Sadness at the Beach, Wikipedia by permission, by tellmeimok, image of profound sadness
If you began reading these excerpts on August 5th, the day of the collapse, and if you have followed the story thus far, August 22nd would have been a day of record in the chronology of the story, for on that day one of the drills, others having missed the exact location of the miners, broke through.
If we could take ourselves back just to the first day and imagine living since the beginning of the month in darkness, starvation, fear, and mortal danger, we would have the smallest idea of how weak and hungry and forsaken those men felt.
For the first many days, pressing their ears to the rock and standing beneath the chimneys, no sound of drilling was heard. Sometimes they thought, even in the earliest days when no drilling had begun, that they heard something, somewhere, that somehow engineers were working to discover them, but that hope was vanishing.
Breakthrough. Seventeen days of waiting and diminishing in the dark. These men were not fools concerning their condition. When at last they did hear the unmistakable sound of help coming toward them, it ceased. Would their rescuers ever locate them? Would food be able to be lowered? When the first drill head broke through, their joy was tremendous, but their fears were not undone. That first hole was barely larger than a fist. If bigger drills could increase the size of that bore hole, which would take a mighty drill, bigger and more powerful than they had ever used, it would take months to make it big enough and safe enough for them to escape. And how? They would suffocate being hauled half a mile to the top by a rope through such a narrow vein.
Their story, Deep, Down, Dark, written by Hector Tobar under their authority and approved by all 33, recounts this moment of breakthrough, that it was for them both elation and dire fear. They knew they were passing into stages of death and they knew and were told that, even with some food able to reach them, that it would be December before there could be any hope of rescue.
I wanted to record this date, to give an idea of how long they lived without any outside help, but their trial in some ways was just beginning. When I read the book, I knew, of course, that they had been rescued, but their ordeal was gripping, start to finish, so I am going to continue their story.
Breakthrough. Some of those for whom we pray may be experiencing breakthrough even now, and even now, they might be frightened and reluctant to believe. “Could a loving God ever really love me?” “Could a righteous God ever really receive me?” “Could any sacrifice atone for all that I’ve done?” Deep … down … dark … and apart from The Way Out, doomed.
As we pray for our 33, today and as we go along, we need to remember that, in darkness and weakness and despair, believing can be frightening. Many have cowered in spiritual hunger and fear and asked, “If Jesus Christ is my only means of escape, what if He cannot or will not reach out and take my hand? What if I am too wretched? What if He leaves me behind?” In prayer, we may be drilling through generations of lies and guilt and fear. We can pray these words on behalf of those we know who dwell in darkness, as perhaps we have done for ourselves in the past. In our liberty, we can rise up to our feet and pray aloud … “O Lord, You have searched them and known them … You are aware of all their ways … their darkness is as light to You! … You understand and You care!”
O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down; You are aware of all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, O LORD.
You hem me in behind and before; You have laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle by the farthest sea,
even there Your hand will guide me; Your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me”—
even the darkness is not dark to You, but the night shines like the day,
for darkness is as light to You.
(Psalm 139:2, ESV)
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