Antithesis

This is a sneak peek at a story that's been playing around in my brain. I'd like to know what you guys think. Morgan stood on the short wall, staring out at the water. It was cold and their was still a sheet of ice on the lake, but the sky was blue and beautiful. Morgan closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. The breeze whipped around her playfully and she smiled. Suddenly, she felt a hand clamp onto her arm. Her eyes shot open in surprise as she was spun around. Morgan lost her balance and almost fell backwards, but the hand holding her arm steadied her. She looked forward and saw Michael. The wall Morgan was standing on was only a foot high, and Michael was a foot taller than Morgan when she was on the same level as him, so the two of them were now the same height. Morgan and Michael stared at each other for a moment; Morgan with a look of shock on her face, and Michael with a vacant but penetrating look on his. Slowly, Michael's hand found Morgan's hand, and he held it gently. Morgan glanced down at their hands together and her heart raced a little. Michael turned and began walking along the wall, still holding Morgan's hand. Morgan walked along beside him in silence. Her mind was running a mile a minute, but her thoughts were all jumbled and confused. Morgan flinched as a slight pain started at the back of her head. A headache, like the ones she had been getting recently, was beginning to form. She and Michael walked along silently until they came to the end of the small wall. The two of them stopped and Morgan looked over at Michael at the same instant he looked over at her. His eyes danced and she thought she saw the makings of a smile on his face, the first one she had ever witnessed from him, when suddenly, her mind was overtaken by the thought of pain. But the pain was not coming from inside her head; it was coming from inside her hand. Morgan gasped and pulled her hand away from Michael's before she looked down at it. What looked like a black cloud of smoke drifted from her hand into the air, and she felt like her hand was on fire, burning from the inside out. Before Morgan could think about what to do, the burning sensation snaked up her arm, causing her to panic. Michael stepped away from Morgan, a look of pain contorting his face as well. The pain in Morgan's hand and arm coursed through the rest of her body in a matter of moments. She wanted to drop to her knees, but the wall she was on was just wide enough for her feet. She stared down at both of her hands and wanted to scream. She was now emitting a white light from her palms, and the pain was increasing. She looked up at Michael, her eyes begging for help, but he was kneeling on the ground, clutching his stomach. He looked up at her and their eyes met. However, his eyes were no longer blue--they were black. Just then, a pain inside Morgan's chest exploded and she screamed, sure that it would be the last thing she ever felt. She felt herself growing faint and nauseated from the fire inside of her, and she lost her balance, falling backwards off of the wall, towards the water. Suddenly, Morgan shot up in bed, gasping for air. A cold sweat had formed on her brow, and her blankets had been thrown onto the floor. The early morning light streamed through her window, and she glanced over at her clock. It was 6:25 on a Monday morning... Morgan flopped back down onto her pillow and rubbed her forehead. She would have to get out of bed in five minutes, but her dream had left her more exhausted then when she had gone to bed last night. She sighed and shook her head. Hopefully her nightmare wasn't an omen of things to come... She really wanted this Monday to be a good day. Well, that's it. It's kind of in the middle of the story, but I wanted to post it to see what you guys think. Comments would be appreciated. EDIT: This is not supposed to be one block of text, but it won't keep the paragraphs separated. Stupid blogger.

Beauty

If you look outside, you'll probably notice that the leaves on the trees are starting to change colors. Their morphing from shades of green to shades of red, orange, and yellow, just like a caterpillar in it's chrysalis. An interesting thought that I had never considered was pointed out to me earlier today, though; the leaves are nothing like the caterpillars in their chrysalis's', and for more than just the obvious reasons. While a caterpillar is changing into it's next stage in life, the leaves aren't. The leaves are only so beautiful because they're dying.

That's kind of how it is with us as humans. Now, when I say this, I don't mean literally. Most of us don't look very fabulous when we're dying--at least, not when we're physically dying. I'm not talking physically, though; I'm talking spiritually.

As a Christian, I have two "selfs" in me. I have my "old self" (which is the side of me that does all of the bad things) and I have my "new self" (the "self" that has been redeemed by Jesus Christ and isn't really me anymore, because me by myself is just the old self). These two "selfs" are at war with each other, always trying to get my attention. The old self wants me to go back to my sinful ways, but my new self wants me to follow God's Word. What am I to do?

To put it bluntly: Part of me has to die. Again, I'm not speaking in a physical sense, I'm speaking in a spiritual sense. I have to do something about that old self, and that "something" is to get rid of it. I have to "die" to the world, which means that I can't be doing all of the evil and wrong things that the world around me is doing; I have to be "transformed by the renewing of my mind". I have to put good things in to get good things out; I can't just be filling my brain up with all of the junk that the world is throwing at me.

To really change and be a beautiful person on the inside, I have to fill myself up with God. I have to cling to what His Word says. I have to trust Him and have faith in Him. I have to stop listening to the world and start listening to Him.

That doesn't mean that I can't have friends that aren't Christians or I can't associate with people who don't know Jesus Christ as their savior. It just means that I can't be like them. I have to stand out. I have to be different.

I have to be "beautiful."

Just like the leaves that die and become beautiful, my sinful self has to die so that I can become truly beautiful from the inside out.

Just think about how lovely our world would be if everyone did that.