The Call to Adventure
The first wonder – and perhaps the greatest wonder of them all – was that the boy named Jon woke up.
But it had happened. He had awakened.
He rubbed his eyes. He got to his feet. As he did, he looked all around. He had never truly seen this place before, and it all appeared very strange. At the same time, Jon felt as if he were looking for something, but he didn’t know what it was. why had he awakened?
Something – or possibly someone – had disturbed him. He had woken up. Not knowing what else to do, Jon went outside.
As he stood outside, gazing up at the sky overhead and then around at the place in which he found himself, he saw a girl. It appeared to him as if she were also looking for something.
He went over to her and said, “Hello.”
“Hello,” she replied. Then she asked, “You’re up. Why are you up?”
Jon pondered this. Once or twice, he half-answered before finally saying with a sigh, “I don’t know.”
She looked back at the sky and shrugged a shoulder at him.
“Me neither. But there is something, isn’t there? Some reason for it?”
“There’s got to be.” Jon said, “After all, we’re up. Let’s go look around.”
He started to walk off, but then he remembered his manners.
“Wait,” he said, “Before we go, what are you called?”
The girl smiled, “I’m Nan. And you?”
He grinned back, “I’m Jon. Let’s go.”
So, they went. Jon and Nan walked about aimlessly for some time, looking for anything that could explain why they were up. As they walked, they found more questions than answers. Soon, they began to wonder why they were the only ones up, for they saw others, but they all seemed asleep.
After some time, they met others who were up on their feet, but even those that were moving around seemed to be moving as if by reflex. No one that they found in that place had their eyes open, as theirs were. No one responded to their questions, nor seemed to find this place strange.
Jon and Nan became convinced that they were the only ones awake in that vast, cold darkness.
For it was cold and dark. Icy winds howled through the wasteland. As they wandered, they tried to guess what had happened there before they had awoken. They tried to piece together the clues by looking around at this place in which they found themselves.
It was a ruin, but it was so clearly a ruin that had once been beautiful.
As Nan put it, it was as if they were walking through a fallen cathedral. Wherever they looked, they saw signs of a master’s handiwork. There was craftsmanship in all that had been made. Yet, they saw equal evidence that something terrible had happened there long ago. Now, it seemed as if all of the work had fallen to pieces. Speechless, they walked silent through the broken beauty of that abandoned temple.
Time passed.
Finally, Nan called Jon over to look at something. It was a pillar. On it, someone had carved a hand that pointed in a direction that they had not yet explored. Both saw that light seemed to come from the pillar, and by that light Jon saw that – while everything else had fallen to pieces – this pillar had been made more recently than the rest of the ruins. Someone had built this after the disastrous cataclysm had caused the rest of this place to collapse.
He suggested, “Let’s follow it. Let’s go that way. Maybe it will lead us somewhere.”
“I think it will,” Nan replied.
“It will,” said the Voice.
Just then, Jon remembered the Voice. The Voice! That was it! He had woken up because he’d heard the Voice calling him. Excited, he turned to Nan and told her all about it. As he did, her eyes lit in an eager response.
“Yes! That was it!” she said, “I heard it too!”
Both eager and excited, they now moved forward with a quick step.
They entered a long avenue, or maybe it had been a hallway – or a road. Unlike the other places they had found, the walls that bordered this way were still standing, and they provided shelter from the winds that whipped with icy chill through the fallen ruins.
The way itself was lit by lamps. Although at times the lamps flickered faint and weak in the darkness, they did not go out. Jon and Nan were grateful for their light and for the peace that they found there from the storm outside. Together, they walked with a brisk step along that sheltered road.
In places, the ancient walls seemed as if they were about to give way before the sweeping, howling winds. But, at each of these points, they saw that someone had built supports to hold up the walls and to keep them from falling. These buttresses lined the way, protecting the two as they pressed onward.
At the end of the road – or was it at its beginning? – they found a doorway of rough-hewn wood.
It was simple, but from beneath the crack at the bottom of the door spilled a pool of golden light. Together, Jon and Nan read the words that were painted above it in plain, obvious letters.
It said, “Whoever will, come.”
Jon turned to Nan, “What do you think?”
She studied the message and nodded, saying, “I’m willing. And I don’t see anywhere else to go, do you?”
Jon agreed and squared his shoulders, “Nope. This is where it all seems to be leading. Let’s go!”
“Come,” affirmed the Voice. And they did.
Then, as they simply stepped through that doorway, Jon felt strange all over. When he tried to describe it to himself, it was as if he had been suddenly made new again.
He looked down at himself and saw that he was no longer wearing the stained, dirty clothing in which he had awoken. It was strangely wonderful, for he’d never before noticed his old rags, but now he felt wrapped in soft, fresh, clean clothes, as warm as if they had soaked for hours in afternoon sunlight.
As he felt his new garments, he also saw that his hands were clean and no longer stained with dirt and blood. That too was odd, because before this, he hadn’t even known that they were dirty. Yet now, they weren’t!
Besides all of this, something seemed wrong with his eyes – or maybe something seemed right, for he was now seeing in colors with a sharpness and clarity that he had never before even imagined.
He looked over at Nan, but she was gone. Where she had been, there now walked an angel – or at least someone who looked like an angel. Fresh and clean and pure and shining with light from within, the creature looked up at him.
Then she spoke in Nan’s voice, saying, “Is that you, Jon?”
“It is,” thundered the Voice.
Both of them turned at once, for they recognized at once the Voice that they had heard when they awoke.
But now, the Voice had a form. Arms open wide in welcome, a man stood before them.
At once, both Jon and Nan ran to him. For a long time, they stood together. Jon felt as if he had finally come home for the first time. At last, he stepped back, blinking the unbidden tears from his eyes.
As he did, he said, “I’m so glad we found you – I’m so glad we decided to come through that door.”
At that, the man smiled, and his merry eyes danced as if he were amused by a joke that he knew and that Jon didn’t. Jon asked him what was so funny.
The man said, “Look back at the door that you just came through.”
Jon did so. So did Nan. As they did, their eyes grew wide with wonder, for there, they read together these words that had been carved above the doorway by a master’s hand in letters of burning gold:
“Chosen in him before the foundation of the world.”
Michael Somerville is the author of several short stories, as well as an in-progress high-fantasy series called the Tales of the Broken Realm. He loves telling stories of hope about ordinary characters doing their small part to help heal a broken world. By day, he pays the bills as a hands-on storyteller and project manager, leading and envisioning professional teams in the "real-world", even as he is busily building and illustrating imaginary worlds in his evenings and on the weekends.
Outside of work and writing, he enjoys a wide range of hobbies, including playing music with his family and friends on keyboard or guitar, drawing, sculpting, painting, sewing, and blacksmithing, or walking the length of the Appalachian Trail in his home neighborhood in the Shenandoah Valley, where he serves as a Board member on his local civic association.
Most important to Michael are his family and his church. Michael and Jessica celebrate their 20th anniversary in 2026 and are happily raising three wonderful daughters. He serves actively in his local church, playing music on Sunday, teaching the older elementary kids, and leading a small group of wonderful saints. He hopes to hear "Well done" one day, and plans to keep serving his true King until then.
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