The Visions of Flame
Hebrews 12:29
"Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."
Deuteronomy 4:24
"For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God."
That night, the village slept in an uneasy, heavy silence. The strange red rain had finally stopped, but steam still rose from the cold earth, heavy and suffocating, like breath after long, painful weeping. Every door in the village was bolted tight. The fires in the hearths burned low, and their smoke crawled along the floor instead of rising, trapped by the damp air and the fear in the houses.
I—Elena—could not sleep. Something deep inside me had shifted—quietly, profoundly, completely. The terrifying words of the previous dream still throbbed inside my ribs, a painful, steady beat: light through a child of ashes.
"What does it mean?" I whispered into the darkness.
I lay on my hard mat, staring blindly at the wooden ceiling until the deep shadows of the room began to twist and move on their own. At first, I thought it was just the fire's dance playing tricks on my eyes, but then the air around me changed. It grew thick, strangely electric, and intensely alive. My breath caught in my throat, held captive by a force I couldn't name.
Then I saw it.
A flame bloomed at the very edge of the room. It was small, trembling, fragile. Yet, it did not burn the rough mat or the dirt floor it touched. It only grew brighter, fiercely feeding on nothing at all. The more I watched the living fire, the more I felt with chilling certainty that it was watching me back.
My body, driven by old survival instincts, wanted desperately to turn and run. But my spirit, tired of the darkness, leaned forward in fascinated awe.
The flame rose higher and higher—its color changing from soft gold to blinding white, and the white deepening into a shade of brilliant existence that my mortal mind had no name for. I instinctively covered my eyes with my hands, yet still, I saw the light perfectly, as though it shone from within my own skull.
And then the voice came.
It did not come from the corner of the room or from the hearth. It came from within me, sounding both vast and intimate.
"Do not fear the fire, child of dust.
I am the fire."
My knees instantly gave way beneath me. I fell forward, completely broken, pressing my trembling palms to the surprisingly warm earth. The heat of the flame did not hurt me—it filled me, pouring into every empty space, feeling like the first real breath I had been missing since the day I was born. It was an impossible comfort.
I saw the mountain again, the sacred place I had only ever seen in terrifying dreams, but now it was different. The flames that covered it were pure and holy. They did not consume or destroy the land; they only revealed its truth. The trees surrounding the base bowed low in worship; the river below blazed like liquid glass. In the center of the brilliant mountain stood a Man, robed in light that surpassed the sun, His eyes like molten gold, capable of seeing everything.
His powerful gaze pierced through every hidden corner of my heart, searching my sins, my doubts, and my deep sorrow. I wanted desperately to hide from that perfect sight, yet I was utterly unable to move. His presence held both absolute tenderness and deep terror—like standing directly before the sunrise and realizing, with a shock, that it sees and knows you back.
He spoke again, and His words did not just fill the air—they cracked it open, ringing with the authority of creation.
"You have seen the darkness. You have lived in the ashes of what was lost.
Now, you must bear the flame.
For the Lord your God is a consuming fire—
and through you, My smallest vessel, He will kindle what the world has forgotten."
I trembled, overwhelmed by the mandate. "Why me?" My voice was small, the urgent question almost swallowed by the rushing wind of the revelation. "I am nothing."
"Because you have asked. You have asked for the truth, and you have sought My face through the darkness."
I wanted to believe every word, but the old, familiar fear still clung to me like the thick mist outside, rooted deep in my human weakness. "I don't know how to do this. I am just one weak girl. The village won't listen to me. They think holiness belongs only to men, only to the priests in the temple."
The Man stepped closer, His presence becoming so immediate it was physically overwhelming. His face remained pure light, but His hands—I saw them clearly—were made of living fire. When He spoke, the words burned through the last of my doubt, gentle yet utterly unyielding.
"You are not alone. I see your need, and I will send help.
The woman who walks in simple faith beside you—your friend Julia—
she already knows the road you must take.
Listen to her. Learn the paths she has already walked.
Then speak only what I place in your mouth."
His hand, a glowing torch of grace, reached toward me—not to harm or punish, but to seal His covenant and mark me as His own. Fire touched my forehead, resting on the skin. Yet, no pain came. Only warmth, deep and endless, spreading from that one point and rushing through my chest until I thought my heart would physically burst with the pressure of its mercy.
Light poured into me, through me, and all around me. The small, dirty room disappeared completely. I was standing, perfectly whole, in the very middle of the living flame, but the fire felt like breath, like absolute mercy made visible.
My tears, falling from the intensity of the presence, sizzled on my face, each drop shining like glass before vanishing into the light. I understood then what the voice meant—this was a baptism of holy fire.
I whispered, barely able to speak around the wonder in my throat, "What do you ask of me, My Lord?"
"Tell them.
Tell them that the Lord lives, and He is with them.
Tell them He is not the distant god who sleeps beneath their cold idols.
Tell them He burns for them still, a fierce and passionate love.
Go to the broken, the fearful, the forgotten people.
Bring light where the witches cast shadow and despair.
Speak My name, Yeshua, and the darkness will tremble and retreat."
The fire surged and roared around me, filling the space with impossible energy. By all natural law, it should have instantly consumed me—but instead, it gently crowned me. I felt the flame rise above my head like a living halo, strands of fire curling through my hair, whispering truths too large for any simple human language.
I saw quick, powerful visions of the future:
—The entire village kneeling, not in fear, but in awe, under a rain not of blood but of cleansing light.
—Children laughing loudly in the very spots where neglected graves once stood.
—Julia standing faithfully beside me, her eyes lifted toward a dawn that burned clean and gold, a promise of renewal.
When I opened my mouth, words poured out ,not my own small thoughts, yet perfectly formed and flowing from within me:
"Your fire will not destroy us.
It will make us new."
The Man smiled with the light of a million stars. And then, as quickly as it came, the brilliant, consuming light began to gently fade, pulling back from my mortal space.
Before it vanished completely, I heard him once more, softer now, spoken from both heaven and from within my own steady heartbeat:
"Rise, Elena.
The world sleeps in fear, but you are awake in truth.
Go—and let the flame speak for you."
I woke up on my mat, the small, familiar room quiet once more. The physical fire in the hearth was now just a pile of low, dying embers, but my entire skin still glowed faintly, a steady heat refusing to die. My hands trembled, not with any fear of the dark, but with deep, humbling awe.
Outside the window, dawn pressed hard against the mist, a pale, brave gold pushing through the gray. Somewhere close by, a rooster crowed, announcing a normal, new day.
I rose to my feet. The air felt utterly different—lighter, charged with possibility. I reached up and touched my forehead where the fire had rested. It was warm to the touch.
I whispered the powerful name he had given me, testing the sound on my tongue—Yeshua.
The name shimmered in the air, alive, answering me with a perfect, holy silence that required no response.
I knew, with absolute certainty, what I had to do.
The others in the house still slept. The witches still crept in the distance. The world still waited, trembling on the edge of ruin.
But inside me, the fire burned steady and true.
And I—a child of ashes, a forgotten daughter—was no longer afraid of the dark.