THE BUBBLE BURST
It was evening. I was playing marbles in a nearby open ground with my next-door playmate. It was a usual evening ... and a usual game with a usual friend ... but little did I realize my entire outlook on life, from that day forth, was about to undergo a traumatic change for many years to come.
Ah Seng was about three years my senior. He commanded my respect because he seemed to know much more about everything than I did. It would be a very good idea to consult him about my theory of an endless life, I thought. However, I was hesitant for fear that he might make me a laughingstock in my own hometown in case, only just in case, my theory was wrong.
There we were playing our usual game and I made a quick decision to take a gamble, even at the risk of being the oddball of the community. I desperately wanted to know for sure, and I knew that Ah Seng had the answer. But then it could possibly be that I was right after all, yet strangely, I did not possess my usual confidence. Anyway, I steadied myself and thought of the best possible approach.
As I was taking a shot at his marble, I asked him in a voice that was manipulated to sound as casual as possible, "Ah Seng, do you know what will happen to us when we just grow up and up, and we get older and older?"
Ah Seng let out a snappy laughter and shot back an answer matter-of-factly, "Why, don’t you know? We just die! That’s all."
That’s all! It was as if he had plunged a dagger into my heart. Not only was the answer so sudden and sure but it sounded so final too! I was shocked to no end. It was like receiving a death penalty in a court of law. I remember the great inner struggle to brace myself; and only my herculean effort kept me from looking horrified, but I was devastated.
That evening my treasured theory crumbled to dust. Although I knew in my heart that what I had just heard was the absolute truth, I just could not accept the cold fact of an inevitable death. It just did not seem right or natural. It did not make any sense either. Why, my humanistic theory seemed more meaningful.
I had always judged God through the eyes of this cruel world. I had always felt that He was not a good God. Now I was certain that indeed He was not. How could He be when He created poor human beings like us every day only to do away with us in the end? How could I accept it?
Of course, at that time in my life, I was totally ignorant of the root cause of death. God is not the author of sin, sickness and death! They came in like a flood because of man’s disobedience and rebellion against God. Up to that day, nobody had told me the truth.