There's a fire in his head, liquid paper dripping from the ceiling. The world for him is losing meaning. His faith is emotionally heaving, hatred blazing in his heart is reeking. His family: hypocrites and failures! Their lies keep him weeping. His brother, his love for him never leaving, treats him with a beating. He fears to be left without any healing.

…

She struggles with her spirituality, her heart, keeps them hidden. God and she are one through their division, the pastors, the parents, cross bearing they are driven. Her mind refuses, no they will never listen! Her body yearns to lust. It's losing a faithful rhythm. The evil plays on her heart. All that temptation! She's given in, left herself abandoned in a nightmare rendition.

…

Drugs coursing through his veins make for a swift recovery. The broken lines and festered wounds bow out into a soiled summary. He smokes a drag, makes do with a hit, a shot, some poisoned needle spit, just leave him without the doddery. It's all addicting. He has a drive for life's mischievous revelry.

…

The guilt swallows her in her sleep. The nightmares brew up and toss her to her feet. She wants to run, get away from the Reap. The guy, that boy, all the misguided heat! She's nothing left but to make for a hasty retreat. She prays and she waits. Crumples into a wasteful heap. She prays for help or for death, whichever would do after that last feat. Languished and throbbing, her heart's silent beat—she fears the second she and God finally meet.

…

No want to get clean, no see of the point! What was this life without the needle sticking into his joint? Barely conscious he's losing his life, understating the fact, there will be "disappoint" in their strife. His family prays for his healing. Any calm is disjointing. Doctors pump his gut. Voila! He will live! But the experience will pave way for a lot of hurt and anointing. God will see to it he gets some reappointing.

…

Her broken home finds the journal—the documentation of her tribulation. She returns to the tremors, the growls rising from their instinctive negotiation. She breaks even further shattered to the depths of her addiction. She shrivels into her healing submission.

…

He goes to church in the weeks that follow. Bows his head during worship: tears break through the sorrow. How had he let his life go so limp and so hollow? His faithlessness is a hard thing to see to swallow. He praises his Savior, the one who would lead him to tomorrow and cries in his shame of his oppressed revival.

…

She cries for months and breaks with fear. She hurt their hearts, the ones so dear. She sticks the scissors to her skin, rip away the shame, begging Him, make it clear! Which way will it lead her, by pain so sincere? Hurdling their worried gazes and the hurtful smears, the ones she hurt were once her adhere. Now they are waiting for her to crash and disappear. God takes the wheel and helps her steer.

…

He continues to pray and hold on to the hand that would help him lead on and reach others struggling in the sand. An inspiration from the shores of a smoldering land that could have repressed the richest and strongest of men, he has a heart, not just a hand to lend.

…

She steps on the grounds, the church at her feet. The steeple ahead is Jesus's cross and his crown. She can't look away or around, but just stares at the sacrifice without a hope. Without a sound. She's broken, but he's beaten. And he got off the cross and raised his people to freedom. She gives him her heart, every part of her being, right there in that moment-a poor man eating a feast. She praises him now, for his love is a constant surround.

…

They both were broken by way of life and of human limitation. They tried to break pain with a simple imitation of love and of healing. Yet without God's hand the imitation is foiled, a simple edition of more and more echoes of what will and already exists Here they are, living and thriving, moving up to His side by ways of surviving. He is the source of strength for all that are dying. We are, in simpler terms, his very creation, and He is worthy of our trying.