Zombie…

-What’s in your head? In your head? Zombie…zombie…

–“Zombie” by the Cranberries

-All you zombies show your faces, all you people in the street, all you sittin’ in high places, the pieces gonna fall on you!

–“All You Zombies” by the Hooters

-As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

–Ephesians 2: 1-3

1985…

I was dead in my transgressions. I would wake up, after a night of clubbing or working the late shift, and did my thoughts go heavenward? Nope. I’d mentally scroll through the memo of the day…

Eat breakfast…shower…finish paper…class…lunch with the girls (taco salad, yes!)…class…study for test at the Village Inn or library…Village Inn, I need the coffee…work at the pub 4:30pm to 2am…home to collapse…no, shower first, I’m gonna smell like an ashtray…

I was a zombie. Sure, on the outside I was better dressed, not lurching about with brains dripping down my chin…but on the inside?

The living dead.

I was definitely gratifying the cravings of my flesh and following its desires and thoughts.

Gee, Shelbo, dramatic much?

Alright, fine…

At the time I didn’t get the whole “flesh and transgressions” thing, and, um, it was the 80’s. I was just doing what everybody else was doing, what I’d been told I should do…

Go to school. Get a degree. Find a job. Work hard, play hard.

Sometimes I prayed…the urgent (but very sincere!) plea in a crisis. Occasionally I opened the Bible…the one on the stack in the bathroom (sorry, TMI). But God was basically on the periphery at best. A constant, uninvolved Presence that I could largely ignore…pretty easy when you’re sleep deprived 80% of the time.

Yet even in that semi-somnambulant state, there was…unease. I’d get home from partying and think, “That was fun!”…the words pinging around in my soul…

ringing hollow…

echoing back at me…

“Was it fun? Was it fun? Was it really fun?”

I’d shrug. “Okay, it was…just okay. It’s probably me.”

Something had been planted in me. It was starting to take root. It was giving me eyes to see, ears to hear. It was opening my heart. It was breaking through the hard-packed soil of a prescribed routine. A tiny sprout peeked out, and His orchestration picked up tempo…

Believers happened upon the path to shine His Light on me…

Then the rain came, His Living Water pouring out over me, in me, through me.

The zombie cried out, “I don’t want this half-life anymore, this life that leads to death, shambling step by shambling step. Lord, I am running to You, to die to this life, to be born again, to live again, this time to truly live, in You and with You!”

That baby bud shot up and wrapped itself around the Vine, yearning to grow, and, one day, bear fruit.

Our broken earth throws a lot at a fragile little branch. There are moments when I bend, but I do. not. break. Mostly, I defiantly blossom, throwing His fragrance out into the world for all I’m worth. It feels good to feel alive. To be alive…

Ephesians 2: 4-5–But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved.

Fully saved…

Fully alive…

Fully awake…

Fully in love…

In His love.