Night enveloped the road like a heavy cloak.
Jeremiah advanced with quick, almost silent steps, without looking back. Every
sound of the wind in the bushes seemed like a threat. Every shadow lengthened by
the moon, a hidden pursuer. Anathoth was behind him, but the danger didn't seem
to lessen with distance.
For the first time since he had heard God's voice, Jeremiah wasall alone.
There was no temple.
There was no family
nearby. There was no
friendly face.
Only the path... and the weight of the calling.
When exhaustion finally overcame his legs, he stopped in a small hollow, away
from the main path. He sat down on a rock and leaned his back against a tree. His
breathing was ragged, his body tense.
"So this is the price..." he murmured.
He looked up at the sky. The stars shone indifferently, as if nothing had
changed.That hurt him."Everyone's still the same," he said. "The world didn't stop
because I ran away." A bitter laugh escaped his lips.
"They won't even notice if I die." The
thought made him shudder.
For the first time, Jeremiah faced a truth he had avoided: his life could end at any
moment. Not from illness. Not from old age. But from obedience.
"Is that what you wanted from me?" she asked the silence. "For me
to lose everything?" Loneliness did not answer immediately.
But it was there. Present. Dense.
Jeremiah hugged himself, trying to protect himself from the cold that was beginning
to seep in. He didn't know how long he stayed like that, until exhaustion overcame
him and he fell into arestless sleep.
He dreamed of voices.
Voices overlapping one another. Shouts of mockery. Accusations. Cries. And among
All of them, a single voice that did not shout… but dominated.
—Why are you hiding?Jeremiah
woke up startled.
Dawn was beginning to paint the horizon with shades of gray. The world was
returning.slowly into life. He, on the other hand, felt empty.
"I'm not hiding," he replied in a low voice. "I'm surviving."
He got up and continued walking, now more calmly. He knew he couldn't go
back.Not yet. I didn't know where to go either. I just kept moving forward.
For days, he wandered from place to place. He slept wherever he could. He ate
whatever he could find.Nobody was looking for him. Nobody was calling him. To
the world, he seemed to have disappeared.
And that absence broke him more than the persecution.
"If I don't talk," he thought, "no one will look for me."
—If I talk… they want to kill me.The paradox was unbearable.
One afternoon, he stopped near a stream. He knelt to drink and watched his
reflection in the water.The water. She barely recognized herself. Her eyes were
sunken. Her face, tired.
"This is who I am now," he whispered. "The prophet no one wants."
She sat on the shore and let the tears flow freely.
"I'm alone," he confessed. "I have no one."
Silence surrounded him.
And then, for the first time in a long time, Jeremiah felt no reproach… but
comprehension.
"You are not alone," the presence seemed
to say."I am with you."
Jeremiah closed his eyes.
"If you're with me," he replied, "why does it hurt so much?"
The answer didn't come as an explanation, but as a slow revelation:
Because you love.
Jeremiah understood.
He loved a people who did not love
him. He loved a truth that no one
wanted.
He loved God… even though obeying Him broke him.
"If I didn't care," he said, "it wouldn't hurt."
The fire burned again inside him, but no longer as an urgent need to speak, but
asSilent company. It didn't push him. It didn't demand him. It was simply there.
That night, Jeremiah prayed wordlessly. He remained silent, letting his grief
out.heard without being explained.
In that silence, something solidified within
him.He would not be a prophet surrounded by
crowds.
He would not be a
celebrated leader.He would have no rest.It would be a voice crying
in the wilderness.An
inconvenient witness.
A man alone… but faithful.
At dawn, he made a decision. He would
return.
No to
Anatomy.No
t yet.
He would return to wherever God sent him. Even if that meant walking alone for the
rest of his life.
"I will speak," he said. "Not because they will listen to me... but because you send
me."
As he resumed his journey, Jeremiah did not know that his loneliness was just
beginning.That there would be prisons, beatings, humiliation. That she would cry
more than she imagined.
But he also knew something else:
Even if the world turned its back on
him,even though his own people
rejected him,
even if he walked without human company…
I would never walk without God again.
And that, in the midst of
darkness,That would be
enough.