The Tale of the Sufferer

There once lived a man by the name of Zoriah who lived the life of luxury in the city of Bethlehem. He was a religious man, who followed God’s plan, but he had his doubts that grew until he was well in his middle age.  He began to doubt God and the way He ran things, because the city he lived in was in deep poverty, even though he was not. He noticed that many suffer a lot, and he took this as God wanting us to suffer. He refused to go by God’s plan, so he left his city.

Shortly after he left the city of Bethlehem he became ill. He developed Leapers, sores formed upon his flesh, and he became very weak. Soon he was lying weakly upon a bed, people praying around him, knowing he’d soon die. But death he did not get, for he refused to die.

One day, while he lied upon his sick bed with these sores eating away his flesh, a healer came by. Zoriah only traveled a few hours out of Bethlehem before this illness took over. The healer traveled to him, he was asked by the man’s family to save him.

The healer went by the name Yeshua, but many began to call him Jesus. The healer said to Zoriah, “I will heal your wounds and make you whole again, but first you must answer a question. Do you believe in the mighty GOD?”

Zoriah responded in a strict tone, “No.”

The healer nodded and began to heal the sores with just a gently touch of his hand.

Instantly Zoriah felt a tingling all over. He felt it in his forehead the most; he felt his thoughts were being tampered with. He yelled out in rage. He knew that this healer was trying to change him, make him believe in God again. But Zoriah would not stand for it.

He told the healer, “You will not mess with my mind! I will never trust in you or God!”

The healer looked at him with a calm sadness. He was not messing with Zoriah’s mind, but he would not tell Zoriah so. He will let Zoriah find the truth of God on his own.

So instead of responding with words he nodded his head. When he did speak, he spoke no response to Zoriah of God. “Your wounds are healed. You now can wander upon this Earth as you please.”

The leapers were healed away, and he began to regain his strength. Thoughts of Jesus left his mind as soon as the man left his the home he stayed in. As soon as his strength was fully regained he left the home he was in and the city to spread his words against God.

He gained many followers, but more enemies than followers. He lived year after year, one suffer after the next. He got beaten, tortured, and placed in jail many times. But still did he not die nor did he regain his faith in God.

He is now close to 100 years of age… his mind still clear, death calling his name each day but he ignored. He continued to rebel and refuse to die, he did not want to face God and His spiritual world.

So he lived… and lived… as his body died because his time was up. But God, since He gave each of us free will, did not ask the angels to bring Zoriah home.

Zoriah went through many trials and tribulations, causing rebellions against God and His work. He was thrown in jail many a times, beaten, and got leapers again; sores all over his body that would kill any man in days, but not he. He refused to die. He lived through his illness, this time with no healer to heal him. He lived with the leapers that would weaken him… then they’d pass, but they’d always come back.

So he lived another 100 years…. Still fighting against God, escaping jail when he got thrown in it, and going from city and city rebelling. One town he went to did not stand for his words. They did not agree with what he told. He again was thrown in jail after being tortured, but not the typical cell. He was thrown in a dungeon type place, a place pitch black. The door was shut and locked, never to be opened again. So there he lay. Slowly to die – but he continued to refuse to die.

So he lived… in a dying body filled with sores, a cancer now destroying his organs, no food to nourish his body, only the occasional rat that he’d eat raw while it was still alive. The only drink he had was the water that would leak through the ceiling after a rare rain.

He was in that dungeon for 100 years… he now can no longer move, his skin is leathery. He has no meat upon his bones; he was only a skeleton with a leather layer of skin

On his 300^th year his time did come. The door opened, hurting his blind eyes that have not seen the sun for over 100 years. He would have yelled out in pain if he had a voice to. A figure came toward him; a figure of white light, a tall being that was all a glow.  He looked up at this figure and immediately knew what it meant.

The figure spoke, “it is time to come home now. Your time is up.” With those words the man did not object. In those few moments he learned the meaning of his life.  Why he was on this planet, and why God wanted him here and kept him a live all these years… it was out of free will. He had free will, the will he fought to keep, all a long. God let him live to learn the lessons he needed to learn. Through suffering he did find the path to God.

He let the angel guide him home. His soul left the dead body.

The door remained open, in came a girl and boy. They found the skeleton; the body became a skeleton almost instantly. The skin began to deteriorate away rapidly; the hot sun burnt it away. So what these children saw was only a skeleton, a skeleton of a man who lived 300 years. They had no idea that the man only recently left his body… They came here in search for this very body, the story of Zoriah is still told in their town of Bethlehem. They did not know that this body was the body of Zoriah since it is just a skeleton. They left the cellar still full of wonder.

Thousands of years ago people once did live as long as this man, some even longer. Many of them were wanderers, finding their way to self realization in the depths of nature; Gypsy is only one word to call such wanderers.

(photo is of a bog body I found online - posted for a visual image only)