THE BLACK TEMPLE

 

THE BLACK TEMPLE

Written By Ify Omeni

The room was lit with what seemed like a thousand bulbs. All proclaiming a certain truth that was visible to all, but somehow did not ring true. 

Yet the truth was there in the joyous ring of the voices of the choristers whose melodies spread the divine word in eager hearts. The truth was present in the word of life that the preacher preached. The truth rang aloud in the testimonies of those who listened to the bread from Heaven and saw reality change before their fascinated eyes.

Ethel was enthralled by this truth and she saw the fragments of her torn life merge into one solid truth, the real truth that she saw exposed in the room she had just entered. Where she heard joyful laughter so loud, she longed to be drenched in it. 

She sank her devotion into the citadel of truth and the tale unfolded.

The laughter lost its lustre when the real truth was unveiled. The one she saw in that citadel was a mere mockery.

‘That place is a black temple,’ the whispers floated to her hearing.

‘What does that mean?’ Visions of hooded beings bearing lamps and sailing through dark corridors assaulted her senses.

‘The pastor and his elders were discovered to be in a cult,’ the reply settled around her and froze the truth that once clothed her with joy, suffocating it with falsehood.

‘That is not true.’ Denial was her armour to defend the truth that had wrapped her being.

Yet it was a truth she had seen unveiled in the Holy Scriptures – that the Adversary transforms himself into an angel of light. Her heart shattered to a thousand fragments and she sought to retrace her steps from that place which was a mockery of the genuineness it paraded.

Yet it was not time for a retreat. The voice of divinity willed her to stay.

‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’ The voice warmed the scarred places of her soul and healing spread its wings of comfort around her.

The real truth surfaced and healed her broken soul. She got courage to trust again. To believe the truth in the doctrine of the true church. The one founded on a rock; a fortress against the gates of hell.

Ethel walked beyond the doors of the black temple of destruction, to the true church and it wrapped her with the true divine bliss. 

©Ify Omeni - The Tale Weaver.