You don’t realize you’re sleepwalking until you wake up from your slumber. I was sleepwalking—moving, breathing, existing—but lifeless, a whole zombie. A hollow shell chasing shadows, feeding on illusions. But then, it happened.

One word. One encounter. One look into my Savior’s eyes.

And I was awake.

In an instant, my slumber shattered. The dream world I had been living in dissolved, and the truth hit me with a force that buckled my soul. I began to weep—deep, guttural cries of a heart breaking and healing all at once. How had I lived this long and never known this love? The love of Christ wasn’t just a feeling; it was a force, a flood, a weight of glory that I couldn’t escape.

I had looked for this love everywhere. High and low, I searched. I had descended to the depths of my own Sheol, walked through the fires of my own hell, only to find nothing but ashes. Yet there, in my darkest moment, when the void threatened to consume me, He came.

With one true encounter, my eyes were opened. It was as though scales fell from them, like Paul on the road to Damascus. That sudden, blinding light. That voice that pierced the fog. I was undone. My heart, once a tomb, began to beat again. My spirit, once shackled, soared.