I've been thinking lately about if my approach to...everything is too strong. With the 2012 presidential election rapidly approaching, the need for jobs becoming ever-so eminent, the never-ending list of questions about what I'm going to do after I graduate, & so on...I wonder if I'm taking life too seriously...am I too passionate about small issues? Obviously this question stems from comparison of myself to those around me. What about all those sayings like: "Do whatever you want, just be happy", "celebrate we will, for life is short but sweet for certain" or that new pop/rap/hip-hop/whatever song "so what we get drunk, so what we smoke weed..." I don't think I need to finish. Are these artists on to something?
Heeeeck no. It's not even close.
That thought lived in my mind for approximately six seconds before I came to a more realistic conclusion.
Excuse my honesty (actually, just don't), but what is the point of living at all if I don't live with purpose? The title of my blog "I'm off and running & I'm not turning back" is taken from Philippians 3:14. Paul is a textbook example of a man living with a purpose. Writing & preaching from within a prison cell, completely determined to spread the Truth.
Let's be realistic, Molly. What if you're wrong? What if this whole Christianity thing is a hoax? What then?
I know a lot of people blow those questions off, but I'm not going to.
So let's say it's all fake. I've invested my entire life in a fairytale. Okay, let's play this out.
Dust to dust. From dust I came & to dust I shall return. If I'm 90, on my death bed, & I have some phenomenal epiphany that everything I've invested my life in is not real, will I regret? Will the first thing that comes to mind be the fact that I only had sex with my husband? That I spent possibly years of my life listening to & singing songs of praise to a God that doesn't exist? That I didn't have an ounce of alcohol until I was 21? That I could count the college parties I went to on one hand? That the people I spent the majority of my time with were people who shared the same values & encouraged such "goody-goody" behaviors? That in high school I was cyber-bullied for taking a stand? That my whole life was sprinkled with random bouts of persecution?
I can honestly say no, I would not regret.
I'll think of the hope I had. I'll think of those I loved deeply & how blessed I was to be so deeply loved in return. I'll think of the beautiful places I got to see & the sometimes incomprehensible blessings I inherited on a daily basis. If my life was 100% within my control, I will consider myself to be the luckiest person to have ever lived because every positive & negative experience I had shaped my character & development. I will recollect the countless ways that the innumerable amount of people I met touched & changed my life. I'll remember learning that giving is the ultimate joy & hard work produces the most supreme satisfaction. I'll remember the times I spent in my husband's arms, feeling & experiencing, giving & receiving a love so intense that I thought for certain my heart would leap out of my chest. I'll see all the mind-images of my gorgeous children entering & exiting each stage of their lives. I'll inhale deeply & exhale slowly as I consider the nearly unbearable pain that the scattered battles in my life brought me & faintly smile because by some great mystery, I made it through. I will do my best to remember the now-faded images of my childhood & the faces of my parents who have long since passed, & hope, as I lay still on that bed in my final moments, that the values they did their best to instill within me were not pearls to swine. I'll hope that the light that they carried so surely & brightly was even just half as illuminated within me. But more importantly than all of my precious memories, I will be ready to die because my life had a purpose that gave me a drive & fulfillment that I could never conjure up on my own.
So, with a frail & decrepit body that gave its very best to me, combined with a heart full of peace, gratefulness, & joy; I will return to the dust from which I came, confident that if I had the opportunity to go back & try again, there is not one thing I would change.
I am by no stretch of the imagination a scholar or an expert in any field whatsoever; but if I know anything, I know that the genesis of regret most often can be traced back to a lack of a virtue or the absence of an action. There is no virtue that justifies a self-gratifying life. The search for carnal happiness & satisfaction is a bottomless pit of greed, disappointment, insecurity, uncertainty, &, of course, emptiness.
Thankfully, I know what I believe & what I have dedicated my life to is true. Don't ask me how, & don't ask me to prove it, because all I have is personal experiences & the Book of Truth. I will never cease to live my life passionately & boldly. That's the gift that my Father has so graciously given me: zest.
Albert Einstein & I share one fundamental similarity:
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."
I digress to the title of my blog:
Friends, don't get me wrong: by no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward -- to Jesus. I'm off and running, & I'm not turning back.
{ Philippians 3:13-14 }
