supplies.” That is the long and short of what's happening here. And the Bible tells us that pride goes before a fall. And we might…might even know how this story ends. It's a famous Bible story. So, we could say that in the and Pharaoh does find that he is humbled, whether he likes it or not, but then we have to understand that these stories also become a mirror into our soul. What would it take for us to submit in this kind of scenario? And would it be our pride…like would we resist until we were completely broken? Because pride goes before the fall and God does not appreciate pride because pride exalts us. It exalts us above all things. And God in the Bible or in history does not suffer that for long. And, so, yeah, we’re in the middle of a pretty dramatic story but let's find ourselves in this story. And one way to begin to find ourselves in the story today is to observe the hardening of the heart and begin to observe ourselves when our hearts are being hardened because most of the time we’re gonna find pride is a part of that recipe.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You into that. It is not our desire to be arrogant and prideful people. And yet we’re encouraged to be just that all the time inside of our culture. We need to be dominant; we need to be powerful. And yet this is not the path that leads to life, this is not the way of the gospel. The way of the gospel is that strength is actually found in surrender and that strength is actually found in weakness. So counterintuitive to the way that life is been presented to us. And yet this is the way we were made. So come Holy Spirit and help us to interpret our own hearts by observing when they are becoming hard. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen

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If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if…if…if what we’re doing here by coming around the Global Campfire every day in and just stepping in out of the cold and warming ourselves with each other's presence and the presence of the Lord allowing the Scriptures to wash over us and into our hearts, informing how the…how the rest of the day and the rest of the week are supposed to be aimed, if these things make a difference then thank you for your partnership, which makes all the difference. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

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And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning DAB family this is Flourishing in the Desert and it's Sunday January 24th 2021. I just want to say thank you to all of you. Last year 2020 was a really hard year for me not because of Covid but because of oh the push from God to finally leave an abusive relationship. It was such a struggle. All of last year was such a struggle. And then a dear friend of mine, All the Treasures from Wyoming told me about DAB and I started to listen and I just want you guys to know that your faithful prayers for others for everyone in this community just encouraged me on so many levels and I am forever thankful for your love for the body of Christ, your willingness to put your issues out there, to seek prayer, and also your willingness to pray for others in need. God has blessed me abundantly through you and He continues to carry me through and to bring joy to my day. And I just want to let you guys know that, yeah, you're the best and I just so appreciate you. You touch the lives of others in so many ways, in ways you just don't understand. So, I tip my hat to each one of you and I thank you. Be encouraged today and to know that your blessing others even as you pray for those who are in need. God's blessings on you all. This is Flourishing in the Desert in Cheyenne WY.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family I'm a first-time caller I’ve been listening for about two years and I'm going on my third year and I've become a double DABber listening to the Chronological Bible as well. Thank you, Jill. I live in Texas and I'm calling myself Joyful Paradise in Texas. I chose that name not because my life has been easy, but because through everything I've been through the Lord has been the joy of my life and the one who's carried me through everything and sustained me. I met the Lord at a camp revival as a child and I've walked with Him and I've I've…I've…I've grown in the Lord over the years and this year I turned 70. So, it’s…I've had my share of ups and downs. A good friend of mine downloaded the app on the on…on the…of the Daily Audio Bible onto my phone and said, listen. So, I did, and it has been a blessing to me. It really has been a blessing and I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to get to know each one of you, to hear your voices, to hear your prayer requests and my heart has been deeply touched many times by many of your requests and I…and I hope to hear more from each one of you. You…and we'll just keep praying for one another. Thank you for this podcast Brian and God bless.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is His Dearly Beloved in Minnesota. I've called in a couple of times recently asking for prayer for a pain I've been experiencing. I'm scheduled for a total hysterectomy on February 2nd so I very much would still love your prayers for that. But I'm calling today to encourage each one of you. Today is February 24th, it's a Sunday…January 24th, sorry. It's a Sunday and Brian has been talking about our hearts and how we need to guard our hearts because life springs forth from our hearts. And I'm nearing 60 years old right now. So, I have definitely had my fair share of pieces of my heart strewn along the way and have needed mending. And I'm here to tell you that God absolutely does mend our hearts. My…probably my biggest heartbreak was ten years ago when my husband of 25 years who had been my high school sweetheart. We dated 8 years before we were married at…I was about 21 at the time and he finally released me from our marriage because he had…was feeling that he missed out on a life of dating. And…and as you can imagine that was…that was pretty rough for me. But I'm here to tell you 10 years later God has completely…completely healed and mended my heart. And I wanted to share my intention for the year, which is to give my first…give my wholehearted best first and foremost to God loving and trusting the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, shining that love, joy, peace, hope, and light into the world each day. I love you take care.

Hello this is Rachel from Oregon just want to call in for the lady who asked for prayer whose husband of 46 years just left her. This prayer was posted on January 20th. Today I am praying for you on January 24th. And you just got out of the hospital recently from Covid and you have no one to help you at home. And I can't even imagine how hard it must be for you right now the things that are happening in your life and in your situation and feeling so alone. And I am so so sorry. My heart breaks for you. I really really wish that I could come help you. In a heartbeat I would. I would be over to help you at home, but I don't know where you live and chances are it's not nearby me. But Lord I come before You today to ask You to intervene in this lady's life. You know all her needs. You know the pain in her heart and the cry of her heart Lord. Will You please bring her the peace that passes all understanding and help her through this hard time that her husband has left her. And please convict him to repent of leaving her and this divorce and also please bring her in abundance of people in her life to love on her and to help her in any way that she needs. We are meant to serve each other as a body in Christ Lord and I ask that You will just show her Your love through other people and help her to find her hope in You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family members this is Abby calling from Maryland. I trust you are all doing well. My goal for this year is to call more often. So, here I am. And I have been so blessed listening to people calling in, you know, especially those who are joining us on board this year 2021. I've heard this lady who is so excited, you know, I believe she's blind and she's just been having a wonderful experience with this community. Welcome to every new member and for…I specifically want to pray for a young man or a man who had called I believe his name was Tilly from Florida who is currently in the hospital. He's scared and, you know, he has chest pains and he said that he's broken hearted because he had to make a confession to his wife. I lift you into the hands of the almighty God and I pray that God heals you. I pray that God wraps His love around you and God shows you how much He loves you and God just restores you, restores your health in Jesus’ name. I pray for each and every member who has called for one thing of the other. God meets each and every one of you at the point of your need. And yes, I am so excited to hear when China does deliver her child. I am looking forward to that. Thank you, Brian for always being awesome. Thank you, Jill for always being awesome. Thank you, this amazing community. You guys are…you are my community. I just look forward to getting into the word of God with you guys every day. You all have a blessed week. This is Abby from Maryland. Stay blessed.

Good morning everyone this is Mary from the United States. As Brian talks about endurance, I just want to join with him and encourage you. Endurance sounds like a strong word of suffrage and drudgery, yet there's freedom in endurance. There's joy in endurance. There's confidence and grace in endurance. Their strength in endurance. There's wisdom in endurance. There's a vision and a sense of purpose in endurance. Endure in love, endure in joy, endure in the morning, endure in the evening, endure in the Lord to the very end. Endurance brings with it joy, peace, rhythm, meaning. Endurance is a gift we can choose or deny. Open the gift and discover its treasures in the box of endurance. Breathe in, breathe out the blessed joy that we can endure in love. Put on foot…put one foot in front of the other, breathe in breath out. The riches gain in endurance. The interest compile in endurance. A rich abundant life as we endure in love.

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troybeecham · 4 years ago

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Fr. Troy Beecham

Sermon, 4 Advent 2020

Luke 1:26-38

“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.”

In honor-based cultures, both ancient and modern, societies often believe that unless prevented by strict societal behavioral codes of conduct, a man and a woman left alone together would inevitably have sexual relations. This may sound naïve to contemporary Western folks, and in some ways it is, but it is the lived experience of most of the human family. Such cultures require that men related by blood or marriage watch, guard, and protect the women of their families. This obviously makes ciphers out of women, makes them non-agents of their own lives, but in such cultures where women are subject to a profound lack of rights it also affords them the only protection they can expect. Women inevitably bear the full brunt of the shame that such cultures attach to families when there are illicit sexual relations outside of marriage, often with fatal consequences. Of course, this leaves out the personal responsibility of the men involved in such encounters, as well as the consequences. It is often the practice in such cultures for men to kidnap and/or rape young women, even pre-pubescent girls, in order to force a marriage, with the girls or young women having not only no choice in the matter but also a long life of servitude to a man who raped her enforced by a culture that sees women as little more than vessels for having children and servants who do most of the labor of a household. It is a miserable, wicked thing suffered by countless, nameless women around the world across the millennia.

Such cultures, including the culture of ancient Israel, had many ways to ensure that dishonor never befell their family. It is a common practice to ensure that a woman is always in the company of other women and of children (girls and boys) younger than the age of puberty, and that they have no contact with men other than their immediate family or husband. It is even reflected in domestic architecture, with the home having an inner room or courtyard secluded from the view of men not related by blood or marriage. Such spaces are reserved as the proper place for unmarried women, and it can be both a prison and a refuge in cultures where women have few, if any, rights, and are seen as objects to be possessed by men. Even in ritual spaces, such as the Temple or synagogue, men and women congregate in separate areas.

In this morning’s reading from the Gospel according to St. Luke, we witness the encounter of Mary and the angel Gabriel. It is certain that she is in the innermost enclosure of her family’s home, the proper place for an unmarried young woman (she would have been around the age of 13 years old), most especially because she is betrothed to Joseph and their wedding is soon approaching. In one sense, Gabriel is an intruder, and his appearing must have been initially terrifying for Mary. How has a stranger suddenly appeared in the most protected of places? How did he break in without being noticed? Had he come to kidnap or rape her? We can only imagine what thoughts must have raced through her mind in that first moment of revelation. It is only when she realizes that this is an angel sent from God that Mary can release what must have been a moment of terror. One can imagine the crying out in fear, calling for protection, that must have been her first instinct. That she does not do so shows just how courageous she was, even as a 13-year-old young girl, and how much her soul was filled with faith and trust in God to protect her. It is this trust, this faith, that changes human history forever, even the history of the whole of creation.

How soothing the words “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God” must have been to her, calming her soul immediately. The translation that the words ‘perplexed her’ is just another way of saying that she had been scared out of her mind by the appearance of a stranger in the most protected part of her home, and she just as quickly began to experience the presence of God, reassuring her that she was safe. Then come the words that “And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” Even full of faith, and calmed, the fear that such words certainly produced must have been almost overwhelming. Mary knows the terrible consequences that such a pregnancy would elicit from her family. In a flash, she recognizes the crisis into which this pregnancy will throw both families, with one possible result being that she would become and outcast, literally cast out of her home as a pregnant 13-year-old girl, with no means of survival. Such girls faced stark choices, few choices, and very often die on the streets. Her family would even have had the right to stone her to death.

We often do not know what the words of the angel meant, the possibly fatal consequences for Mary, and how great her faith was to simply say “yes” to God. The salvation of the human race rested on the ability of one young girl to overcome sheer terror and eons of cultural programming by living in simple faith in God. All of creation must have held its breath in awe as this young girl said to God “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” And in that moment, the universe, the entire history of the human family, was forever changed. The God of all creation did a new thing, something that altered the whole of creation: God entered into human life in a way never before imagined. God became vulnerable in the most astonishing, mind-boggling way, the most vulnerable way of all: God became a child in the womb of a young girl whose immediate future was uncertain. God became the most fragile of flesh and blood in order to transform humankind. He could have done it by appearing as a fully grown conquering hero. Instead, he did it by putting himself in our hands in the most vulnerable of human experiences. This reveals something about who God is, a revelation that irrevocably changes how humankind understands the character and nature of God. If before God has been seen as remote, unpredictable, and even cruel and full of wrath, now we see that God has always been full of the desire to be in a relationship of trust and love with us, and that he has always desired the utter transformation of human nature and human society made possible only through humility, hope, faith, and love.

And so today, the last Sunday of Advent, as we await the celebration of the birth of Jesus only a few days from now, we can look back in awe at the tremendous faith of one young girl, who faced down the most terrible of fears armed only with a simple, yet profound, faith in the God who is Love, who’s “yes” condemned her to an almost certain terrible and immediate fate, but who’s faith transformed the human family and all of creation in a brilliant, wondrous flash of love. In that moment, the divine light of the world, longed for since the dawn of creation, entered into the human world and shone from one end of the universe to the other with the promise of a new creation liberated from fear, tyranny, and death. May God, who is visiting each of us today with the same desire to be born in us, find in us the same faith that he found in that young girl Mary two thousand years ago. Amen.

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a dwelling place prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

#father troy beecham #christianity #troy beecham episcopal #jesus #father troy beecham episcopal #saints #god #salvation #peace #advent #blessed virgin mary

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swimwriter · 6 years ago

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Bathbombs and Soaps

Pairing: Charlie Weasley x Reader

Warnings: None

Notes: None

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This is agony. A total disaster. How are you supposed to decide? There are literally thousands of options! And you must find the perfect one. Nothing else will do!

Maybe the one with lavender? But then again, he is not exactly a lavender person.

Rosemary? Or is that too cliché? But it has a nice, earthy scent and that is more his thing.

Mint? No, that is just implying things you do not want to imply, especially with the prank and the reason you are standing in this shop anyway.

So what? What’s it gonna be? This is so stressful, not even the choice of a dress for the ball was this nerve-wracking.

Then again, there Andre only gave you three options and now you are here, in front of this wall full of soaps and don’t know which to pick. This is the wo-

“What are you doing?” You jump up on the spot, freeze in mid-air and almost fall flat on your face. Penny is standing behind you, smiling bemused and behind her, you can see Barnaby standing in front of the bath bombs with what looks suspiciously like a full mouth and foam coming out of it. You flush a bright red and avoid her eyes as best as you can. She bends down until she can look at your face again.

“Hello, earth to our resident infamous curse-breaker. What are you doing here?” She smiles, brightly, or as brightly as she can muster with the weight of her sister being trapped in a portrait on her shoulders. You mumble something and shuffle on your feet. Penny leans in your direction.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I said I am searching for a gift for Charlie!” A few people turn in your direction and give you a funny look before going back to their own shopping. Barnaby saunters over to you, looking entirely too innocent. Penny smiles at you, a little bigger now.

“Is it because of that rumour about you letting loose a horde of frogs in the prefect’s bathroom and him getting caught in it?”

“It was frog spawn soap. A lot. A whole lot, oh Penny! I was so hoping it would be someone I can’t stand but it had to be Charlie. How is he ever gonna forgive me for this?” You bury your face in your hands and are this close to just hex a hole into the ground to swallow you up.

“I thought you already had your explanations and forgiveness done?” Barnaby cocks his head to the side and uses the back of his hand to swipe some foam from the corner of his mouth. You give a frustrated sigh and nod your head.

“Yeah, but I want to do something nice for him, as an additional apology.” Penny gives you a sly little grin.

“Also, because she likes him.” If it is possible, you get a shade darker. Your affection for the younger Weasley is very apparent, at least to all your friends. Well, except himself. And you are not exactly a forward person with your innermost feelings.

Barnaby makes a gesture to the bath bombs behind him.

“You know, they have ones that are shaped like dragon eggs, I bet he’d enjoy this.” You had already seen those and almost bought them, before you remembered that he would actually have to bathe with those and that was just a recipe for unwanted memories. So, you got stuck with the soaps.

But Penny was already shaking her head and looked to be deep in thought, before her face practically began to glow with how much she was smiling.

“I have an idea! But it might take time to get it right and a lot of trial an error, are you up for it?” There was a determined look on her face, but it was Penny, you would trust her with your life. And were this close to losing your shit, you would try about anything at this point. So, you nodded, and she stepped next to you.

“First, we are finally gonna choose one of those. Don’t worry about the shape, just think about the scent. What do you think he’d like?” She gives you an encouraging smile and you slump your shoulders.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out for the last hour.” It’s a little pathetic to think that you already spent an entire hour stuck here because you can’t decide. Barnaby nudges your shoulder.

“It’s not that complicated. What smells good? What reminds you of him? Things like that, like this one for example.” He picks up the rosemary scented one that you toyed with earlier and you make a vague gesture with your hand. It is good, but not quiet right.

“I think we can rule out sugary sweet things. But herbs and the like? That is a good starting point.” And so your two friends help you spend an entire afternoon in a magic shop that sells actual bath bombs, soaps that change colour and never-ending shampoo to find the perfect one to give to the redhead whom you gave the shock of his life.

*********

A few days later you are sitting in an abandoned bathroom, a small cauldron and a fire lit underneath in front of you. Next to you lie a semi-sharp knife, a nice wooden box and a variety of earlier tries that did not go as perfect as you hoped. Penny sits down next to you with another batch of melted and then reshaped soap and hands you the oval containers.

“My mother used to do this as little gifts for all her friends. She’d either make soap or just melt it and then press it into other shapes or cut them to a certain size.” And so here you were, trying (and failing) to make the forest scented soap look like a miniature dragon egg. It was more complicated than it should have been. You already nicked your hand more times than you can count and so far have produced one decent egg.

You carefully crack open the first container, take out the soap and grab the knife lying next to you. Carefully, you start making scale-like shapes in the soap, modelled after the picture of the egg of a Hungarian Horntail in the book lying next to you. This one seems to be a decent one as well and you are almost finished, when a voice asks, “What are you doing?” behind your back. Shocked, you almost jump up and drop the fake egg which chips when it smashes into the ground. Duncan is floating behind you and looking over the little station you and Penny have set up with great interest.

“Trying not to drop the soap when ghosts scare us!”, is what you throw back at him, a little miffed, while Penny swings her wand and the fruit of your labour is whole once more. Duncan has the decency to look a little sheepish, but then he tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes.

“Why are you making soap?”

“It’s a present”

“For who?”

“I think you can guess.” He thinks for a moment before his mouth drops open in an exaggerated ‘O’ and his eyes widen.

“It’s for the redhead! Your unwilling victim of the frog spawn soap!”

“Correct.” You concentrate on the soap in front of you again, putting the finishing touches on it and setting it to the other one into the small box. Two out of three done. Duncan floats next to you with an interested look on his face.

“Why are they shaped like this?” he asks and tries to poke one of the eggs. You sigh and carefully extract the next one.

“It’s because he likes dragons, it’s practically all he talks about like, 80 percent of the time. He wants to work with them when he is through with school-“

“And she has a huge crush on him.” Penny throws in with a grin and you drop your head into your hands.

“Do you have to say that to everyone?” is what you mumble miserably, and she pats you on your back. Duncan’s head shoots up and he gives you a little grin, the one that you have seen before and that promises nothing good.

“Do you want me to get him? I’ll go get him! Charlie was it, right?” And before you can get a word in edgewise, he floats out at the speed of light, leaving you dumbstruck and Penny giggling.

“This is my nightmare. This is how I die!” you mumble and are contemplating how much work it would be to flush yourself down the toilet. Your blonde friend just gives you a clap on the shoulder.

“It won’t be that bad. How is the last one coming along?” With that you remember the object in your hand and start laying into it you’re your knife. The carving gets easier each time you try and by now the first few rows of scales get done quickly and beautifully, it’s the more delicate part an the top where they get smaller that you still have some problems with. And wile you try to make this one as perfect as possible, Penny leaving. You don’t notice the door opening again minutes later and footsteps approaching. What you do notice is someone leaning over your shoulder and therefore right next to your face.

“These look really realistic,” Charlie smiles, and you manage to cut yourself again! Seriously, what is it with you and sharp objects? He immediately curses and digs through his pockets to find a handkerchief and wraps it around your palm.

“Are you okay? Bloody hell, that looks like it hurts!” He exclaims and then stops when he notices all the other cuts on your hand. He gingerly takes it into his palm and turns it over to inspect all the other injuries.

“How did you manage to get so many of them?”

“I am not good with sharp objects. Jacob always made fun of me saying I shouldn’t even be allowed to eat with a fork and has never let me forget it.” You admit this between grit teeth as it really hurts. Charlie stands up and drags you with him from the bathroom floor to one of the sinks where he holds your palm under cold water. It becomes slightly pink before disappearing down the drain. With a quick flick of your wand your skin is slightly pink but good as new.

“Why are you making dragon eggs out of … what is this even, it smells really nice.” The redhead tilts his head and gives you his best impression of puppy-dog eyes. Merlin, how weak you are for these eyes!

“It is soap and was supposed to be another apology to you. For the other soap that ruined baths forever for you. They had bath bombs in the shape of dragon eggs and I almost bought those but, well, the bath thing …” You trail off when you see his slack jawed face and want to disappear into the ground.

“But you already apologized! You didn’t have to give me anything else.” He looks at you as if you are a marvel and it make you feel as if your cheeks are on fire. Charlie seems to realize that he is essentially still holding your hand and while a blush spreads from his ears down under his shirt, he still entangles his fingers with yours. You notice and blush an even deeper shade of red, almost rivalling his quidditch robes.

“Want to show me how it’s done?” He asks with a little smile on his face and you manage a nod, before you drag him over to your little work station and sit down cross legged across from him. Then you hand him one oval soap egg and Penny’s knife that she left on the floor.

Between the two of you, various re-melting and re-shaping trips and some cuts on the redhead’s hand, you manage to get ten eggs total. He looks really happy as you give him the box of soap. After you two clean up the bathroom he stops you before you leave and holds out the last egg he made.

“But why?” is all you ask as you gingerly take it from him and almost press it to your chest. He shyly rubs the back of his neck and looks anywhere but you.

“Well, you were so nice to make me these and put all the work into it, so I thought you deserved one too.” It’s so sweet that you just can’t anymore – your eyes go wide; your mouth falls open a little and then you make the single most impulsive decision of your life. You shuffle closer and lean up on your tiptoes to reach his cheek on which you plant a kiss.

For a moment time seems to stand still. Everything is fuzzy around the edge and then you have to drop down onto your feet. Charlies looks dumbstruck. He is absolutely red in the face, his eyes are wide as saucers and his mouth opens and closes rapidly. In a millisecond, your brain supplies you with a thousand ways this scenario can go now. What it certainly doesn’t come up with is Charlie looking determinately at you before he sets the boy in his arms down, takes your egg and lays it on top, before he puts one hand on your waist and the other on your shoulder and leaning down to kiss you.

Your hands manage to find purchase on his shoulders and then slide up to his jaw, while his slides to your neck. Now the world completely falls away from you and only when you are sure you are about to suffocate do you separate from each other. You can’t suppress the big grin on your face and Charlie laughs, before dropping his forehead to yours.

“You are absolutely forgiven for the disaster in the prefect’s bathroom. But if this is what I get every time you play a prank on me please, never stop.”

#hogwarts mystery #hogwarts mystery x reader #charlie weasley #charlie weasley x reader #charlie weasley x mc #swimwriter

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chocoholicannanymous · 5 years ago

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Breaking the Surface (Twilight)

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, nor do I have wolves hiding under my bed (and not just because the dust bunnies would totally eat them alive). I only own this particular idea, the execution thereof and a set of books.

AN: Breaks off after Bella’s cliff dive in New Moon. For this particular plot-line to work, Jacob was on his own when he pulled Bella out of the water – Sam was never present. Also Jacob and Bella never met Billy at the Black residence.

Snippets of text and dialog tweaked from New Moon.

Please note: This is first person POV, but I could be persuaded into editing it and putting up a third person POV version.

Breaking the Surface

Pressed against Jacob’s body I was almost able to forget how much I was hurting. It was as if his warmth somehow crept into not just my limbs but my soul as well, burning away the cold that had been suffocating me. He really was like a sun, and I soaked him up.

I was so focused on being warm, inside and out, that I didn’t notice us pulling into my driveway. All I could see, all I could hear, all I could feel was Jacob. Is this how he feels? I wondered. Is this how it is for him, with me? Am I the only thing in the world to him? He’d implied as much, and if that was the case – which I was getting pretty sure it was – then I could see how he’d been willing to give so much for me. And for the first time I too felt some of that.

I could have this, I realized, not just now but always. Jacob didn’t push, never had, but he’d also never hidden the fact that he wanted to be more than my best friend. Would it really be that bad to be with Jacob, I asked myself. He loved me. Wanted me. I knew he would do anything to keep me happy and safe – and he had what it took to succeed.

Charlie would be happy, scratch that, ecstatic if I chose Jacob, and Billy would welcome me with open arms. Jacob wouldn’t leave me, and neither would his extended family. I would have a place with the pack and a sort of new sister – the word pained me, but not nearly as much as I would have thought – in Emily.

I would never be alone again.

All I needed to do was give up.

Give up every thought of my first love. Everything I had dreamed would be. Everything I had wanted. The future I had chosen. That was all. Not such an small thing when it came down to it. Hard as hell to even think about – harder still to actually do.

Still, if I did that I would have Jacob. I could choose a new future, with new dreams – and those dreams would come true.

“Bella?”

How long had I sat there, deep in thought? I had no idea. I looked up at Jacob, questioningly, and tried to find something to say. But all words fled as Jacob’s eyes met mine and changed. He drew breath, sharply, and his gaze grew even more intense. Like my mother Jacob knew how to read me all too well. He’d understood some of what had been going on in my head, and decided to make his move.

As he leaned towards me, the intended kiss so strongly announced that it was already a fact, I panicked. I wasn’t ready for this!

It wasn’t that I doubted my choice – I didn’t – or even that I really thought there was one. I just wasn’t ready to admit it. I would choose Jacob, yes, but I needed time. After all, even though I had never had any reason to believe E– he would come back I had still held on to my end of the bargain – to love forever. I would need more than just the time it took to drive from La Push to Charlie’s house to leave that behind.

I wanted to explain this to Jacob, tell him to wait just a little longer – ask him to come back tomorrow and then I would be his – but I couldn’t. I could just sit there, hold my breath and hope he wouldn’t give up on me even if this ended less than perfectly.

And then he stiffened, jerked back and growled. I stared at him, eyes wide, and wondered what had gone wrong. Had he picked up on my reluctance? Had I finally managed to drive Jacob away, now that I no longer was going to try?

“Jacob?”

And then he exploded into furious shaking. I panicked – for some reason he was about to phase. Emily’s ruined face floated before my eyes, and I swallowed hard, trying to get rid off my sudden nausea. Was I to be the next victim of the volatile werewolf temper, the next to be “mauled by a bear”? Then again they would probably need to find another explanation this time. Will Jacob still love me if I’m covered with scars? A small whimper escaped my lips, and somehow that brought Jacob back to reality. His grip on the steering wheel tightened, and he started mumbling to himself. I strained to hear, and after a little while I started picking up words.

“Phase, or get her out of here?” A few repeats, and then he looked at me. “Right. Get you to safety. Hold on.” And my truck roared back to life.

“Jacob! What’s going on?” I was beginning to think I knew, but I could be wrong. Please, let me be wrong.

“A vampire.” Of course. “It’s not the redhead, at least I don’t think so, but she could have friends.”

Yeah. The wolves had taken care of Laurent, but there could be others. For all I knew Victoria could have made others, for the sole purpose of hunting me down. The thought drained me of all energy and I felt the world begin to spin.

Jacob’s driving didn’t help, although for once I didn’t complain as he made a sharp turn and floored it. I was too busy holding on and trying to not give in to the panic, trying not to faint. I didn’t want to die, and I definitely didn’t want Jacob to die. Sure, he was a werewolf, existing for the sole reason of killing vampires, but he was also so very human – and so very alone. On his own he might not be able to stop a vampire, and there was no way of telling how many waited for me.

And then I saw a flash of red across the street.

It brought back the memory of being in the water, of seeing fire dancing on the waves, the fire that had really been Victoria’s hair, and my throat constricted. She was here. I would die. Why wasn’t I dead already? Why... Wait.

“Stop!” I gasped. My brain had finally started working right again, connecting to my eyes. Instead of reacting I was seeing. The red wasn’t Victoria’s hair reflected in the light – it was a car, and to my surprise one I instantly recognized. I might be the furthest thing from an autophile – I don’t speak car and driver my memories supplied – but I knew that particular car. It was expensive and flashy – ostentatious my traitorous brain echoed, and god, how it hurt – just like its owner. Oh, I couldn’t be completely sure, of course, I didn’t know it that well, like for instance I knew my truck, or say a certain Volvo... But who would drive a car like that in Forks? Who, but Rosalie Hale Cullen?

“Wait!” I cried out, louder, since Jacob was still determined to get away as fast as my poor truck could crawl.

“Why?”

He was still shaking, still much too close to phasing for it to be safe, and I knew I should be afraid. In fact, I should be terrified, being this close to Jacob when he was like this – and when I was likely to upset him even more.

I wasn’t afraid though. Not, as usual, because it was Jacob, but because I was too busy focusing on the fact that Rosalie’s car was parked outside Charlie’s house.

“That’s not Victoria – I’m betting she wouldn’t be caught dead in a car. I know that car, Jacob, it’s Rosalie’s. Rosalie Cullen,” I added, knowing his complete non-interest in my former vampire friends.

“And you’re asking me to stop why?”

He was still angry, in fact just as I’d predicted he was even more angry now. No longer focused on keeping me safe from the evil leach out for my blood he was simply furious. At Rosalie, for hurting me by leaving, for coming back, for being a Cullen, for making me remember... And somehow almost angrier at me, for not wanting to leave. There was a sudden coldness about him now, one that burned like fire and cut like a switchblade. He was back to Sam’s Jake again.

“Do you want to go back to her?”

And that was the question. Did I? Did I want to see Rosalie? The answer was slow but sure; no, not really. Rosalie and I had never been friends, or even friendly, and I was pretty sure she’d been more than happy to leave me behind. That however made me wonder why she’d come back, and why she’d come back to see me. I could see no reason, except... And that meant that even though I didn’t want to see her I probably needed to.

“No, I don’t want to see her.” ‘Cause I really, really didn’t want to. No more than I thought she wanted to see me. And that closed the deal, so to speak.

“But I think I have to. I can’t think of a reason for Rosalie to be here, not by choice. She wasn’t exactly my biggest fan – Paul likes me a thousand times better. And Jake... If she’s here, if she came here to see me... That has to mean something. Carlisle must have more or less forced her to come, and he wouldn’t do that without a good reason. I’m guessing...” And my voice broke along with a piece of my battered heart. I tried again.

“I think Alice must have seen something. Maybe something to do with Victoria. Or something really bad happened, something I need to know. Whatever it is, if it’s important enough for Rosalie to come then I, no, we need to hear it.”

“We?” Jacob’s voice was full of unbelief. “You expect me to walk in there with you? No way, Bella. You do what you need to, but there’s not a chance in hell that I’m sitting down with my enemy, no matter what name she carries.”

“Jacob!” I could barely believe it. I knew he didn’t like the Cullens, but I hadn’t thought it was this bad.

“I need you Jacob, please! What if she’s here about Victoria? Can you afford not to listen? Also, I might need help kicking her out.” This got his attention.

“Kicking her out? Won’t the two of you be having a sleepover?” Sarcasm. I could deal with that. It was a lot better than icy cold and raw hatred. Still, dealing wasn’t exactly going to be easy.

“A sleepover?” I asked incredulously. “Did you loose your hearing or just your mind? Rosalie isn’t my friend. Didn’t you hear me? Paul likes me better. In fact, I’d say I’m a hell of a lot more likely to spend the night with Paul than with Rosalie. Besides, vampires don’t sleep.” I shook my head, that wasn’t the important thing right now.

“Look, Jacob. Not only am I not planning a sleepover with her, but I’m counting on you to help me get her out of the house. But if she refuses to leave, yeah, then I will be planning a sleepover – because then I’ll be occupying your couch!”

That got his attention, and with a curt nod he turned the truck around. I’d be getting my backup after all. That made me feel a little safer, at least until I thought about the fact that I was about to meet a member of the family that had ripped my heart to pieces, the family I had thought was mine, and those pieces began hurting again. My arms found their way around my chest on their own, knowing the way much too well by now, but unlike so many times before Jacob didn’t help make it better. He didn’t even try.

I could understand him, sort of, but it still hurt. And suddenly I was terrified that I would end up even more alone than I’d been after my birthday – that this would cost me Jacob, Jacob that just minutes ago I’d been thinking of giving myself to. I shook with fear and pain, yet I knew I could do no different.

Perhaps, I thought, Jacob would calm down once Rosalie had said whatever she’d come to say and left. Perhaps he’d give me another chance. And if he did, I decided, no longer wanting more time to think, I would give him what he’d wanted for so long now. I’d give him what was left of my heart and never again look back. After this, I swore, I would be done with vampires.

And a quiet voice whispered that I should be happy that it was Rosalie that had come, or I surely would never be able to keep that promise.

The front door was unlocked, just as I’d expected – the Cullens all knew where to find the key. I hesitated for a moment, one hand on the door handle, and looked over my shoulder at Jacob. He reminded me of a thunderstorm, huge and dark and menacing, and yet I felt comforted by his presence. I twisted my lips into a shaky smile and reached for him, touching his hand briefly, before whispering quietly:

“Thank you for doing this. Things will be back to what they should be soon.”

And then I opened the door and stepped into the dark house.

I turned on the light, and blinked to try and adjust to the change. My eyes scanned the room, surprised that Rosalie hadn’t already made her presence known. After all, wouldn’t she want to get what ever the reason for her visit over as quickly as possible so she could leave again? Just as I started questioning if Rosalie really was there I heard a melodic voice call out my name in an uncertain tone. So there was a vampire in my house – just not the one I had expected.

My eyes widened as I took in the tense – and startled – form of Jasper. He was the last one I’d expected to see here, considering what had happened the last time we were in the same room. It would even have surprised me less to see E– him waiting for me.

Could he be here to kill me? To get rid of me once and for all? I realized that I couldn’t decide on how I felt about it. If Jasper killed me I wouldn’t be hurting anymore, and I was fairly sure he’d make it less painful than whatever Victoria had planned for me. Also, I couldn’t find it in me to be blame Jasper. I was his natural food source, and not only that, I was also the reason his family had suffered.

At the same time there was Jacob to be considered, Jacob who’d try and protect me and might end up hurt – or dead. Could I persuade Jasper to let Jacob leave before–? Could I persuade Jacob to leave?

Jasper’s voice broke through my racing thoughts.

“Bella, I– How are you alive? Alice saw you jump off a cliff. You were drowning.”

Oh.

“I was cliff diving, Jasper. And yeah, I wasn’t doing too well, but Jacob here pulled me out.” So Alice had a vision? Why now? And why hadn’t she seen me being pulled out? Why hadn’t she seen my zombie months? Had she seen my zombie months? “That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.” Why come when I was supposedly dead instead of when I needed them?

“Alice thought Charlie could use some support. She was going to come herself, but... Something came up. She asked me to go in her place, see what help Charlie might need and take care of it until she could come.” He was keeping something from me, I could tell. It didn’t matter what though, since he would soon be leaving. Not to mention the fact that I was pretty sure I knew what, or rather who, it was about.

“Well, that was... nice of her. It wasn’t necessary though, but I appreciate the thought. Now, if there’s nothing else...?” I didn’t finish that sentence, but it’d take an idiot not to catch my meaning, as in please get the hell away from here.

Neither Jasper nor Jacob were that stupid, and I could see the beginning of a smile on Jacob’s face as well as the shock on Jasper’s. Huh. That was twice in less than five minutes that I had managed to surprise him – twice more than I’d thought was possible at all.

“Bella, I...” Jasper looked so guilty, and I realized what he must think. The last time we’d been in the same room he’d tried to kill me. I hadn’t blamed him then, and I still didn’t, but he must believe otherwise.

“Look, Jasper, I’m sorry. This isn’t about my birthday, if that’s what you think. It isn’t even about you going to Denali with Alice and neither of you coming back, or contacting me. It’s...” about abandoning me, after telling me I was family, not even looking back long enough to say goodbye “I just don’t understand. But then I don’t need to, not really and not any more. Before, yeah, but now? Now, I just need you to leave.”

I was angry. Maybe I’d been angry all along, only unable to feel it through the hurt, or maybe it had come now. Whichever it was didn’t matter – I was working my way from angry to furious, and and doing it fast. Jasper was here because Alice had seen me jump off a cliff. Presumably she’d thought I was committing suicide – I didn’t think she’d believed I’d fallen (although I certainly was clumsy enough) or that she’d have thought cliff diving was something I’d do for fun.

But whatever Alice had thought didn’t matter. She had decided to come back because she thought I was dead. She hadn’t come back when my pain had turned me into something less than human, and worse than dead. She hadn’t come back when Laurent had, or when Victoria had. She hadn’t come back when my life was on the line – she had waited until she saw me die.

That hurt.

I had loved Alice. Had seen her as my sister. I had honestly believed she loved me back. Even after she’d left, after they’d all left, I’d still believed in that love. That she never contacted me had hurt like hell, but I’d always blamed it on him, thinking he’d asked her not to look. That belief was shattered now, because Alice had seen. She still hadn’t come back, but she’d intended to, and she’d sent Jasper. Because she thought I was dead.

In that second I came to the conclusion that everything I had clung to, everything that I had created my dreams around had been a lie. Love had, once more, proven to be a lie.

All I had now was Jacob.

All I had – but he was more than enough.

“You’re angry.” It wasn’t a question. Jasper’s gift made sure he knew exactly how angry I was, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t comfortable. I knew it was petty of me, but I actually took pleasure in that discomfort.

“Yes. But that’s only an issue for as long as you stay here.” There. Let him interpret that as he wished. I had no desire to spare his feelings – showing up here like this he’d done nothing to spare mine.

The fact that my obvious anger made it easier for Jacob – whom I could tell was struggling against his every instinct by staying calm, not to mention human – just added to my pleasure. I was taking a stand, on several counts, and it felt great. I was done being weak.

“I’m sorry. We never meant to hurt you, we would never want that. But Edward–” I cringed as my heart whimpered, and Jacob put a warm hand on my back as support – he knew what that name did to me – while Jasper looked as if I’d slapped him. So that’s how bad my pain felt. Good something inside me whispered.

“It was decided that we were putting you in danger. That you would be better off without us here.”

I almost choked on the bitter laugh that forced its way out of my chest. Better off? The way I had felt, the way I had acted since their departure? That was supposed to be better?

“Are you serious? Jasper, please take this as seriously as I’m saying it: there have been times since your family left when I thought I would have been ‘better off’ had you killed me.”

And then I focused, relaxed my defenses, and let go of what control I had over my battered and broken feelings, trying with everything I had to make Jasper feel exactly how much better off I hadn’t been with them out of my life.

It was worth every ounce of pain to see Jasper reel back and sway on his feet as if he was going to faint. Maybe it wasn’t his fault, not completely, but it was time someone with at least some degree of responsibility suffered as well.

Everyone else had, after all.

“E-E, your brother told me I shouldn't be a part of your world, and I was too blinded by my feelings to believe him. I do now, though. I don't belong in your world, and you don't belong in mine. So please, Jasper, if you ever cared about me even a little? Leave. And don't come back. Don't let any of the others come back either.

“Tell Alice... Tell her I said goodbye.”

I could hear the bitter venom in my words, in that final barb, and reveled in it. I tried to be a good person, yes, but I would never be a saint. And I was definitely done being a doormat.

The Cullens might never have intended to treat me as such, but they had. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they had treated me like the child I realized I must seem like to them. To all of them. And that thought drove home the point even more: I did not belong with them. I was not ready to become unchanging – which was what the change really was. I was not done growing up, and chances were I never truly would should I join the Cullens.

The insight was hitting me so hard, and making me feel so relieved, that it took me a while to realize Jasper wasn't responding to any of what I'd said. When I did, I frowned. It seemed out of character for Jasper to be so silent in the face of such uncharacteristic abuse.

I looked closer at Jasper, and suddenly my blood ran cold. There was something about him now that scared me, more so than my initial thought that he was here to kill me. He was planning something – and I knew without a doubt that whatever it was I wouldn’t like it.

“Do you have a valid passport, Bella?”

I just stared at him. I did, thanks to Renée’s canceled wedding plans, but why would Jasper care?

“Bella!”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do, but why–”

“Good. I’ll explain on the way, just grab it and some essentials, we’ll buy whatever else you need at the airport or–”

“Jasper!” I was getting angrier again. Did he seriously expect that after just waltzing into my life he could start making demands? Did he really expect me to just fold, like nothing had happened? Like the past months had never happened?

From the look on his face I’d say that yes, that was exactly what he’d expected.

“If you think I’m just going to act like nothing and let you run my life as if everything didn't changed, then you’re delusional. I’m not going anywhere with you. Now, if you’d please explain.”

“Alice is in Italy. She told me I shouldn’t come with her, that I should go here instead, and not to go after her when I was done. But that was when we thought you were dead. If I take you with me–”

“No.” Jasper stiffened, clearly still not expecting me to do anything but go along with his plans. Alice had been, I thought, his ace and he had played it, fully believing he’d win.

And why shouldn’t he think so? I’d never been this assertive before in the presence of any Cullen. If I had to guess I’d say it was happening now because the family had lost some of their allure – it had been burned away by my pain. Also, I had just realized that Jasper was here because I was presumed dead, and only because of that.

My pain, my zombie state, Victoria wanting to kill me... All that, all those perfectly good reasons for someone to return, had either not registered or mattered.

And of course, there was Jacob. His steady presence – and my new conviction regarding him – helped me a lot as well.

Finally, it was Jasper. With the exception of Rosalie he was the one Cullen least likely to sway me. Had it been Alice... Right. Suffice to say I had no desire to see my former friend, not with what I’d just concluded, and not since I knew she would be able to dazzle me into forgetting all doubt.

I was done being dazzled. I was done being under someone else’s control. I needed to relearn how to be strong, and that was an impossibility around the Cullens. They claimed to love me, but it was a stifling love that made me think of a caged pet. Oh, I hadn’t always, but my eyes were opening now. I wasn’t an equal to them, supposedly because I was so very breakable. Still. I should have been allowed to be equal when it came to the non-physical parts, like my emotions, and my life.

If I had, well, then they never would have walked out like they did. Would never have stayed away while I died inside.

The way Alice’s gift had been explained to me there were two options. Either she had seen – and not cared – or she’d found a way to “block” me. Until my supposed death, that was. Strangely enough I was pretty sure I’d prefer it to be the former, because if Alice had somehow blocked all visions of me... That would mean that she’d seen me jump because it somehow effected the Cullens – and that in turn meant they’d soon screw up my life again.

It felt safe to assume this, since that was what Jasper’s behavior was telling me. Something had happened, or would happen, to the Cullens and Jasper thought he could fix it by dragging me with him. To Italy of all places, and why did that make all the warning bells go off in my head? That was bad news for me.

“No, I’m not going anywhere, Jasper. Besides, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, you said Alice was in Italy. I definitely can’t go abroad. Aside from the fact that I have school, and tests, I can’t do that to Charlie.” He was still hurting over my sudden trip to Phoenix a year ago, even if my behavior since the Cullens’ departure overshadowed that.

I also had others to consider now.

“Alice left. I’m not going to hurt the ones that were here for me when I was hurting just to please her. Not any longer.

“Look, Jasper, I have no desire to see Alice. She left. I understand why, not that it would change anything if I didn’t, but the facts remain. And she didn’t just leave, she stayed away. I needed her, and she pretended that we never even met. That I didn't exist.” And god, how that hurt. I'd loved Alice so much, had thought of her as a sister, and believed she felt the same only to be treated like yesterday's garbage.

“I’m better now. I don’t need her, or any of you, any longer. I’m finally okay with the whole ‘it’ll be like we never met’ plan, and there’s no reason for me to try and change anything now – especially not since you all will most likely just disappear into thin air again as soon as you’ve accomplished whatever it is you think will be accomplished by dragging me along.”

And now that I’d said it I could feel the truth in it. The Cullens had removed themselves from my life. Edw– He had sworn it would be like they never existed. Jasper being here was breaking that oath, but once he was done using me... Once he was done, things would return to the way he wanted them. And I would be back in that black pit once again.

And then I saw something that made me want to scream. Made me want to beg Jacob to phase and rip Jasper apart. I couldn’t be sure, of course, but. I still was. Something, some emotion had traveled across Jasper’s face – quickly, but not quickly enough – and I knew. If I went with him I’d never leave the vampire world again. I would not be given that option.

Most likely I wouldn’t be given the option of staying human either.

I didn't want that. I wanted to stay human. The strength of that truth hit me like the water had earlier, and I gasped. Jacob tensed, and I reached out to touch his arm, briefly, to calm him.

“Jasper. Please. I think it’s time you left. Even if I wanted to, and I don’t, I could never go with you. I told you, I can’t do that to Charlie. He’s still hurting over Phoenix, and I’m not going to hurt the ones that were here for me just to please Alice.

“I’m not a ‘vampire girl’ any longer, Jasper. I stopped being one when you all walked out on me.”

I took a deep breath, and said what none of us had believed me capable of saying:

“I don’t want to be one ever again.”

And I could clearly see how the truth of that statement hit Jasper, as well as feel how it affected Jacob next to me. I didn’t care about Jasper though, not beyond him being a potential threat, but Jacob... Oh, I cared very much about Jacob’s reaction. And he was glowing.

Jasper wasn't going to just give up though.

“Bella, please, I– I get that we made a mistake. Several. We shouldn’t have interfered with your life” and for the first time I agreed, except for the part where Tyler would have run me down otherwise, “but we did. And now, as a result, things have changed.

“I realize that I, that we, have no right to ask this, but we need your help. Rose told Edward about Alice’s vision, and now we can’t get in touch with him. The reason Alice went to Italy instead of coming here was to try and stop him.”

That’s when that nagging feeling of “why is this important” exploded into knowledge. Italy. Carlisle’s story, the vampire brothers, Edward telling me about making plans for if I didn’t survive James.

“That selfish bastard,” I hissed. “He’s going to try and get himself killed? Why? Why the hell would he do that to Esme?” Because no matter what, I couldn’t forget how Esme had treated me. She might have walked out on me, but while she was in my life she had been good to me.

Jasper just looked at me, like I was stupid, and waited. I waited too. He broke first, surprisingly.

“He loves you, Bella.”

Yeah, right. I had thought so, once, but never again. That belief had died in the forest that night, had perished not in flames but in ice. Frozen to death, like I almost had.

“He doesn’t. He told me that, you know, before he left. Told me how little I meant. And I, it just, it makes sense, okay. I get it. He tried, and then he got tired of it. Fine. He’s allowed to change his mind.” No matter how much it had hurt me.

“But this? Trying to commit suicide by Volturi, because somehow my supposed death made him think he was in love again? He’s read too many romance novels, clearly.”

The “you’re being stupid” look just intensified, and I was beginning to feel even more uncomfortable. It was time Jasper left.

“Bella, I don’t know what Edward told you, but he does love you. I’ve felt it. He left to protect you, to keep you from this life, because of how precious you are to him. When James had you... Being near Edward was painful. I’ve known since then that we would need to monitor him, should anything happen to you, but the others didn’t quite see it that way.

“Alice never took me seriously, because her visions still showed her a future where you were changed and a member of the family. They did up to the point where they showed you dying.

“I sometimes envy her that faith, that conviction, that the visions give her. But I always remember that it can be a curse too. Alice... Sometimes she forgets that in order for her visions to come true certain things need to happen, that she might need to do something instead of just waiting – that by doing nothing she might cause the future she’s seen to unravel.”

I envied her that conviction too, but I wasn't going to let it guide me anymore. Alice could believe what she wanted, could see what she wanted, but I was in charge of my life again and I wasn't going to let visions derail me from what I knew was the right way.

“I don't know if Alice could have done anything to change this, Jasper. Her own actions, yes, and how they hurt me. She could have done a lot there. But the rest? I really don't know.

“What I do know is that Alice might see the future, but she can't change the past. What's done is done, on all sides. It's done. And so am I.”

I swallowed as the weight of my words fell on my shoulders. Because it was true. I hadn't known it until then, but I was so very done with the Cullens.

“I'm not saying I want him to die, but I am not risking my life,” which something told me I'd very much be doing if I chased after him, “for someone who left me like I mattered less than yesterday's garbage. After all, I'm sure he made sure that was properly taken care off before leaving.” Unlike me went unsaid, but again Jasper seemed to pick up on the sentiment.

He still wasn't letting it go though.

“Bella, I–”

Jasper broke off whatever it was he was planning on saying and put his hand in his pocket, and I immediately tensed. I could feel Jacob doing the same next to me. Was this where a fight was no longer unavoidable? But then Jasper pulled his hand out, allowing me to see the cellphone in it, and I relaxed. A little.

“I have a new text, probably from Alice. Are you okay with me reading it?”

Of course, he was feeling exactly what both Jacob and I felt, and was trying to calm us down without using his gift. It wasn’t helping much, but every little bit counted. I was no expert on Jasper – with the exception of Phoenix last year he’d always kept his distance – but it was obvious how important reading the text was to him. It was equally obvious that he hadn’t expected one – meaning it most likely meant trouble. I still nodded an “okay”. If something bad was happening we needed to know.

And by “we” I realized I meant myself and the pack. Yes. I truly was a wolf girl now.

His face didn’t relax any as he read the text, and I felt my body tense up again. Exactly how bad was this going to be for us?

When he held out the phone to me I grabbed it without hesitation. It wasn’t just that I wanted, needed to know what was going on, it was also that a part of me didn’t trust Jasper to be honest with me at the moment. The text was from Alice, but it was only four words long.

“DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE”

I couldn’t get my head around it. What would be so wrong with answering the phone? Especially if E...Edward really was on a suicide mission.

And just like that it rang.

I almost ignored Alice’s order. The only thing stopping me was the unofficial Cullen creed, “Never Bet Against Alice”. It might be something they said jokingly – but they still said it for a reason, that reason being that she was right 99,99999 percent of the time.

I was not going to “bet against her”, not when all my instincts screamed at me that I’d fold if she got her hands on me. There was also the fact that it wasn’t just me on the line here, but Jacob as well, and while I might be careless with myself he was too important to risk.

The home phone started ringing too, and I felt like an idiot for just standing there – and yet I did.

Jasper’s phone quieted first, and he took it back – presumably to check voice mail. Whatever he heard didn’t make him any happier. If asked I’d hazard a guess that whatever message had been left for him contained instructions going against everything he wanted, and that he was trying to decide whether to do as he’d been told or not. Considering that the caller had most likely been Alice this turned my blood cold.

“Alice says not to go to her, under any circumstances” he finally said, sounding more gruff than I would have believed a vampire could.

I relaxed a little anyway, because surely that meant he had given up on trying to convince me to go to Italy.

“She...she saw something. Whatever it was, it has her spooked. She said she had an impossible vision, and Alice doesn’t know impossible.

“She told me to stay put, to not talk to anyone else, to not make any decisions, until I know if she’s right.”

That...didn’t sound like Alice. We exchanged grim looks – Jasper was as worried as I was.

“Can I borrow your computer? I’m guessing she’s going to send me an e-mail, she usually does when there’s something she can’t talk about in person or over the phone.”

“Sure, but I have to warn you. It’s so slow it’s painful.”

“It’ll still be faster than running back to Denali for my laptop, and I’m pretty sure neither you nor your...friend would be comfortable with that.”

He was right. The idea of letting Jasper out of my sight made me feel sick with tension, and so I just gave him a terse nod.

Having Jasper in my room felt wrong. He didn't belong there, and his presence screamed at my senses. It didn't help that there were three of us in my room, and that all of us were tense to the point of breaking. Jacob and Jasper were both vibrating, one with the need to phase and the other with suppressed speed.

Once my computer was up and connected to the internet Jasper went to incognito mode and started checking emails. He went from site to site as I watched and waited, until he finally stilled and started reading. The intensity with which he read and the careful way he handled the mouse made me feel cold. Something was very very wrong, and I was back to feeling as if I had been safer in the water with Victoria.

I could have easily read the email over Jasper's shoulder, but I didn't. Whatever it was would change things, and not in a good way. I had no desire to run towards that change.

Jasper's already still body was completely frozen by the time he closed down the site he was on. He spent another minute erasing his tracks before turning around looking as grave as ever.

“It's not good news, is it?”

It was Jacob asking in a surprisingly polite tone. That, I thought with an edge of hysteria, is the sound of the world about to end. Jacob Black polite towards a Cullen.

“No.”

Jasper sat quiet for a little while, and I was willing to let him. As long as he didn't speak I could try and pretend that everything would be okay.

“Alice had a vision. I can't be completely sure, but my guess is that it hit her at the same time as you walked in here. Something kept her from seeing you, but since she can always see me...”

I was willing to bet a month's pay that “something” meant Jacob. It would make sense, in a supernatural way if Alice couldn't see him and the others.

“So she knows Bella's alive. Then she can talk some sense into your idiot brother, and Bella can stay out of it.”

“She knows. And she could try – I don't know if she would be able to convince him she wasn't lying just to stop him, but that doesn't matter now. Or rather it doesn't change anything. We have bigger problems now.”

The blood in my veins tried to turn to ice. Bigger problems than Edward courting death over a silly human he'd used and discarded?

“Alice saw me arriving in Volterra – with you. Apparently that lead to disaster.”

“How could Alice see me in Volterra? I told you I wasn’t going with you, and I meant it.”

“Obviously he wasn’t going to bother with something as petty as consent.” Jacob’s voice was deep, raw, and it was clear he was only just holding on to his human shape. All it would take, I realized, was one wrong move from Jasper, and I would have a gigantic wolf in my room. I swallowed, feeling slightly panicky. Because it was obvious, as soon as you looked at it, that Jacob was right.

No, Jasper wouldn’t have cared about lack of consent. If he thought taking me to Italy with him would save his brother’s life he would do it, one way or the other. He would, I guessed, have played it cool, pretended to accept my refusal and then waited for Jacob to go home. I would have gone to bed, only to wake up in the air, or something of that nature, and that would have been it.

The end of Bella Swan.

My heart raced, and I felt my feelings flip between rage and fear. I was not going to let him do that to me. Alice had said not to, yes, and for the moment it looked like Jasper was going to listen. But if I thought for even a second that he wouldn’t... Jacob might not be able to take him on his own, not with Jasper’s background, but he wouldn’t have to be alone. The pack, working together, would easily dispose of even a vampire soldier.

I’d owe them, practically forever, but it’d be worth it. They’d do it too – if not for me, then for Jacob.

I relaxed a little, but sent Jasper a sharp look, before addressing Jacob.

“No, I guess he wouldn’t have. Kidnapping would have been the only way for him to get me there – and you’re not going to let that happen, are you?”

He just smiled at me, and then gave Jasper a look that informed both of us that no, there would be no kidnapping of Bella Swan on Jacob’s watch. It made me warm inside, and seriously question what I had done to deserve someone like him. I didn’t know, especially not with how I had treated him, but I swore that from now on I would do everything in my power to make up for it.

“Good. Now that we’re all on the same page, what kind of disaster was Alice referring to?”

“Every kind?” I glared at Jasper – this was not the time for flippancy – and he shrugged. “I’m sorry, it’s just... She did, you know. I’ve never even heard of her having a vision like this before. Usually it’s very straightforward – one thing happens, it leads to another, and so on. This one was, well, multiple choice.

“She saw me coming to Volterra, yes, both with you and on my own. She also saw me calling her from here, or from Denali, or a number of other locations. The one constant? The minute she found out about you being alive everything started going straight to hell.

“The Volturi are...old, powerful, greedy. They collect, for lack of a better term, vampires who are talented, and use them for their own purposes. It’s not a secret that they would like for every talented vampire to be under their control. A family like ours? We’re competition.”

That, at least, made sense. I had seen it before, how greed and the desire to be at the top made people do some pretty fucked up things. There had been this one guy in Phil's team...

“The only reason the Volturi have never moved against us, even though they would give almost anything to be in control of Alice, is Carlisle. What Alice saw had that protection failing, the Volturi making their move and the Cullen family being no more.

“None of us are interested in joining the guard, yet all of us have weak spots – each other. If they threatened me Alice would end up caving. The same is true for all of us. And Edward... Edward would join for you.”

My heart almost came to a stop.

My first instinct was to protest, but as I started to open my mouth I suddenly saw it from Jasper's point of view. If Edward did love me, the way I had thought, the way Jasper still believed he did... Then yes, Edward would join for me. Just because I no longer wanted it didn't make it less true. After all, I would have sacrificed that and more for him once.

“What Alice saw... Dozens of futures, and we all die or spend the rest of our existence enslaved by the Volturi. In some you are with us, used and abused. The worst ones are where they come here, with Edward as part of their guard, to see if you truly are alive. In every single one of those they leave here with your father dead and LaPush in ashes, your friends there also gone. As for you... If they find you, you either end up enslaved or dead. If they don't, more people die. Sometimes Edward too.”

Jasper's voice had lost all of its musical, velvety quality. There was something inherently wrong yet somehow fitting to hear it flat and dead. Dead, like Alice had seen us all.

There was, I thought with rising clarity and sinking heart, only one way out of this.

I would have to die.

Or rather, Bella Swan would have to die. I would have to leave everyone, and everything, behind and try to start a new life as someone else. It was so very obvious. I would have to drive my truck back up to the cliffs, and let people believe that what Alice had seen had in fact happened – that I had gotten caught in the streams and drowned. The way I would have, if not for Jacob.

But then what? I was thoroughly unsuited, I knew, for this. Cop's daughter or not, crime shows had never been my thing. I knew nothing about how to get a fake ID or cover my tracks. Jasper could, I hoped, be persuaded to give me some help – like the name of whoever handled the Cullens' paperwork, and hopefully a lift out of the state.

But then I would be on my own. As independent as I'd been for years – until running into Edward, really – I had always had someone to fall back on. And now I wouldn't.

The prospect was frightening.

“I need to die, don't I.” My voice was just as flat as Jasper's. “For there to be any kind of future for any of us, I need to be dead. Drowned after jumping from the cliffs – just like I would have been had Jacob not saved me.

“So, how do I go about this? Because I'll be honest, Jasper, I don't know the first thing about how to disappear,” and my voice shook on that last word. Disappear. I would disappear, and Charlie would hurt forever.

At least he'd be alive to hurt.

“I’ll go with you.”

Jacob was calm, certain as he placed his hands on my shoulders and made his declaration. His warmth spread into me, and I could feel myself relaxing, body and mind. Of course he’d go with me – not only was I fragile and in need of protection, but Jacob loved me and truly believed we were meant to be. And right there and then I could see it too, for the first time, just as clearly as him – maybe even clearer. He would go with me, and soon I’d be “Jake’s Bella” for real. I’d be his in every way imaginable.

Oh.

I’d been fooling myself, I realized, telling everyone who’d listen – and those who wouldn’t as well – that Jake and I were just friends, that I wanted us to be just friends. Oh, I’d always known that I loved Jacob, but up until that point my feelings for E– him had clouded everything. Now for the first time I allowed myself to look at him, at us, at me with my eyes actually open. I loved him. Yes, he was my best friend, but he was also something more.

I was in love with him. I hadn’t seen it before, hadn’t wanted to see it. I had believed that there was only one possible soul mate for me, and that I’d already met and lost that someone.

Now I could see how wrong I’d been, how blind I’d been. As I closed my eyes and relaxed further against Jacob’s comforting warmth I saw something else too, a vision perhaps. The life I could have with Jacob played out on the screen provided by my eyelids in a fast-forwarded blur. It would be a happy life, would have been even without the pack and our fathers and the reservation giving us a firm foundation. With that? It wouldn’t be what it should have been, but it would be amazing anyway simply because we’d be together.

I saw two beautiful children, black haired and russet skinned, that I just knew were ours, playing tag with Jacob in his wolf-form. They turned to wave at me, and I felt a smile spread over my face and a warmth in my chest. This was my future, our future, and suddenly I couldn’t wait for it to arrive.

And then the vision blurred, the smiles distorting into grimaces, and everything disappeared. Some small piece of knowledge was trying to make itself heard, and I focused inwards, trying to “listen”.

When the growing insight dug through the final layers of memory into my conscious mind it was physically painful, and I gasped, realizing that my arms were once more wrapped around me. I didn’t expect it to help though. This time it had nothing to do with my lost vampire love. My heart and soul was falling to pieces again, and I didn’t know how I’d survive this time. Maybe I should just let the Volturi kill me.

“Bella? Bella! What’s wrong?”

It was obvious that Jacob was picking up on my pain and rapidly growing panic. It was equally obvious that my emotions were affecting Jasper enough to actually hurt him – at least until he wrestled back enough control to send me a calming wave.

“Jacob... Oh, Jake...” I was close to sobbing, but knew I couldn’t allow it. Instead I held on to Jasper’s calm with everything I had. I was going to break us both, for the last time, and I had no choice but to do it thoroughly.

“Tell me something, Jake. Was Sam really meant to lead the pack?”

My question puzzled him. He saw no reason for it, for me to panic over that, not at first, but then... I could see the horror spread over his face when understanding came. A dozen tiny clues, finally forming a clear image, and oh, how I wished they hadn’t.

“He wasn’t, was he? He became the leader because he phased first, but you are really the one. Aren’t you? Not only that, but technically you’re the next tribal chief too, right?”

I didn’t need an answer.

“None of that matters, Bella! I’m going with you. I love you!” The pain in his voice made me wince, and I could see Jasper actually sway on his feet as our combined pain crashed into him.

It pained me to do this to Jacob – and to me. For the first time we wanted the same thing, and if I just hadn’t had that epiphany we’d have gotten it. To fight him on this... I wasn’t just crushing his dreams, but mine as well, and the only thing that kept me strong was the knowledge that I had no right to do otherwise.

If I allowed Jacob to go with me I’d be stealing him, not only from the pack and the tribe, but also from Billy, who’d be pretty much stranded on his own. I’d also be taking away one of the few things that could help comfort Charlie when I was gone. I would be robbing everyone around him, just so I wouldn’t be alone.

I was done being that selfish.

“I’m sorry, Jacob, I really am. I love you too, but I can’t let you do this.”

I could see him thinking frantically, and when his face lit up I knew Jake had come up with an idea. My heart sank a little further. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to find a way for us to be together, because I did, but I was afraid that there wasn’t one.

“I pulled you out of the water, Bella. That means I know you didn’t drown, and if that mind reading leach shows up here he’ll know too.”

He was right. Unfortunately I knew how to get around that, unless...

“Did you tell Billy?”

“Of course not. He would have told Charlie, and I...”

“Then I know how to stop E– How to keep that secret. You’re going to have to ask Sam to give you an order, to make you forget.”

I was pretty sure that’d work, and all lingering hope that it wouldn’t died with Jacob’s horrified look. It had been my last “out”, the one way I could have kept Jacob, and I’d just shot it down. As I said, I was done being selfish – no matter how much we both wanted it.

“You can’t let her do this!” He was moving on to Jasper now that I had proved to be unreasonable. “She needs protecting, you know she does, and you can’t exactly take care of that, can you?”

A low blow. True, but low. It had the effect I was sure Jake was aiming for though, namely making Jasper angry. Of course, I was sure that whatever he was picking up from Jacob wasn’t helping either. I could understand them both, I really could, but things were getting too close to a fight for me to feel safe. My mind raced to try and defuse the situation.

“I’ll go with her. I'll protect her for you.”

My heart stopped for a second at the realization that someone else was in the house with us, and when it started up again it was beating like crazy. I turned towards the voice, slowly, at the same time as it hit me that it was slightly familiar. Jasper and Jacob were doing the same, only so much faster, and I could see that they hadn’t heard whoever it was either. It amused and frightened me at the same time. What if it had been Victoria?

It wasn’t, but it could easily have been, and wouldn’t that have been ironic, say? To have both a vampire and a werewolf right there to bodyguard me, yet for them to be so distracted by their fighting that Victoria had gotten to me anyway. It scared me.

Of course, the person standing by the door also scared me.

“Paul.”

Jacob fought to the end. He had no desire to leave, to let me leave. Not alone. That I wouldn’t be alone, that Paul would be with me, didn’t help – quite the opposite. Jacob knew exactly how Paul felt about me, knew every uncharitable thought Paul had ever had about “the leach lover”, and it was easy to see that he doubted that Paul would do the job right.

The immense amounts of guilt we all heaped on his shoulders finally got through to him. Paul, in fact, was the one to succeeded, by pointing out that the betrayal Jake would be committing by leaving with me would most likely be for nothing. As the rightful Alpha Jake was bound to “imprint”, and it wouldn’t be on me. It couldn't. Once that happened all of Jake’s sacrifices would be for nothing. I’d never heard of imprinting before, but as soon as Paul explained the concept I froze. Jacob might be taken from me, by fate? Somehow it seemed fitting – I’d had my chance at happiness with Jacob, but I’d stupidly clung to my memories. Now that I’d been ready to move on it was too late.

The thought of having Jacob go with me, be with me, only to lose him? The pain of loosing him actually paled in comparison.

“Jacob? If there’s even the tiniest chance... You know what E...Edward,” I cringed as the name passed my tongue, “leaving did to me. Losing you would be worse. I don’t think I could survive that.”

I could see the fight leave him. He didn’t hug me goodbye, just looked at me like the world was about to end, and left without a word. Seconds later he crashed back through the door, swept me up and buried his face in my hair. “I love you, Bella. I’ll always love you,” he whispered softly. And then he let go.

Everything was a blur after that. Jasper and Paul made all the plans, I just did as I was told, too numb from pain to do anything else. Soon I was behind the wheel in my truck, driving towards La Push, while Jasper drove the other way and Paul took off through the woods. When I reached the cliffs I took the same route as earlier that day, before my life ended again, but this time without the caution. I parked in the same spot as before, and got out. Then I waited.

Paul wasn’t far behind. He didn’t bother with small talk, barely coming to a stop before picking me up. Then he was running at an impressive speed, leaving both our lives behind.

~ The End ~

#chocoholic fics #twilight #bella swan #new moon #universe alteration #not that vamp friendly #first person pov

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90percentprocrastination · 5 years ago

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Nothings pt. 16

“What the hell?” Ellie’s shoes sink into the mossy floor of the forest I just left. We can see the house across a path made by thousands of footsteps and marked with a blanket of golden leaves.

I stare at the house. It’s doors are still open, I imagine I see Jay laying on the couch. I have to get back to him, but not with Ellie. It’s time.

Yet, she’s the only other being like me who knows what she is. She could be my best friend in every story, maybe a lover in a few.

“Run.”

“What?”

“Get away-” My girl intervenes. Ellie screams as my body contorts into the pale thing Jay saw way back when he was Jacob.

Roots slither towards Ellie’s feet. Please, please don’t kill her. Please. Please. Please.

No.

My god’s voice rings in my ear like the sharp bells on a child’s bike.

Ellie tries to back away, to cut through the tangle of roots with her knife. She tries to run, to hide, to scream - but the roots catch her and silence her by shooting down her throat.

Even with a smile on my devilish face I can hardly bear to watch as the roots pierce her flesh to meet their friends inside her. Blood pours from her body like wine from a broken cask.

Again.

Ellie and I are at the bathroom door. I know I shouldn’t turn the knob. I stare at her face. Memorizing the freckles my god added at some point in the story.

My hand moves of its own accord and my feet step once again onto the soft ground.

My girl allows us to walk a few paces, Ellie exclaiming with increasingly colorful curses as I remain silently facing the house.

Roots wait at the threshold of the leaves. The house becomes large enough in our view for me to know that Jay is laying on the couch. I can also see the red-tied man standing beside him with hands folded in front of his stomach - finally content enough with the story to simply watch.

I hear Ellie’s knife open, a small metal *shink* from behind. “Be careful, Pen, the roots are moving.”

“I know.” My smile hurts my face. I turn to her and grab her throat. She slashes at me with her knife but nothing comes out but a few wisps of black smoke.

My head tilts this way and that as I watch the life leave her eyes. I give her body to the roots, they take her deep into the forest to feed whatever lies within.

Please, let that be good enough. My head snaps back to the red-tied man. He shakes his head. My god responds, “Again.”

Ellie and I are already in the woods, halfway down the path. She doesn’t take out her knife - if there are roots it’s too dark to see. Our god has placed us in the middle of a starless night. Only the soft light of the fireplace guides us towards the house.

We step softly, I don’t want to wake what lies in the forest and she doesn’t want to attract any predators. Now, I need to get her to the house. I cannot let the forest claim her. I am at war with what lies within.

Slowly and carefully we step over the crunching leaves so that we don’t make too much noise. I can see the house again, along with Jay unconscious on the couch. He could be sleeping, he could be dead, I have to know but I don’t want Ellie to die.

Maybe I could go into the house while she stays outside.

“Try it and I’ll write an even worse death for Jay.” Not from the sky, but in my head as before, my god’s voice sounds strained.

You said he wouldn’t die.

“That was before.”

Before what?

“Do as I say - you don’t have a choice.”

To prove this my god has me take Ellie’s hand and run the rest of the way through the woods. The trees groan and sway, trying to keep us inside. I laugh - they cannot hurt me. All they could do is take Ellie when she’s meant to be mine and if it does I’ll burn it down in return. It will grow back, it always grows back, but it will hurt.

Shadows sweep through the trees, not daring to get too close. Ellie struggles to keep up with me but at least she doesn’t fall until we break through the tree line.

Finally. She’ll be ours. She’ll belong to the house forever. I glance at Eleanor’s window, her eyeless sockets watch us and the smooth patch of skin where her mouth used to be stretches as of to scream. I wink at her before we jog through the open French doors.

Jay is breathing, barely. The places the roots touched him are red and scorched. His shoulder is dislocated and he has so many scratches on his face that I can barely recognize him. I don’t even dare look at the rest of his body.

“Go upstairs and grab the first aid kit.” Ellie falters. “And pray our God doesn’t kill you on the way.”

I listen as she does as I told her, paying attending to her footsteps as he ascends and - after three hellish minutes - descends the steps. The third step up is still sturdy enough to bear our weight then.

The red-tied man looms over me as I take the kit from Ellie and begin tending to Jay’s wounds. I shoo him away. No point pretending he isn’t there anymore.

He bends down, bringing with him the sickening moss scent. A smile blooms on his face before he disappears altogether.

“That was him.”

“Shh, the story is still going.”

Ellie nods and sits next to me as I clean and bandage as much of Jay’s wounds as possible. “Help me put his shoulder back in.”

“That’s a lot of work for you to do for someone you’re going to kill anyways.”

“What?”

“I remember my deaths, Pen. She let us come here so you could kill us both, right?”

I clench my jaw. I have to deny it. I don’t want to but I have to say, “No, she’s just playing around with the story. I don’t think she knows how this will end.”

“Any chance it’s with us happily drinking piña coladas on a beach?”

I laugh, “A slim chance at best.”

She smiles despite her fear. I can feel it, much like the small creature of love borne of what Jay and I have together, it’s something small and spiky that sits between us. She doesn’t buy the lie and I don’t know if she’s supposed to or if she’s supposed to try to kill me first.

She stands to take hold of Jay’s shoulder, I grab his arm, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to do it but I hate the sound nonetheless.

When Jay’s shoulder pops back into place he jerks awake and spews a steam of curses at the ceiling.

I smooth hair away from his forehead, my girl’s made it longer since the last time I saw him.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“You’re okay, Jay. You’re okay.”

He nods, “I’m tired.”

“We all are.” Ellie grabs a few blankets from the floor and places then over Jay. “Get some rest, we’ll be right here.”

Jay nods, “It’s nice to see you, El. I feel like you were in the bathroom forever.”

Ellie and I exchange a look. We won’t tell him anything about the buggy woman or our gray-clad god. We each take one of his hands in ours and watch as he stills.

Let this be it. Let this be the end. An unsatisfactory ending to a strange story, sure, but it’s beautiful right now. There’s a golden fire illuminating three teenagers who have survived a harrowing journey...kind of.

Ellie leans her head against my shoulder and stills. I stare into the fire and ignore the bare feet that appear before me.

She bends down into my line of sight. Her hair is shorter than it was. Her eyes are older and sadder yet filled with a fire of madness.

“What happened to you?”

She sits in front of, actually almost into, the fire and sighs. “The world went mad.”

“How?”

“I went crazy and tried to kill something immortal.”

“Why?”

“She sent Andy away.”

“But I just saw him.”

To this she perks up. “You did?”

“Yes.” I nod. “He was standing over Jay when we were coming in the house.”

“Oh.” She slouches. “That was so long ago.”

“But I didn’t feel a pause.”

“And you never will again. I don’t need them to make my stories anymore. My stories don’t need to be trapped in my head anymore.”

“What?”

She tilts her head and smiles as warmly as a snake before it’s next meal. “Would you like to be a real person?”

#writing #nothings #we’re getting there!#i think only five more parts left!

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thestreamofconsciousness777 · 5 years ago

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They are singing the song of Moses the slave of God and the song of the Lamb, saying: “Great and wonderful are your works, Jehovah God, the Almighty...

“And Moses proceeded to speak in the hearing of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song until their completion:

Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak; And let the earth hear the sayings of my mouth.

My instruction will drip as the rain, My saying will trickle as the dew, As gentle rains upon grass And as copious showers upon vegetation.

For I shall declare the name of Jehovah. Do YOU attribute greatness to our God!

The Rock, perfect is his activity, For all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness, with whom there is no injustice; Righteous and upright is he.

They have acted ruinously on their own part; They are not his children, the defect is their own. A generation crooked and twisted!

Is it to Jehovah that YOU keep doing this way, O people stupid and not wise? Is he not your Father who has produced you, He who made you and proceeded to give you stability?

Remember the days of old, CONSIDER the years back from generation to generation; Ask your father, and he can tell you; Your old men, and they can say it to you.

When the Most High gave the nations an inheritance, When he parted the sons of Adam from one another, He proceeded to fix the boundary of the peoples With regard for the number of the sons of Israel.

For Jehovah’s share is his people; Jacob is the allotment that he inherits.

He came to find him in a wilderness land, And in an empty, howling desert. He began to encircle him, to take care of him, To safeguard him as the pupil of his eye.

Just as an eagle stirs up its nest, Hovers over its fledglings, Spreads out its wings, takes them, Carries them on its pinions,

Jehovah alone kept leading him, And there was no foreign god along with him.

He kept making him ride upon earth’s high places, So that he ate the produce of the field. And he kept making him suck honey out of a crag, And oil out of a flinty rock;

Butter of the herd and milk of the flock Together with the fat of rams, And male sheep, the breed of Ba’shan, and he-goats Together with the kidney fat of wheat; And the blood of the grape you kept drinking as wine.

When Jesh’u·run began to grow fat, then he kicked.

You have grown fat, you have become thick, you have become gorged. So he forsook God, who made him, And despised the Rock of his salvation.

They began inciting him to jealousy with strange gods; With detestable things they kept offending him.

They went sacrificing to demons, not to God, Gods whom they had not known, New ones who recently came in, With whom YOUR forefathers were not acquainted.

The Rock who fathered you, you proceeded to forget, And you began to leave God out of memory, the One bringing you forth with childbirth pains.

When Jehovah saw it, then he came to disrespect them, Because of the vexation his sons and his daughters gave.

So he said, ‘Let me conceal my face from them, Let me see what their end will be afterward. For they are a generation of perverseness, Sons in whom there is no faithfulness.

They, for their part, have incited me to jealousy with what is no god; They have vexed me with their vain idols; And I, for my part, shall incite them to jealousy with what is no people; With a stupid nation I shall offend them.

For a fire has been ignited in my anger And it will burn down to She’ol, the lowest place, And it will consume the earth and its produce And will set ablaze the foundations of mountains.

I shall increase calamities upon them; My arrows I shall spend upon them.

Exhausted from hunger they will be and eaten up by burning fever And bitter destruction. And the teeth of beasts I shall send upon them, With the venom of reptiles of the dust.

Outdoors a sword will bereave them, And indoors fright, Of both young man and virgin, Suckling together with gray-haired man.

I should have said: “I shall disperse them, I will make the mention of them cease from mortal men,”

Were it not that I was afraid of vexation from the enemy, That their adversaries might misconstrue it, That they might say: “Our hand has proved superior, And it was not Jehovah who worked all this out.”

For they are a nation on whom counsel perishes, And among them there is no understanding.

O that they were wise! Then they would ponder over this. They would consider their end afterward.

How could one pursue a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight? Not unless their Rock had sold them And Jehovah had surrendered them.

For their rock is not like our Rock, Even our enemies being the ones to decide.

For their vine is from the vine of Sod’om And from the terraces of Go·mor’rah. Their grapes are grapes of poison, Their clusters are bitter.

Their wine is the venom of big snakes And the cruel poison of cobras.

Is it not laid up with me, With a seal affixed to it in my storehouse?

Vengeance is mine, and retribution. At the appointed time their foot will move unsteadily, For the day of their disaster is near, And the events in readiness for them do make haste.’

For Jehovah will judge his people And he will feel regret over his servants, Because he will see that support has disappeared And there is only a helpless and worthless one.

And he will certainly say, ‘Where are their gods, The rock in whom they sought refuge,

Who used to eat the fat of their sacrifices, To drink the wine of their drink offerings? Let them get up and help YOU. Let them become a concealment place for YOU.

SEE now that I—I am he And there are no gods together with me. I put to death, and I make alive. I have severely wounded, and I—I will heal, And there is no one snatching out of my hand.

For I raise my hand to heaven [in an oath], And I do say: “As I am alive to time indefinite,”

If I do indeed sharpen my glittering sword, And my hand takes hold on judgment, I will pay back vengeance to my adversaries And render retribution to those who intensely hate me.

I shall intoxicate my arrows with blood, While my sword will eat flesh, With the blood of the slain and the captives, With the heads of the leaders of the enemy.’

Be glad, YOU nations, with his people, For he will avenge the blood of his servants, And he will pay back vengeance to his adversaries And will indeed make atonement for the ground of his people.”

Thus Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Ho·she’a the son of Nun. After Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel, he went on to say to them: “Apply YOUR hearts to all the words that I am speaking in warning to YOU today, that YOU may command YOUR sons to take care to do all the words of this law. For it is no valueless word for YOU, but it means YOUR life, and by this word YOU may lengthen YOUR days upon the soil to which YOU are crossing the Jordan to take possession of it.”

And Jehovah proceeded to speak to Moses on this same day, saying: “Go up into this mountain of Ab’a·rim, Mount Ne’bo, which is in the land of Mo’ab, which fronts toward Jer’i·cho, and see the land of Ca’naan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel as a possession. Then die on the mountain into which you are going up, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and got to be gathered to his people; for the reason that YOU men acted undutifully toward me in the middle of the sons of Israel at the waters of Mer’i·bah of Ka’desh in the wilderness of Zin; for the reason that YOU men did not sanctify me in the middle of the sons of Israel. For from a distance you will see the land, but you will not go there into the land that I am giving to the sons of Israel.”

Now this is the blessing with which Moses the man of the [true] God blessed the sons of Israel before his death. And he proceeded to say:

“Jehovah—from Si’nai he came, And he flashed forth from Se’ir upon them. He beamed forth from the mountainous region of Pa’ran, And with him were holy myriads, At his right hand warriors belonging to them.

He was also cherishing his people; All their holy ones are in your hand. And they—they reclined at your feet; They began to receive some of your words.

(Moses laid as a command upon us a law, A possession of the congregation of Jacob.)

And he came to be king in Jesh’u·run, When the heads of the people gathered themselves, The entire number of the tribes of Israel.

Let Reu’ben live and not die off, And let his men [not] become few.”

And this was Judah’s [blessing], as he went on to say:

“Hear, O Jehovah, the voice of Judah, And may you bring him to his people. His arms have contended for what is his; And may you prove yourself a helper from his adversaries.”

And as to Le’vi he said:

“Your Thum’mim and your U’rim belong to the man loyal to you, Whom you put to the test at Mas’sah. You began to contend with him by the waters of Mer’i·bah,

The man who said to his father and his mother, ‘I have not seen him. ’Even his brothers he did not acknowledge, And his sons he did not know. For they kept your saying, And your covenant they continued to observe.

Let them instruct Jacob in your judicial decisions And Israel in your law. Let them render up incense before your nostrils And a whole offering on your altar.

Bless, O Jehovah, his vital energy, And may you show pleasure in the activity of his hands. Wound severely in their hips those who rise up against him, And those who intensely hate him, that they may not rise up.”

As to Benjamin he said:

“Let the beloved one of Jehovah reside in security by him, While he shelters him the whole day, And he must reside between his shoulders.”

And as to Joseph he said:

“May his land be continually blessed from Jehovah With the choice things of heaven, with dew, And with the watery deep lying down below,

And with the choice things, the products of the sun, And with the choice things, the yield of the lunar months,

And with the choicest from the mountains of the east, And with the choice things of the indefinitely lasting hills,

And with the choice things of the earth and its fullness, And with the approval of the One residing in the thornbush. May they come upon the head of Joseph And upon the crown of the head of the one singled out from his brothers.

As the firstborn of a bull his splendor is, And his horns are the horns of a wild bull. With them he will push peoples All together to the ends of the earth, And they are the tens of thousands of E’phra·im, And they are the thousands of Ma·nas’seh.”

And as to Zeb’u·lun he said:

“Rejoice, O Zeb’u·lun, in your going out, And, Is’sa·char, in your tents.

Peoples to the mountain they will call. There they will sacrifice the sacrifices of righteousness. For they will suck the abounding wealth of the seas And the hidden hoards of the sand.”

And as to Gad he said:

“Blessed is the one widening the borders of Gad. As a lion he must reside, And he must tear the arm, yes, the crown of the head.

And he will pick out the first part for himself, For there the allotment of a statute-giver is reserved. And the heads of the people will gather themselves together. The righteousness of Jehovah will he certainly execute And his judicial decisions with Israel.”

And as to Dan he said:

“Dan is a lion cub. He will leap out from Ba’shan.”

And as to Naph’ta·li he said:

“Naph’ta·li is satisfied with the approval And full of the blessing of Jehovah. Do take possession of the west and south.”

And as to Ash’er he said:

“Blessed with sons is Ash’er. Let him become one approved by his brothers, And one dipping his foot in oil.

Iron and copper are your gate locks, And in proportion to your days is your leisurely walk.

There is none like the [true] God of Jesh’u·run, Who rides upon heaven in help of you And upon cloudy skies in his eminence.

A hiding place is the God of ancient time, And underneath are the indefinitely lasting arms. And he will drive away from before you the enemy, And he will say, ‘Annihilate [them]!’

And Israel will reside in security, The fountain of Jacob by itself, Upon a land of grain and new wine. Yes, his heavens will let the dew drip down.

Happy you are, O Israel! Who is there like you, A people enjoying salvation in Jehovah, The shield of your help, And the One who is your eminent sword? So your enemies will cringe before you, And you—upon their high places you will tread.”

Then Moses proceeded to go up from the desert plains of Mo’ab into Mount Ne’bo, to the top of Pis’gah, which fronts toward Jer’i·cho. And Jehovah went showing him all the land, Gil’e·ad as far as Dan, and all Naph’ta·li and the land of E’phra·im and Ma·nas’seh and all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, and the Neg’eb and the District, the valley plain of Jer’i·cho, the city of the palm trees, as far as Zo’ar.

And Jehovah went on to say to him: “This is the land about which I have sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘To your seed I shall give it.’ I have caused you to see it with your own eyes, as you will not cross over there.”

After that Moses the servant of Jehovah died there in the land of Mo’ab at the order of Jehovah. And he proceeded to bury him in the valley in the land of Mo’ab in front of Beth-pe’or, and nobody has come to know his grave down to this day. And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old at his death. His eye had not grown dim, and his vital strength had not fled. And the sons of Israel proceeded to weep for Moses on the desert plains of Mo’ab thirty days. At length the days of weeping of the mourning period for Moses were completed.

And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hand upon him; and the sons of Israel began to listen to him and they went doing just as Jehovah had commanded Moses. But there has never yet risen up a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face, as respects all the signs and the miracles that Jehovah sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Phar’aoh and all his servants and all his land, and as regards all the strong hand and all the great awesomeness that Moses exercised before the eyes of all Israel.

-Dueteronomy 31:30 - 32-34, NWT

I Will Sing and Make Melody to Jehovah

#Jehovah #God #Dueteronomy #Bible #Scripture #Prophecy #Israel #Moses #Aaron #Joshua #Egypt #Pharaoh #History

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theprojectatedensgate · 6 years ago

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If it's okay with you could I get a short little ficlet where John and Sharky see Fem Deputy shot down by Jacobs men and since John is...well mentally damaged he just loses his mind and Sharky just stops fighting back cause John's immense grief over the deputys death and nonstop killing is too much to watch

I apologise for hurting every ones feelings before I begin, but you asked and you shall receive!

Warnings: Implied self harm, graphic depictions of violence, angst, may cause heart break.

“…I loved and I loved and I lost you…”

Have you ever seen a meteor shower before? As it plummets bright through the night sky, the white hot rock and metals burning off into the atmosphere as they rain down onto Earth? Fire pouring from the realm of angels? Your stomach lurching in primal fear at something so wondrous and full of awesome power?

Sharky was a pyromaniac, there was no simpler term for him. Every sight of fire brought a passion though his chest as he watched the flames eat at the fuel it had been gifted. Fire was his life. Fire was his soul.

But as he watched the plane explode in a thousand shards, fire and smoke pluming around it, the scraps of metal raining down onto the tree canopy. He felt no passion, he felt no stirring in his gut at the beauty of it. No… Sharky felt hollow, like his heart had been torn from its resting place.

And he would never feel the same again.

He fell to his knees as it happened, an inhuman wail a breaching in his lungs. His partner, His cop, his friend…

The Deputy was dead.

It was Jacob’s doing, and none of that surprised anyone. He was not a man to be reckoned with, but the she had survived so much, giving the illusion of immortality that only God’s chosen few could embrace. Now, the one he had called his best friend, was in the embrace of death…Over… In the blink of an eye.

John had witnessed the explosion from his balcony, tugging the binoculars to his eyes. He recognised his big brother’s choppers, in attack formation as the wreckage tumbled to the ground. He smirked at Jacob’s ferocity, he always was a fighter. The crackling of the radio at his side startled him, tsking at his over reaction, he clasped his fingers around it, bringing it up towards him.

“The Deputy is dead! God has purged the sinner from this land!”

Time had cease, the blood flowing thick in his veins froze over, the numbness swallowing him whole. He stared at the pocket of air where the plane had been, a deep nausea climbing up his gut. Everything became a blur, his surroundings moved too quickly and too slowly all at once, he felt everything and nothing, every fibre of his being torn to shreds, his mind unravelled before him. He felt lost, helpless…

He felt Rage.

His hand crushed the radio, squeezing it so hard the plastic cracked under his fingertips, causing the crackle to cut off, his blunt nails scratching against it.

Sharky had heard things, rumours of John’s Wrath. The concern Joseph had for him. There had been killings, some resistance, others… Their own flock. Corpses hung from the bridges and tunnels, ripped open at the abdomen for all to see, eyes and tongues removed, and blood poured from the hollow sockets. It had been a month now, the emptiness still chewing his insides. He didn’t understand John’s fury, shouldn’t he be celebrating? His mind flashed back to night he caught them both, their lips pressed together under the pale moonlight. Guilt clawed at his brain as he remembered, to judgement he had placed upon the Deputy, how they begged him to give him a chance. Sharky didn’t trust him then, he had been in Hope County his whole life and witness the atrocities of the Cult, but now it was different. The Deputy had truly loved John and generously returned the favour. She wanted no bad blood between them both, being the most important people in her life. She did everything for the County and both men, holding them close through her time here. John was actively killing out of revenge, he refused to speak to his eldest brother, and if he wasn’t out causing death and destruction, he was holed up in his Bunker, torturing all those who resided within, his sadism had a whole new meaning. Whispers in the leaves reminded of Sharky of her, and he could hear her voice.

“Help him.”

Sharky fumbled with the radio, perched on top of his trailer, nerves causing sweat to pool in his palms. Why was he doing this? Was it to stop the whole sale slaughter of Hope County? Maybe. What is to ease his own regret? Perhaps. Was it because that Dep’ would have wanted? Definitely. He flicked through the channels, hesitating when found the frequency he wanted, he glanced up to the night sky, a tear streaming down his cheek. He’d do it for her, he always would.

“John?”

The static crackled with interference, bile rose in his throat at the tension, it was so unusual of him, but it must be done. Finally the static quietened as he got a response.

“Who is this?”

Sharky sighed, taking off his cap and running a hand through his hair, he chewed at his cheek. John sounded exhausted, his usual flourish and smug tone now non existent, he was a man plagued by grief.

“John, don’t hang up okay? It’s Sharky. I just wanna’ talk.”

The silence was deafening and Sharky could almost see John’s confused and irritated expression, there was a metal clattering on the end of the line.

“Charlemagne.” His voice was filled with venom. “You picked a bad time to mock me, did you not?”

Sharky clutched the radio to his chest, attempting to search for some inner strength.

“Actually, I didn’t call to fight, there’s no reason for us too. Not now.”

“Then what do you want?” John hissed through the radio, and Sharky remembered just who he was speaking to, he was playing with fire. And no thrill came with it.

“Look man. I know we had our differences, we didn’t always see eye to eye and I know I made some mistakes about you and Dep’. You did too, but we were her priority. We mattered to her more than anything, more than herself

Sharky was greeted with a silence and his chest tightened. He knew it wouldn’t be easy for John, it wasn’t for him either. But the man who gave the impression of someone who had next to no emotion apart from anger and gratification at peoples misery, his heart broken in two by the bereavement. He saw the love John held for them, in the form of broken and bloodied bodies.

“So… I called to say that I won’t be fighting anymore, not for the resistance, not for no one. I can’t do it. And I want the same for you man, you’re tearing yourself apart. I don’t care what side your on, you loved them and I see that now. I’m sorry for putting you through so much shit about it, I just care about her, she’s my best friend.

“Don’t you dare speak of her. How do you know how I feel? You only wanted her for yourself, your selfishness and greed. You have no idea, how I could possibly feel. You didn’t understand. You didn’t believe. You didn’t care! I should string you up with the rest of them.”

Sharky nodded at his words, true he had craved the Deputy’s affection ever since he met them, he allowed jealousy to plague him often. But all had changed now, this isn’t what the would have wanted.

“I know and I’m sorry, my feelings got in the way. But I know pain, John. She wouldn’t want you to do this. Didn’t she always say how badly she wanted things to be still between us? Isn’t it only right that we fulfil that? Not mindless killing in their name. You know that wasn’t her way.”

The radio was silent for what felt like a thousand years, Sharky’s heart beating the only sound in the darkness. He looked over the radio, fidgeting with his hands.

“…It’s the only way.”

“It’s not John, she wouldn’t want this. She would want you to be strong for her, not punish everyone around you. And you believe in God right? Well I bet she’s with him right now, telling him how much of a good person you really are. Do you want to go against that?”

“…Thank you, Boshaw…”

Sharky couldn’t believe it, his mouth hung open with relief and astonishment. This was the most civil conversation they had ever had, born from loss.

“What for?”

“I know you didn’t accept us, I know it tore you apart from the inside out. And I rather enjoyed it, but she spoke of you all the time, how important you were to her, how you made her laugh… Your little adventures together. I admit, I was envious of the time you spent with them, working hard to undo all my work. But she spoke of your qualities, the talks you would have over a drink, how much those mattered…”

He trailed off, and Sharky picked on the sound of a muffled sniffle on the line. Was he really crying? He let John’s words ring in his head, he couldn’t stop the tears that fell, attempting to keep them hidden.

“She said that?”

“She did. I cannot control the Wrath that’s buried so deeply in my core, I carved it onto to my flesh over and over and over until I dulled the blade. I used to crave her death before I knew of my feelings, dreaming of wrapping my hands around her throat and holding her there till she stops kicking, wishing for end to her belligerence but now… I’d kill anyone for a chance to see her again.”

“I understand. But John, this isn’t your fault you can’t blame yourself. You cared for her, deeply. More than I’ve ever seen you care about anything that wasn’t yourself.”

A broken chuckle came through end, and Sharky cracked a grief stricken smile, masking over the sounds of quiet sobbing. Sharky’s heart crushed at the sound, tears of his own falling into the dirt.

“Where did we go wrong Boshaw?”

“We went wrong, when we caused a War.”

There was another long pause, Sharky tried to collect his emotions together, but they tumbled from his arms, he heard the sounds of scraping on the end, and grimaced.

“We are in too deep now Boshaw, the choices we have made will define us both in the end… The War won’t end until the county is soaked in blood. I could cease killing, but it wouldn’t make a difference. Tomorrow more will die, by my hand or God’s.”

Sharky sniffed, nodding his head lowly.

“You’re right. But whatever choice you make now, do it for her. Always do it for her. I’m leaving for the mountains, I’m going to search for the wreckage, I don’t think I’ll find a body…You can come with me if you want? You don’t have to tell anyone, I have a cabin that my uncle used to own up there, it’s real cut off from everything and everyone. It would just be us, no one else.”

John straightened himself up, looking down at his blood soaked forearms, a mix of his and the others. He considered Sharky’s offer, though it would be strange if people saw them, he wasn’t sure if he would ever speak to Sharky again. But that’s not what she wanted, and he couldn’t disappoint her.

“I’ll pick you up first thing tomorrow. Be ready.”

And he would be, they would travel to the North together. A new friendship formed out of loss and grief. Out of the end, a beginning, and rising like a phoenix reborn from the ashes, the fires of hate born anew, into companionship, a new dawn.

And they would do it for her…They always would.

This killed me! And I’m going for a cigarette lmao Enjoy! (if you can?) and thank you for requesting, this got me in the feels.!

#farcry5 #fc5 #farcry 5 #john seed #fem!dep #john x deputy #sharky boshaw #the project at edens gate

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booksaremyoxygenn · 7 years ago

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Everything, Everything: Book Review & Favorite Quotes!

“The greatest risk is not taking one.”

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Wow. I am breathless, I did not expect to fall head over heels with this book but yet here I am. The beginning scene where the bundt cake commits suicide from the window was freaking adorable. AND THEN HE SETS IT UP LIKE A FREAKING ELF ONTHE SHELF... Hahaha I was dying. So adorable! If the bundt scenes aren’t in the movie I will be seriously disappointed... How in only 35 pages had I already love Olly when he has only been on like 6 pages....? By the time he tells her they are going to be friends I am already making fangirl noises at my book.... usually these noises are reserved for the last 100 pages but we aren’t even 50 pages in yet. DAMN, how am I already emotionally attatched to these characters!!

I would 10/10 recommend this young adult contemporary! Especially if you want to do some deep thinking about love and what it means to truly LIVE. I can not encourage anyone / everyone enough to read this book! It was so moving and inspiring, you won't regret it!

Where did the missing 0.5 of a star go? (PLEASE NOTE: There are SPOILERS below)

While the ending was definitely packed with twists and beautiful quotes and just so many good things (like Olly)- I feel like it was a cop out from discussing disabilities / diseases. It was an easy ending. I thought it was finally going to be a book where we don’t see everything magically fall together. I thought that was going to be a major theme / lesson from this book. They were going to find a way around and it and he would still love her regardless of her disease and how it confined her. That would have been really powerful but I understand it would have been a really hard ending to write. I just think we need more books like that, where people get their happily ever after but with compromise and learning to accept that not everything is perfect, some of us are dealt life threatening diseases but that doesn’t stop us from loving wholeheartedly. However, on the contrary, I liked the message that if you don’t ever try to expand yourself you will never learn new things or grow.

Also, there is another thing I am strongly against in this book and it is ALL THE DAMN SPOILERS for other books. Like maybe I was planning on reading them?? I don’t feel like I can just skip reading the excerpts because what if it adds depth to the scene? Also this book was actually extremely short considering how many pages were covered in pictures or had only a small excerpt on them... I didn’t mind because obviously the value of a story doesn’t depend on word count but still without all the gaps this would have been a very thin book... I think this is my way of saying that I wish I had more cute Olly moments... because even a million isn’t enough and now I want everything. Everything. (Haha.. Do you see what I did there?)

Madeline has Severe Combined Immunodeficiency or bubble baby disease, meaning she’s “allergic to the world.” (pg 3) Though she is still such a wonderful, strong willed protagonist. Phonetic Scrabble sounds adorable and I love that she writes Tumblr book reviews and how much she loves books. I think all the reading is part of what made her wish for more and hope for a better future because I know that is why reading does for me.

When Olly gives her, her first nickname and he says he can be both sexy and good at math - I was already in love already. I understand her need to push him away and I agree with it in some ways because this wasn’t something like Katniss needing to focus more on the revolution or Ron not being able to admit his feelings about Hermione or Bella trying to choose between Edward and Jacob.. this is Maddy picking between her life and a boy, even if that boy is irresistible, funny. and kind like Olly. There are so many more risks at hand here and she is deciding if she’d rather live a few more months? weeks? days? and truly feel alive and happy in them or live many more long years but never truly experience life. THAT IS SUCH A HARD DECISION.

I want everything for these two, I truly do but it was SO hard knowing that it could kill her. Yet there I was yelling at the book that this isn’t Rapunzel’s evil kidnapper lying about the outside world BUT a real sickness. He tells her he isn’t sorry for kissing her and that was when I yelled at the book “Yeah, you’ll be regretting it WHEN SHE DIES!” Like what is this? Test how much she can do before she winds up in a hospital?

Did anyone else dread the black page? Like I knew it was bad whether it was death, unconsciousness, hospitalization, house arrest, whatever it was it wasn’t good for Maddy. I just am really crossing my fingers for no TFIOS bullshit where Olly will end up the one hurt... I’m not emotionally ready for that and I don’t think I ever will be. Also, while I am so glad Maddy chooses to live freely and that she chooses to see the world but I just felt like every time someone found out that she is lying about the pills and lets her go that they are handing a suicidal child a gun. I can’t get past that thought.

One of my favorite connections in this book was Maddy and Olly’s mom. They are both living parallel lives and feel utterly trapped. In the end it was themselves who had to choose to leave the destructive people behind for their own well being and so that they could feel free and truly live. (pg 259) I loved how even though they lived VERY different lives they could relate so intensely.

Favorite Quotes:

1. “Everything’s a risk. Not doing anything is a risk. It’s up to you.” (pg 68)

2. “For the first time in a long time, I want more than I have.” (pg 80)

3. “One thing I’m certain of: Wanting just leads to more wanting. There’s no end to desire.” (pg 83)

4. “You can find the meaning of life in a book... OK, maybe not just a single book, but if you read enough you’ll get there.” (pg 89)

5. “Maybe we can’t predict everything, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.” (pg 99)

6. “This is why people touch. Sometimes words are just not enough.” (pg 105)

7. “ I read once that, on average, we replace the majority of our cells every seven years. Even more amazing: We change the upper layers of our skin every two weeks. If all the cells in our body did this, we’d be immortal but some of our cells, like the ones in our brains, don’t renew. they age, and age us. In two weeks my skin will have no memory of Olly’s hand on mine, but my brain will remember. We can have immortality or the memory of touch. But we can’t have both.” (pg 122)

8. “Is it always like that?” I ask, breathless. “No,” he says. “It’s never like that.” I hear the wonder in his voice. And just like that, everything changes.” (pg 130)

9. “Life is a gift. Don’t forget to live it.” (pg 141)

10. “I tell her that he thinks I’m funny and smart and beautiful in that order, and that the order matters.” (pg 148 - 149)

11. “But a description of a tree is not a tree, and a thousand paper kisses will never equal the feel of Olly’s lips on mine.” (pg 163)

12. “Ever since Olly came into my life there’ve been two Maddys: the one who lives through books and doesn’t want to die, and the one who lives and suspects that death will be a small prices to pay for it.... The second Maddy knows that this pale half life is not really living.” (pg 167)

13. “Sometimes you do things for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong ones and sometimes it’s impossible to tell the difference.” (pg 174)

14. “That love opens you up to the world. I was happy before I met him. But I’m alive now, and those are not the same thing.” (pg 181)

15. ‘You’re not living if you’re not regretting” (pg 186)

16. “Maybe growing up means disappointing the people we love.” (pg 218)

17. “In my head I know I’ve been in love before, but it doesn’t feel like it. Being in love with you is better than the first time. It feels like the first time and the last time and the only time all at once.” (pg 221)

18. “We watch the way the water pulls back and turns over and beats against the sand, trying to wear the earth away. And even though it doesn’t succeed, it pulls back and pounds the shore again and again, as if there were no last time and there is no next time and this time is the time that counts.” (pg 232)

19. “My heart is too bruised and I want to keep the pain as a reminder. I don’t want sunlight on it. I don’t want it to heal. Because if it does, I might be tempted to use it again.” (pg 255)

20. “Sometimes you have to leave the people you love the most” (pg 259)

21. “Love is worth everything. Everything.” (pg 302)

22. “I was trying so hard to find the single pivotal moment that set my life on its path. The moment that answered the question, How did I get here? But it’s never just one moment. It’s a series of them. And your life can branch out from each one in a thousand different ways. Maybe there’s a version of your life for all the choices you make and all the choices you don’t.” (pg 305)

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elfnerdherder · 7 years ago

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The Unquiet Grave: Ch.3

You can read Chapter 3 on Ao3 Here

Chapter 3: With Little Thought We Dream

Even serial killers got funerals.

Will Graham stands beside an unknown woman and a small, anonymous funeral director. Garrett Jacob Hobbs had been gleaned of any and all they could take from him, from DNA to fingerprints to hair follicles. With no court case, no ruling to take place, they wanted a swift and clean burial for him, and only one family member –a distant one at that –had arrived to see him put six feet under.

She doesn’t cry, and she doesn’t speak to Will. For that he is immensely relieved.

He hates graveyards. There is no quiet in them, no rest in them. There was no service for Garrett Jacob Hobbs, and with Abigail Hobbs still not awake in the hospital, the funeral director didn’t think to offer.

“It’s at this time that people normally pay their last respects,” the director says, poised over the coffin.

“You’ll make sure he goes down?” the woman asks. “Six feet under and covered in dirt?”

Will isn’t sure if she’s addressing him or if she’s addressing the director; he nods all the same.

She leaves them then, heels sinking into the soft earth where thousands rot, and Will watches the coffin sink slowly, going down, down, down until it hits the bottom with a soft thump.

“Is there anything you wish to say?” the director asks.

Will shakes his head. He isn’t confidant that if he speaks, he’ll sound coherent or make any sense.

He sits down and watches the gravediggers work –he isn’t sure what he’s waiting for until they press the sod down and leave him with a modest, plain gravestone proclaiming nothing more than his name, the year he was born, and the year he died. No mention of being a loving father. No mention of being a kind husband. It’s nice to see that stark honesty, considering he was neither of those things.

The graves aren’t quiet. Will has been to enough cemeteries to be able to feel the sensations of trapped souls beneath the soil, the grief that sits along every blade of grass, the triumph of the killer standing in the crowd and gloating. He once recalled an empath in ‘group’ that had attended a funeral, only to feel the life of someone trapped in a coffin not twenty feet away, freshly buried. They managed to save the man, although he was in a coma for some time after. The empath drunk himself into a car crash, and he later said he just had to get the taste of dirt out of his mouth.

He sits for a while longer, stares at the gravestone and the space where Garrett Jacob Hobbs will forever remain. There is a sense of righteous pride that Will was able to stop him and save Abigail, but there is also the horror as the look on Hobbs’ face was burned into Will’s eye: pain, indignation, and a love that seared and left marks.

It isn’t until he hears voices that he stands up to leave, and he purposefully skirts around the grave so that he can’t feel Hobbs beneath him. He wonders if he takes off his shoes and presses his bare feet to the sod if he’ll still feel him breathing.

Lecter ambushes him for lunch, a thermos in one hand and two travel containers in another. Will thinks to turn him away, standing poised by the entrance to HQ as he is, but at the sight of Director Hansen a short distance away, he accepts the invitation. He’d rather be ambushed by Lecter than Director Hansen.

“Do you often miss meals, Agent Graham?” he asks, sitting down at a bench.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s three P.M., and people have normally eaten by now.”

Will watches him unsnap the small bowls, revealing a salad inside with strips of meat laid across the top. The dressing is on the side, and he fumbles with the lid while Hannibal passes over silverware.

“You haven’t eaten,” he points out.

“I was traveling for work and was unfortunately detained. What’s your reason?”

“I had a funeral to go to,” he mumbles. If he says it with enough regret and remorse, he figures Hannibal won’t press on details.

“The funeral of Garrett Jacob Hobbs?”

Nevermind, then. He drizzles the sauce over the salad, taking the fork and spearing a few bits of lettuce before he stuffs his mouth and chews, nodding his appreciation at the taste.

“This is delicious, thank you,” he manages after he’s swallowed. Hannibal’s gaze is steady on him, and he turns a piece of meat over with his fork, itchy under the stare. “Yes, his.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asks.

“No.”

“What did you find as you stood inside of the space where he will forever have a passive presence?”

Will takes a bite of the meat and chews, the flavor of a careful blend of herbs and spices rich and practiced, the mark of someone that cooks and cooks remarkably well. There is something else, though, something that reeks of fear, of racing hearts and a terror that bites deep that makes his jaw freeze, his muscles clench involuntarily. His teeth scratch along one another, and he has to force himself to swallow, the food a rock that drags down his throat slowly.

“…Nothing,” he manages. His stomach roils, and he stuffs another mouthful of lettuce into his mouth to try and wash away the taste of the animal that had died. He has a sudden urge to vomit.

“Something wrong?” Hannibal asks.

“…I can’t always eat meat,” he admits. He wants to feel apologetic about it, but he can’t bring himself to. His tone is challenging, daring Hannibal to question it.

“What do you feel?”

“…Terror. Sometimes the meat tastes like terror.” He snorts and rubs his mouth, like he can somehow wipe away the sensation of being cornered, of the final frantic moments of life. “What animal was it?”

“A rabbit.”

“He should have hopped faster,” Will mutters. He spears another piece of lettuce and stuffs it into his mouth.

“Yes, he should have,” Hannibal agrees with a smile. “Is it like that with all meat for you?”

“Sometimes. Some animals die peacefully, or the food is processed or long dead enough that by the time it gets to me, everything that made it an animal is gone.”

“I do have a personal butcher who sells what he hunts for. I know his beef, pork, and geese are handled humanely, but I can’t account for how the hunted behave before they die.”

Will looks up at him and manages a small, sardonic smile. “Their hearts race, their eyes widen, and in that final moment their muscles tighten. That was a very terrified rabbit.”

They finish their meals in silence, the only thing left in Will’s bowl the neatly cut and cooked remains of a rabbit that just wasn’t fast enough.

The drink in the thermos is a coffee with a rich enough taste that it washes away the remains of Will’s nausea. He sips it, mouth passing along the lip of the cup, and he chances a peek to Hannibal once more. Still silent. Still inscrutable. Curiosity burns inside of him at the sight, as well as something akin to awe. He holds it back, though. He doesn’t want to seem too interested, too intent on the silence.

“I suppose I was looking for some kind of closure,” he admits, referring to Hobbs.

“Is he the first man you’ve ever killed?”

“Yes.”

“Is it his death that haunts your dreams, or the fact that you were the one to do it?”

Will wants to lie, but he figures that defeats the purpose of even doing this in the first place. “I didn’t hesitate. The moment one didn’t drop him, there was another. Then another, and another, until there were no bullets left.”

“You walked into a room where your senses were alive to the situation due to your intimate knowledge of your killer, coupled with your adrenaline as well as your skills as an E-3. Naturally, there would be no hesitation on your part because by then, instincts would take over.”

“Some people have a flight instinct, or at least a freeze instinct,” Will points out.

“You have a fight instinct, but all that means is you are far more adept at survival than your counterparts. Does that somehow make you less of a person, or less deserving of life because you are better at preserving it?”

Yes, Will thinks, although he manages to say, “That is what I’m struggling with.”

“Then going to Garrett Jacob Hobbs’ funeral sounds more like a punishment than a need for closure.”

“Killers like that don’t have large, public funerals. Empaths that have a psychotic break and lash out don’t receive large, public funerals, either.”

“Do you compare the two often?”

“It comes with the job. The last serial killer we found before Hobbs was an E-2, a Feeler and a Dreamer.” He pauses, wondering if he should share anything more. Reluctantly, he says, “Hobbs was an agent close to retirement. An empath –a dreamer.”

“Bare hands on the surfaces of anything that opened stories and fantasies within his head that he couldn’t differentiate from reality,” Hannibal murmurs. He has a poetic, flowered form of speech that is somehow lovely rather than corny. “Do you think you will be like that one day?”

“I wear gloves,” he said. “As long as I keep them on, I don’t have to worry about things like that.”

He doesn’t have to worry about things like that, but he does anyway. When he returns to work and is handed a file containing the information regarding a rogue E-2 FBI Agent, he worries even more.

The plane dumps them into a small town in Georgia, the most exciting part of the town being their annual BBQ & Blues festival that the FBI had just missed out on. Will tracks the signs struck into the ground every so many feet advertising an amazing homemade BBQ sauce competition with a rain-stained cardboard paper sign taped to the side declaring the winner Suzanne Perkins.

Suzanne Perkins would never claim her fifty dollar gift certificate to her choice of restaurant, though; she wouldn’t do anything ever again.

Once again he finds himself waiting while Jack Crawford goes through the house, clearing everything out and ensuring that it’s safe. He scuffs his shoe along the gravel, traces idle figure eights with his toe. Despite it having been a day since the incident, people still mill about the police line, necks craning to catch a glimpse of anything they can see.

“Agent Francis Dolarhyde, E-2 Seer and Dreamer,” Beverly says, waiting beside him. “I worked with him once –two years ago? Quiet guy. Cleft pallet and really pretty eyes.”

Will studies his dossier, his photo sharp and clean despite the barely noticeable cleft pallet. His suit is pressed, and following the first photo there is a second showing him in Marine Corps dress blues, expression equally somber and striking.

“It’s confirmed him?” he asks.

“He was supposed to report in after gaining information from his last assignment out in the field, but he never did. His handler reported it, and they started tracking his last movements. Cameras got him at the Atlanta Airport, witness saw him refuse to pay for gas at a gas station on the way here. Cameras confirmed it was him chinsing out on paying.”

“He’s never even had a speeding ticket,” Will murmurs. An E-2 is not as rare as an E-3, although they tend to be more volatile. Will can’t recall the number of studies done trying to figure out why that’s a thing, but from personal experience he can say it’s because an E-3 is more likely to become a vegetable before they even get the chance to try and lash out at someone, let alone have a psychotic break and commit murder.

“Clean record, although he was essentially abandoned by his mother before we got a hold of him and sent him to the institution. Maybe something happened there and it’s finally manifesting now.”

“Always blame the mom,” Will says sagely. Sarcastically.

He’s allowed in by Crawford, and Beverly trails after him in order to speak with Jack in low, hushed tones. When he steps into the house, there is a shift in the air around him, like the very space he stands in is drenched in screams. It takes him a beat too long to walk past the entry, delve farther into a house that for all intents and purposes, looks completely normal.

That is, until he gets to the hall where the family sleeps.

The blood spread along the wall burns into his eyes, and as he stares he can see the walls within his mind folding up and falling away, leaving him in a strange sense of limbo, his skin not his own, his bones not his own. Numbly, he takes off his gloves and tucks them away, relieved to know that at least this time, there would be no living person to distract him with their almost-death.

He places his bare hand on the walls and falls inside of the memory.

I wake to a suppressed gunshot; my half-sleeping mind is delirious, confused, until my wife screams and I’m very much awake, shouting out. Another shot, quiet, muffled, and a burning pain erupts in my neck, makes my cry cut short. Blankets, tight around me strangle, and I fumble and fall from the bed, wheezing. The blood is hot against my cheek, and distantly my wife cries and cries and cries.

Shadowed foosteps retreat from the room. My children. My children.

It is not strength that carries me, stumbling and bleeding out down the hall, but a terror as I realize that I am dying and my children are going to die, too. I try to speak, try to moan my disapproval at that, but the words are impossible, the searing pain in my neck arresting. As he goes to open the door, I throw myself at him, and we grapple, falling into the wall where his arms flail and the gun is seen, distinctly grey in the hallway night light.

I am dying. I am dying.

He turns the gun, and I bite into his neck, knowing that as I do I will die, that I will die and he will take my children. The barrel presses to my temple, upside down, and I rip into his skin, draw blood.

There is a searing pain against my skin. Then nothing, nothing.

Will comes to with a hiss, stumbling back and catching himself. As quickly as the walls went down he tries to draw them up, and he focuses on compartmentalizing and drawing in deep breaths before he continues. Behind him, he senses the footfalls of a scene annotator, and he turns his head.

“The wife was shot first, then the husband. Their bedroom. He tried to follow the RA down the hall when the RA went for the children, and he got a bite out of him.”

“Test tissue residue in Mr. Perkins’ mouth,” the annotator murmurs, nodding.

Will steps into the room across from the smearing of blood, the splatter on the wall he knows to be Mr. Perkin’s brain matter, and he stares at the carnage. There is blood soaking in one of the pillows on the bed to the left, then a large puddle of it underneath the bed on the right.

“The first child is shot in bed, the second dragged out from under their bed before being shot,” he murmurs, kneeling down. He stares at the spaces on the frame of the bed where hands dared press, and he reaches out and presses his palms to them.

Precision, cold and trained, something of instinct and repetition alike –the child hides but I do not fear, I do not worry that I cannot reach them. They scream, struggle, but there is no resistance, like a blade of grass falling to a finely honed knife. They were not taught to hide as I was, not taught to know how to be quiet enough to avoid notice. I was, though. I hide and I hide inside of my own mind, unaware of myself.

You’re screaming, but don’t you understand that you are not just flesh? You are light and air and color and quick sounds ended because I decided to change you. Balloons of color bursting, conjoining with those that fell before to create anew. You scrabble away from me, pleading, but there is no escape. There is no escape.

This is my design. I will Become.

Will jerks from the sensations of Dolarhyde’s thoughts with far less finesse than he did with Mr. Perkins’. It takes far longer to raise the barriers between him and the feeling of cold metal in his palm, and he doesn’t speak, holding his breath until he can be sure that when he exhales, he pushes Dolarhyde from him in his entirety, leaving nothing but Will behind.

He’s pretty sure he succeeded, although there is enough doubt that he can’t speak for several more seconds.

“The child hid underneath the bed, but he knew to drag him out to shoot him. The child on the left died first, the child on the right died second. They were left here, and he returned,” he manages when he can ensure his voice doesn’t tremble. The light and sound and air and color of the child lingers where he died, and as Will stands he swings a leg over the space to try and disperse it.

“He knew that they were here,” the annotator says quietly. Will glances to them, relieved to see their head down. If they take note of how his hands shake, they say nothing.

“He’d have watched the house. There was no hesitation in his movements to the bed, so he knew exactly where to go,” he agrees.

He walks from the room, and he forces himself to enter the bedroom where the air is dank and heavy. There is a hunger, lethal and plaintive, and it sits just over the space where the most blood has collected. There is so much of it that it’s not quite dry, wet and puddled in the center. He doesn’t want to lay his hands near it; he knows, he knows what happened next, and he doesn’t want to see.

The spaces along the blood glow faintly in his eyes though, and the walls come tumbling down before he can even press his hands down.

Mirrors rest over your eyes; can you see? Can you see? Brown eyes stare, dark with hunger, but the walls do not fall away from me as I look into them. I am trapped, barricaded in, but I am not alone with the sounds of the hunger, I am not alone with the sounds of the dying. Can you see me?

Can you see?

I look at you, and I see your life playing out before me: the sounds you make as you fuck, the tone you take when you scold. Are you not aware of me the way I am aware of you? You who looks through these mirrors, can you see the bruises deep down beneath my skin, the sensation of a belt that hits and hits and hits and hits…?

The walls will not lower, but even awake I can Dream your life like it is my own; my wedding, my anniversary, my children, my husband. They’re not mine though, they’re yours, but who are you? Where do you end and I begin?

Can you see? Can you look into my eyes and see me?

He’s pressed against the wall behind him before he is aware of the action, before he even feels his legs move. He grounds himself through tactile sensations, the gloves tight against his skin, the way his pants press to his thighs, the way his shirt tag itches on his neck. It is much harder to come back from the feeling of his hands gliding across Mrs. Perkins’ bare form, and the walls don’t feel so sturdy anymore.

“Are the mirrors in the bathroom broken?” he rasps.

“Every mirror in the house,” the annotator says.

“He broke the mirrors, placed shards over the eyes, mouth, and clitoris; he performed necrophilic acts upon Mrs. Perkins’, then placed the bodies as seen in the photos.”

“Necrophilic acts,” they murmur, writing furiously.

“He placed pajama pants on Mr. Perkins –he’d originally slept in his underwear.”

He stays pressed against the wall as he speaks, like he can somehow melt through it if he tries hard enough. His hands feel like they’re gripping dead flesh.

“The bite marks are not sexual,” he says to the room. “There is no center suck bruise, nor was that his intent. It’s possessive.”

“What is your name?” the annotator looks up from their writing and studies him intently.

“I am Will Graham,” he assures them.

He’s let out of the room with that confirmation that he has made his barriers firm, and he wanders down the hall dazedly, studying the faint glow of footsteps that trail not out of the door but to the fridge. He presses a palm to it, cringing at the sensation of a casual feeling of physical hunger, and he opens the door and stares at the Baby Belle cheese wheel half-eaten. He grabs his glove, sets the cheese on the counter with it, and continues on.

He stands outside underneath the sunlight, staring up at the blinding clear day. In the south, it isn’t as cold although it’s fall, and he takes off his light jacket, laying it over his arm. Dolarhyde was tired after all of his hard work; he’d gone out to look at the moon. It refueled him, charged him. Will plants his feet where Dolarhyde rested, and he flexes and curls his hands to try and dispel the feeling of mirror shards on his palms.

“It’s Dolarhyde?” Jack Crawford asks. Will senses more than hears his approach.

“Yes.”

Jack swears, staring out at the beautifully fenced back yard.

“What set him off?”

“Someone bruised and whipped him,” he says, “but that feels like a long time ago. He’s building, creating.”

“Creating what?”

“Something. I can’t see it yet, but it’s very special to him.”

“Does it feel like he’s lost reality?” Jack wonders. It’s a weary sort of question. Most rogue agents become so ingrained within their delusions that they have no grasp on reality, the walls not only down but non-existent, as though they never were. They have a sense of the entire world, so much so that they are the world and all of the fibers holding it together.

“No. He’s very much aware. He feels that he’s transcended; he’s trying to Become.”

“Become?”

“Yes. That’s…I can’t see more yet. Where’s his house?”

“We can get you on a plane tomorrow back to DC.”

Will nods, mulling over the feeling of teeth in his mouth that are his but not his. “There’s cheese in there. The bite marks look oblong, weird, but I don’t think his teeth had that sort of deformity.”

“Did you work with him?”

“Maybe once,” Will says. “I think I remember him at the academy, but not well.”

“The academy,” Jack murmurs.

The academy was a government funded institution for empaths; by law, children showing signs for the gift were to be tested, and if found to fall into the empath category, were sent to learn how to control and hone in on their gifts. It was never mandatory that they work within government positions like the FBI, but someone with a certificate from the academy who looked to those professions found themselves fast-tracked to the top of the applicant list and given a hefty pay raise above others if hired.

One look at Will as an E-3, and they’d all but salivated at the thought of him working with the FBI, no matter his mental instability.

“An RA in a small town like this isn’t going to go over well,” Will tells Jack. “This is that cliché town where nothing bad never happens to no one.”

“The police department all but begged us to take this,” Jack agrees. “Full cooperation. Do you think you can handle tracking an RA while we look more into the murders here?”

Do you think you can handle tracking someone that you may very well end up becoming one day?

“That’s my job, Jack,” Will says. “I hunt RA’s. Dozens. This should be no different.”

Standing in the sun, trying to let it warm his chilled skin, Will Graham has a distinct feeling that he may have unintentionally lied to Jack Crawford, saying that. He doesn’t rescind his statement, though. He couldn’t if he’d tried.

#LiaS scribbles #The Unquiet Grave #Hannibal #hannibal fanfic #hannibal fanfiction #will graham #someone help will graham #hannigram #slowburn #hannibal x will graham #hannibal au

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dailybiblelessons · 4 years ago

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Monday: Reflection on the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Revised Common Lectionary Proper 15 Roman Catholic Proper 20

Complementary Hebrew Scripture from the Former Prophets: 2 Kings 5:1-14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” And the king of Aram said “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha's house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Semi-continuous Hebrew Scripture from the Torah: Genesis 43

Now the famine was severe in the land. And when they had eaten up the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little more food.” But Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food; but if you will not send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.’” Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?” They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Have you another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, and let us be on our way, so that we may live and not die—you and we and also our little ones. I myself will be surety for him; you can hold me accountable for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.”

Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bags, and carry them down as a present to the man—a little balm and a little honey, gum, resin, pistachio nuts, and almonds. Take double the money with you. Carry back with you the money that was returned in the top of your sacks; perhaps it was an oversight. Take your brother also, and be on your way again to the man; may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, so that he may send back your other brother and Benjamin. As for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.” So the men took the present, and they took double the money with them, as well as Benjamin. Then they went on their way down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph.

When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Bring the men into the house, and slaughter an animal and make ready, for the men are to dine with me at noon.” The man did as Joseph said, and brought the men to Joseph's house. Now the men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph's house, and they said, “It is because of the money, replaced in our sacks the first time, that we have been brought in, so that he may have an opportunity to fall upon us, to make slaves of us and take our donkeys.” So they went up to the steward of Joseph's house and spoke with him at the entrance to the house. They said, “Oh, my lord, we came down the first time to buy food; and when we came to the lodging place we opened our sacks, and there was each one's money in the top of his sack, our money in full weight. So we have brought it back with us. Moreover we have brought down with us additional money to buy food. We do not know who put our money in our sacks.” He replied, “Rest assured, do not be afraid; your God and the God of your father must have put treasure in your sacks for you; I received your money.” Then he brought Simeon out to them. When the steward had brought the men into Joseph's house, and given them water, and they had washed their feet, and when he had given their donkeys fodder, they made the present ready for Joseph's coming at noon, for they had heard that they would dine there.

When Joseph came home, they brought him the present that they had carried into the house, and bowed to the ground before him. He inquired about their welfare, and said, “Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?” They said, “Your servant our father is well; he is still alive.” And they bowed their heads and did obeisance. Then he looked up and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, “Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me? God be gracious to you, my son!” With that, Joseph hurried out, because he was overcome with affection for his brother, and he was about to weep. So he went into a private room and wept there. Then he washed his face and came out; and controlling himself he said, “Serve the meal.” They served him by himself, and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians. When they were seated before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth, the men looked at one another in amazement. Portions were taken to them from Joseph's table, but Benjamin's portion was five times as much as any of theirs. So they drank and were merry with him.

Complementary Psalm 87

On the holy mount stands the city he founded; the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God.

Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon; Philistia too, and Tyre, with Ethiopia— “This one was born there,” they say. And of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in it”; for the Most High himself will establish it. The Lord records,as he registers the peoples, “This one was born there.”

Singers and dancers alike say, “All my springs are in you.”

Semi-continuous Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

New Testament Lesson: Acts 15:1-21

Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders. So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”

The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “My brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written,

‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up, so that all other peoples may seek the Lord— even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago.’¹

Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood. For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues.”

¹Amos 9:11, 12

Year A Ordinary 20, RCL Proper 15, Catholic Proper 20 Monday

Bible verses from The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All right reserved. Selections from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright 1985 by Consultation on Common Texts. Image Credit: The Al-Aqsa Mosque is in the background. The original image was downloaded from Flickr. The image is used under the Creative Commons Share Attribution Share Alike 2.0 license. The image was cropped and text was added by Michael Gilbertson.

#A Ordinary 20 Monday #Council of Jerusalem #Naaman #Aramean healed #Joseph's brothers #Egypt #circumcision #fornication

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dailyaudiobible · 5 years ago

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05/04/2020 DAB Transcript

Judges 19:1-20:48, John 3:22-4:3, Ps 104:24-35, Pr 14:22-23

Today is the 4th day of the month of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible Brian. It is wonderful to be here with you today as we move into our first full week of this brand-new month, the fifth month of the year. And we…we have been taking a journey through the book of Judges. And simply by way of reminder, you know, we…we’ve followed the journey of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and then Joseph in slavery in Egypt and wandering in the wilderness and finally we got to Joshua and crossed the Jordan River and the settling of the Promised Land. And judges is the story of the several centuries that followed Joshua and the way in which the people without a like…like a supreme leader, they did what they thought was right in their own eyes, which has definitely created a different way of doing things and we see the children of Israel back and forth and back and forth with God and with their enemies and those surrounding them. And today we get to a rather troubling story. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Judges, chapters 19 and 20 today.

Commentary:

Okay. What a troubling, disconcerting, horrible convoluted mess of a story we have going on in the book of Judges today. Really, at least in my opinion, one of the most horrific stories that we could find in the Bible and this is a story that's really old, thousands of years old. So, like trying to read it through modern lenses makes it even more convoluted. So, we have like to set that aside for a second and go back in time and try to move through this story to make any kind of sense of it. We have this man who lives in the remote Hill country of Ephraim who makes his way to Bethlehem and meets a concubine, takes a concubine, a secondary wife or a common-law wife. Like, this is about as close as we could…could get. And we can look at that go, “yeah, not so much because that's not really in the cultures that we live in although it's in the world.” But, like I said, we have to like, set aside our 3000 year in the future judgment against an ancient culture and just go, “this is the story. Like, this is what…I'm not judging it with 3000 more years of history in a completely different culture in a completely different part of the world. I’m just looking at the story.” So, this was common in this time. So, he has a concubine, brings her home. Things don't work out. She leaves, she returns to Bethel have. Four months later, he follows her to Bethlehem to renew the relationship to reconcile. The woman's father welcomes him. They spend days eating and drinking and visiting and getting reacquainted together then they’re ready to leave and she's ready to leave with him, but the father, right, the guys father-in-law basically, he's like, “stay another day…stay another day” and he keeps doing this until finally, even though they had planned to leave a couple days ago and even though they had planned to leave first thing in the morning they end up leaving a few days later in the evening like as the day is well underway. And, so, they leave Bethlehem, they get past Jebus, which is Jerusalem, that's 6 miles and then they go another few miles to Gibeah because they want to stay in an Israelite controlled town. And I don’t have to retell this blow-by-blow, we just we just read it. They are taken in by an older man who happens to be from the same kind of area in Ephraim that this original man is from. So, they have this going on and they go to his house. The house is surrounded. All kinds of nastiness is about to take place. It's very, very reminiscent of some of the depictions of the story in Sodom and Gomorrah, which is an ancient story by this time. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah goes all the way back to Abraham's time, so we’re well into the future but there are similarities here. They want the guest. They want the man, the man from Ephraim, they want him to be sent out so that…well…probably…as he claims later, so that they can kill him, but it seems as if they wanted to do other things before they killed him. So, as it turns out the concubine that had left in the first place, she's shoved out the door and over the course of the rest of the evening raped to death, which is shocking. And we find this in the Bible and it’s like some of these other stories where we’re like, “wait a second. This is the Bible. What is going on? Where is God in this story?” So, let's pause for a second and just ask that question. “Where is God in this story?” Because up to this point in the story we would be hard-pressed to find Him anywhere in this story. None of the things that are happening in this story were commanded by God. He wasn't involved in any way. The man met a concubine. He took her. He took her home. She left him. He followed her. Like there's no angels in this story telling anybody what to do. They reconcile. They leave. Why didn't they leave in the morning? Why didn’t they leave in the morning when they could get all the way home? God didn’t tell them to stay. The woman's father compelled them to stay, even days longer than they had planned to stay. Where’s God? Like why is this His fault? This is what we do in these kinds of stories and try to go, “I don't understand this, but it's very disruptive and troubling, and it's in the Bible so this has gotta be God's fault.” And yet He's not telling anybody to do anything. The story that we began today begins by informing us that in those times Israel had no king. So, it’s like as the story's beginning, we’re being kind of told, “this is a crazy time. This is a very unsettled time.” And we are told over and over in the book of Judges, “everybody does what's right in their own eyes.” And, so, what we have unfolding before us in this story isn't some horrific things that have happened at God's instructions. What we're seeing is what it looks like when people do what they think is right in their own eyes. And we can be…I mean…like the story goes on, that the man takes the woman's body and cuts her up and sends pieces of her to all the 12 tribes of Israel. Like it's a gruesome kind of story, but it certainly got the attention of all the 12 tribes who assembled together. So, we can look at the story and go, “This is a horrific story and I don't know how I have to feel towards God. And how can…what kind of weird time did these people live in? And how could they let people get away with something like this?” But that isn't the story. As these gruesome parts of this woman's body are sent around the nation, the nation assembles together with a massive outcry against injustice, literally saying nothing…nothing…like nothing this horrible has happened in Israel and they assemble 400,000 people against 25,000 people and they’re demanding of the Benjaminite’s, “give us the perpetrators. They need to be executed for what they did.” So, less we think like this is just permitted, like this kind of behavior is permitted, even in ancient culture, there is a massive outcry against this. So, the other tribes go to Bethel where the Ark of the covenant is. This is where we’re for the first time hearing here of God in this in this story and He's telling them that they have…that they have to go and attack Benjamin like that justice has to be pursued here. And they do. And Benjamin is a victorious and over 20,000 people die. And, so, they’re back in Bethel going, “what did we do wrong? What do we do? Do we keep going?” And the Lord's like, “attack them again.” So, like, even though they lost, God is saying, “no. Continue to press. Like press in toward justice here.” And they do and they lose again. And they go back to the Lord and the Lord’s like, “press in again” they will be delivered into your hands tomorrow.” And, so, like in all of this battle and stuff, in all this anarchy of the whole thing there’s still a beat in between here. Like repentance can happen in all of this destruction, but it isn't meant to be. The Benjaminite’s remain rebellious in this situation, and as it turns out are utterly destroyed. We leave the story today with 600 people left in Benjamin. Like an entire tribe of Israel through Civil War because of the violent horrific unthinkable crime has basically made the 12 tribes of Israel 11 tribes of Israel. As we continue this story through tomorrow and then, even as this, the reverberations of this story kind of bounce their way all the way until we get into the times of the Kings, we’ll see that even a horrific story like this one does turn its arc toward repentance, towards restoration, towards some kind of hope. But are we left with to contemplate today in such…such a troubling story? The first thing that we can say is that God didn't ask for this story to ever take place. One of the major things that the book of Judges shows us because it says it all the time is that there was no king, like there was no supreme leader and everybody was doing their own thing. So, one of things that we can say is that this is what that looks like. Then if we backtrack that into our own lives we realize that following our own way, doing whatever it is that seems to be the right thing in the moment, whatever, can lead us into some very disorienting twisted scenario's, which leads us to the other thing we can say about this. We saw the systematic decisions that were being made in this story, right? The man meets a concubine. That's a decision. Takes her to Ephraim. That's a decision. She leaves him. That's a decision. He follows her. That's a decision. They reconcile. That’s a decision. They overstay what their plans were. That's a decision. They left late instead of the morning. That's a decision. They went to Gibeah instead of Jebus even though it was getting late. That's a decision. Once they were in danger the man gave his concubine up to the crowd. That's a horrible decision but it's a decision. So, we could say that our decision's, our choices, even the ones that seem completely insignificant actually do matter. Things build upon things that build upon things that build upon things that then build our lives. And Judges is in part, helping us see what that looks like when it runs amok and everybody's doing what they want no matter the consequences it might have.

Prayer:

Father we invite You into this. It is indeed a troubling story and it's gonna take some time for us to continue reading before we can find any hope in it. We have watched in this story, seemingly insignificant decisions compound themselves into Civil War and the destruction of many lives. And, so, we see the danger of walking away or drifting away, assuming it doesn't matter and just going our own way. We see not only in this story but throughout the book of Judges that's not true. What we do actually does matter. That's how our lives are formed, based on the choices that we make and the actions that we take because of those choices. And, so, we pause here. Our story isn’t leading us down the path of a horrific story like this one, but it is no less twisted when we go our own way. So, come Holy Spirit. Lead us into all truth. Give us eyes to see the narrow path that leads to life. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

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lovestructionworld · 7 years ago

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“Judgement Day for the Fool” LFM #31 December 8, 2016

Merry Christmas to all of my friends on this eblast! This is an unusual message to receive from me during the "fun" Holiday season. But, as I've said before, I ask for the words and timing from the Holy Spirit. I haven't sent anything in many months. But this is what I'm getting and I'm hearing "Send It". So here it is with fear and trembling.

Prep For The Tour

Have you ever had a thought about who created hell? It wasn't Satan. No! When God created the Universe, He created hell too. This is sobering! The God of creation and love instituted torture in hell...a kind of eternal fire-boarding in a sea of brimstone. Think of the worst possible torture...the tortures that frighten you the most on earth, and they won't compare to hell in intensity and severity.

Why would God create hell? It wasn't just about punishment. I think hell is the absolute antithesis of the measure of love He has for Jesus. After all, hell is in play for one single, solitary reason...not believing in and submitting your all to the absolutely adored, by the Papa/Abba/God, Jesus Christ.

For there to be spiritual Good News (Gospel) fully received, the spiritual bad news (Hell-2nd Heaven) must be recognized as well. I believe this understanding of hell aids in planting the seeds of life deeper into the soul's soil. If "hell" isn't planted, then fear of God isn't sown. And "wisdom" is stunted within the new believer. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom...".

Please be aware, as you read, the following was written through a few tears and earnestness of heart.

I doubt there are any fools subscribed to this eblast. But, when I use the word "You", it is only to point your emotions, senses and spirit to those you know who are unsaved. For hell WILL be there destiny unless somehow Jesus' love and someone's outreach combine for a supernatural awakening to truth. These are the reasons why my first thought, when I meet someone new, usually is, "I wonder if they are saved".

This is serious stuff to me. It was only 3 or 4 months ago that a young man I met a year prior, literally bowed both of his knees to Jesus, through tears, at the bumper of my truck, in a Cracker Barrel parking lot. Within thirty minutes of our first meeting, he had proclaimed to me, "I'm an atheist". Ah! Not for long!! Glory to Jesus!!!

I've met a few Christians over the years who don't believe in hell. It's hard for me to understand this with so much written about in hell in scripture. To be clear, I absolutely believe in hell as much as I believe in the one Trinity...Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To preach one without the other is imbalance and false teaching. Heaven and hell are more tangible and real than this visible universe. Because this universe was formed from the invisible realm of heaven.

Maybe think about salvation as a gift during this Christmas season and consider sharing what you have with others. More on this at the end.

“Judgement Day for the Fool”

Boom!!, crackle!!, crunch!!!. You look down at the dust and fire as you float away from the mangled wreckage that was once your dream car...one of your many masters. There are a "Thousand Ways to Die" and even a television show with the same name, but this was your own personal ending. You passed in a "No Passing" zone and had a head on collision, which will become amazing symbolism and irony in the next few moments when you meet your maker. Done! Terminado! The End!

You see your body still sitting in the car. "Wait a minute. I must be....dead?". You realize your life is over and you are doing something you heard others talk about, but you had made many choices to ignore. You had even made fun of this very scenario of an "afterlife"...floating upward...to the next place. "Whose your Daddy now?" rings ominous in your spiritual ears.

What do the spirit's of unbelieving, "fool-people" (You), think about on the way up to their first experience in the clouds of heaven?. I think they are, trying hard to absorb this new existence and are saying, in one way or another, "uh oh"!. Here you are now, one of them, and you, in your spirit form, take a big apprehensive gulp. Your soul is in shock and awe, overload mode.

The Holy Spirit purposely walks you past these oddly bejeweled gates with your saved friends and family on the other side, who don't notice you, being that they are shielded from pain forever. You've heard of stories where people die and come back, but they have stories of their family meeting them. Not for you. Loneliness grips you. All of the sudden you are standing before God on His ROYAL throne kindly dealing in a righteously angry way with your sin for the final time...the last time...never again...this is it!!! "Vengeance is mine, says The Lord", and the thunderous Words are directed at you, the Fool.

Thoughts of suicide, running from the pain and of what you can see below you in hell are futile, because you are already dead. So no running...no burying your head in the sand...no hiding...no more blind spots...no more denial of truth. Death has cornered you!!!

You thought dealing with the unending supply of bills in the mail was hard. You thought losing your job for the fifth time was too difficult. You thought the abuse from your family member was a abominable. You commented on the "starving kids in Africa, where is this God?" The list goes on and on of pain causers the Trinity allowed in your life, which you thought a real, righteous God wouldn't allow. But now you are experiencing agony unlike anything before...the prospect before you of no hope.

All hope is over with...the end of the rope for a hopeful future is gone...There is no conscious fun awaiting you ever again...No joy either...only severe, unending pain...To try to get you to listen, you had heard someone say, "hell without ceasing" and the automobile accident brought you to it in a blink of an eye.

I cannot imagine someone having to stand there with no more hope and the insanely intense realization that "all this was real after all", but have no cover...no one to turn to. Your spiritual heart pounds harder and faster...OMG I've made fun of the guy with the holes in his hands and pockmarks under his hairline" sitting next to God. Your life was all about you, when it should have been all about the man with all the names...Christ, Morning Star...Emanuel...King of the Jews...Perfect Love........Jesus. You heard many people mention that last name. But without the Holy Spirit's deposit within your heart from your rebellion, to say "Jesus" seemed quirky and weird before your death. And somehow your spirit is blushing at that memory of "God, Jesus and Moses" joke you told way to many times. Reverence meant nothing to you then.

What about that guy every fool thinks is so smart...Stephen Hawking? Yeah the one you listened to and read his books. Let me help you. The more cock sure of your own wisdom...your own accomplishments, your own capabilities...the more severe coming through heaven's vale will be. So now, your own level of arrogance has caused you to feel most ignorant of all. If you were an astronomer and looked at galaxies every day, but had rejected the simple truth of how did this universe happen out of nothing, how smart do you think you'll feel standing before the Creator and His "Great Cloud of Witnesses?. How handy will all your knowledge be then?. It's to late for you. You should have ignored Stephen Hawking, because THE REAL "BIG BANG" sits enthroned before you?

I can promise, you will think you are doing it on your own...recounting every person who presented and witnessed power testimony about Jesus to you. But Holy Spirit is helping you supernaturally remember all the times someone has shared their own faith in the Son with you, so there is no excuse. Instead of being for you, the Holy Spirit will be acting as the Kingdom's Lead Prosecutor and there will be no defense. Some reject Christ passively with thinking there good deeds will be their ticket in. But not you. You flat out rejected Jesus over and over. "No one comes to the Father, except through me".

Then maybe the archangel Gabriel or the Apostle Peter or one of the original 12 sons of Jacob opens the "Lambs Book of Life" to see if your name is in it...It's scrolled through, but quickly closed, Bam!, because your name isn't written there. This court doesn't waste time. There is no death row or appeals. Somehow you already knew your name wasn't there and it was just a formality to the King...Like a court stenographer typing notes...just daily business of Kingdom Court, except this Judge isn't sending you off to safety school or asking for Court Costs. Zero tolerance once you hit this court room. Big opportunity at tolerance...mercy...grace before the crash. Not now. You'll wish you were being sent to the earthly Big House. No No! This abyss prison is dark, indescribably hot, and acutely lonely...a real horror show in which you are starring. And one day the real Freddy will be cast into the abyss with you. Real fear really, really unleashed. Not Hollywood or make believe. All your senses will be perfectly aware as you burn too. After all, the flesh you left behind is buried back on earth. It's not there holding you back from spiritual reality. It's just your soul/spirit now soaking in all the pain. Pain perfected!

Oh, now here it starts...the begging...low voice to start with...eyes cutting back and forth between the thrones of Jesus and God..."Please".......no answer..."Please"...again no answer. You've rarely ever cried about anything because of your pride and your hard heart that you kept walled off from truth and genuine love. Jesus is looking back and forth at you and God with tears in his eyes, because He wanted you in the Kingdom. You hear Him say, "Father, I don't know this man." But now all the rebellion that was in your heart is exposed and tears begin to flow. You'll throw excuse after excuse at them...Father and Son. You'll be vomiting excuses...then still no answer. Your tears will turn to uncontrollable wailing and screaming. "Send me back"..."Send me back"....no answer. "Please........give........me.........another.........chance" gropes out of your mouth between heaves.

How many times a heavenly day does God hear "Send me back" and "Give me another chance", only to not send people back and not give them another chance. Why? Because God wasn't playing a game about your sin. The cross wasn't something that just happened. He planned it for you to submit to. Every drop of blood spilling out onto the ground from the cross was like Chinese water torture to The Father, when that hell was raining down down on His Child Jesus 2000 years ago. And it was all for you. He was in pain for you and His Son way before you are in pain before Him now in the Kingdom Court. And you, day after day, blew The Son off. You blew off all the holy, humble people around you living by example. You ignored the over and over messengers God sent trying to real you in.

Why doesn't He send you back and give you another chance? Because God is ticked now and He has boundaries you crossed. He has this thing about stubborn, stiff-necked fools that kick His Son to the curb and bully His memory. The Fool will defend his own child against a bully, but think God the Father isn't fair for sending him to hell for his treatment of His Son.

Now?....Now Perfect Wrath has His hand on hell's trap door defending Perfect Love...Jesus Christ. What an incredible relationship that will be before all believers for an unending, unceasing pleasurable eternity. But you have no reward. You have no house in heaven fashioned by God personally built for your enjoyment. Your new home is one that won't welcome you, is a sea of grief...pain and fire without ceasing with "No Exit" signs! Only weeping and gnashing of teeth for you forever.

The following are Jesus' own words about hell for those who think I'm too harsh with my description.

"Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10:28

"Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matthew 22:13

“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25:46

"And if your hand causes your downfall, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell—the unquenchable fire,"... Mark 9:43

The Apostle John's Revelation from Jesus on the subject of hell...

"...he will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, which is mixed full strength in the cup of His anger. He will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the sight of the holy angels and in the sight of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night...

Revelation 14:10-11

Final Thoughts

Remember, always ask Jesus in the moment you are about to witness to an unbeliever, "Jesus, what do you want me to say to this pre-christian". Holy Spirit will pour out what you need in any infinite number of ways that will specifically penetrate the heart of the person with which you are connecting heaven to earth.

May you have anointing from heaven and power from the Holy Spirit fall on your spiritual heart to begin witnessing loving, but undeniable truth to the lost.

Love fully intended

Brian Burke

Founder/Lovestruction for Men

To receive Lovestruction for Men Eblasts email your request to [email protected] .

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the-christian-walk · 8 years ago

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BACK TO THE FUTURE

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to [email protected]. In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.

“I have loved you,” says the Lord.

“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’

“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.”

But this is what the Lord Almighty says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord. You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel!’”

Malachi 1:1-5

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today marks the start of our study through the last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Malachi. And as you would imagine given Malachi was a prophet, we begin with a prophecy, one that conjures us Israel’s past to remind God’s people of where they stand with Him. Look again at these opening five verses:

A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.

“I have loved you,” says the Lord.

“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’

Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.”

You may ask why Malachi is located where it is in the Old Testament. The answer is found in looking where his work took place in reference to Israel’s history, particularly after the Babylonian captivity.

At the first return, you’ll recall that Zerubbabel led the first remnant of Israelites home from Babylon, a move permitted by King Cyrus the Great of Persia, who had defeated the Babylonians and assumed their empire. That first remnant included the prophets Haggai and Zechariah who along with Zerubbabel urged the Israelites to rebuild God’s temple, a feat they accomplished in 516 B.C.

Ezra the priest and several more thousand Israelites would join the newly reconstructed Israelite nation in 458 B.C. with Ezra placing an emphasis on reinstituting proper worship practices as well as a return to obedience toward God’s law. You can get a more in depth account of what happened in Ezra’s time by reading the Old Testament book that bears his name.

The third wave of Israelites that returned in 445 B.C. did so under the leadership of Nehemiah who had been the cupbearer for Persia’s King Artaxerxes but became Judah’s new governor. God specifically tasked Nehemiah with rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem but Nehemiah also spent time continuing the reform work started by his contemporary, Ezra. Nehemiah would return to serve Persia’s king in 433 B.C. and in his absence, the Israelites fell back into old sinful practices, something Nehemiah discovered upon his return years later. And given that statements from Nehemiah in the Old Testament book named after him match up closely with words from the Book of Malachi, it is widely assumed that Malachi served as a prophet at the same time Nehemiah was governor, particularly after the latter’s return from Persia. With this, I think it’s easy to see why Malachi is often thought of as the last prophet in the Old Testament and thus this book’s positioning.

Now let’s turn our attention back to our scripture passage.

What we see immediately is that we go back to the future. Let me explain.

Note how the Lord goes back to the lives of Jacob and Esau, emphasizing His relationship with both. You’ll recall that Jacob and Esau were the twin children of Isaac, Abraham’s son, and Rebekah who while pregnant was given these words about her unborn children and the destinies for each:

“Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” Genesis 25:23

And with that, the stage was set for what would follow because here’s how the scripture’s describe the birth that followed these words from the Lord:

When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Genesis 25:24-26

Esau emerged first and that made him the firstborn, the one who was entitled to receive his father’s birthright. But wait a minute, didn’t the Lord say that the older would serve the younger? How in the world would that happen?

The answer is found in the scriptures as we move forward in Genesis from the birth of these two brothers to the moment when the birthright would be issued. Here’s what happened to fulfill the Lord’s promise:

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.”

“Here I am,” he answered.

Isaac said, “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death. Now then, get your equipment—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me. Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.”

Now Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau left for the open country to hunt game and bring it back, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau, ‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the Lord before I die.�� Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you: Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it. Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies.”

Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin. What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing.”

His mother said to him, “My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me.”

So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared some tasty food, just the way his father liked it. Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.

He went to his father and said, “My father.”

“Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?”

Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”

Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”

“The Lord your God gave me success,” he replied.

Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”

Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he proceeded to bless him.

“Are you really my son Esau?” he asked.

“I am,” he replied.

Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing.”

Jacob brought it to him and he ate; and he brought some wine and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come here, my son, and kiss me.”

So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said,

“Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness—an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.”

After Isaac finished blessing him, and Jacob had scarcely left his father’s presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting. He too prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Then he said to him, “My father, please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”

His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?”

“I am your son,” he answered, “your firstborn, Esau.”

Isaac trembled violently and said, “Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!”

When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father!”

But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”

Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? This is the second time he has taken advantage of me: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”

Isaac answered Esau, “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?”

Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept aloud.

His father Isaac answered him, “Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.”

Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. Genesis 27:1-41

And with this, a conflictual rift was established between these two brothers that would extend well beyond their lives.

Esau would eventually leave Canaan and move to a land south of where Jacob would settle:

This is the account of the family line of Esau (that is, Edom).

Esau took his wives from the women of Canaan: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite— also Basemath daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth.

Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, Basemath bore Reuel, and Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam and Korah. These were the sons of Esau, who were born to him in Canaan.

Esau took his wives and sons and daughters and all the members of his household, as well as his livestock and all his other animals and all the goods he had acquired in Canaan, and moved to a land some distance from his brother Jacob. Their possessions were too great for them to remain together; the land where they were staying could not support them both because of their livestock. So Esau (that is, Edom) settled in the hill country of Seir.

This is the account of the family line of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir. Genesis 36:1-9

From this point on, the Edomites would be rivals of Israel, all tracing back to the days of two brothers, the younger taking the birthright and blessings from the older.

So what happened to Jacob?

Well, without getting into too much and making this devotion an epic, he went through his own series of deceits but produced twelve sons. He also underwent a name change after wrestling with God:

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” Genesis 32:27-28

And so it was. Jacob became Israel and his twelve sons became leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel, each tribe gaining a portion of the inheritance of Canaan, the land God promised and delivered to the Israelites.

Now, with all this as a historical backdrop, we can better understand the opening words of Malachi 1.

The Lord wanted to remind His people how beloved they were and He reminded them by going back to Jacob and Esau. Note here that the word “hated” sounds as if God despised Esau but the reality is that God only loved Jacob more and thus why Jacob ended up blessed as he was, the progenitor of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Lord wanted Israel to remember they were still His favored nation.

As for Edom, the nation which held Esau as their founder, the message was strikingly different. For because of the resentful, inciteful attitude the Edomites adopted toward Israel, the Lord promised they would not be blessed but cursed, gaining a reputation as being the “Wicked Land” under the “wrath of the Lord”.

Today, we know Israel still remains a nation blessed by God and any enemies should take notice or run the risk of becoming like Edom, cursed for being a wicked land and people, enemies of His beloved.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to [email protected]

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