My hopes for this site are always so high. I'm holding onto them, for if I don't, there's no chance for fulfillment. But in the meantime, this remains a place for me to indulge in sharing my stories.
I've been ruminating over death. Excuse me for sounding like Moaning Myrtle. I don't mean to, but these things happen.
Death was once a subject I avoided as much as I could. When I let my thoughts get close to it, it kept me up at night, and even clouded my emotions in the presence of daylight. In all transparency, it was also one of the biggest reasons I sought out Jesus. I heard very young that people died. All people died. Which meant that I, a person, was going to die too. That was frightening. I also heard that asking Jesus to "come into your heart" would save you from hell and eternal death, and allow you to live forever in heaven with God. I wasn't sure how it worked, but I wanted that. Unable to bear the thought of dying, at the tender age of four I asked Jesus to come in and save me. That's all being a Christian was to me then: not dying. And as much security as I found in my position with Jesus, anxiety still plagued me to the point that I asked Jesus to come into my heart several times over, just in case.
When I made this big life choice at the age of four, I was too young and ignorant to see the irony in my motivations leading me to the particular action I found myself taking. I hadn't read much of the New Testament yet, so I hadn't come across "you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God," or "those who want to save their life will lose it." When I did become aware of them, I was more than a little unsettled. I didn't lose my faith, but I wasn't sure what to make of all that. Dying was still terrifying, now suddenly I found out I had to die. There was no way of getting around it.
So I left that alone for a while and tried to ignore it. I don't want to advocate that passivity and neglect is the best way to deal with all problems, but in this case I do think it was what was needed. I wasn't prepared for such understanding, so it was best to leave it alone. When I was ready, it was right there waiting for me.
I've only recently been ready, sometime in the past year and a half.
The longer I live the less materialistic I am becoming. Moving will do that to you. Poverty will do that to you. Being jobless and forced out of your home will do that to you. Since I moved into this house, I've been reevaluating my relationship with the physical world, and I'm finding more and more that I'm not very attached to it. I never thought I'd say it, but that goes for my own body too. I'm not looking to actively get rid of it. On the contrary, since I've started letting go of myself, I've started taking better care of myself. But I know the day of my body's demise is coming and I dread it less every day.
This turn away from physical matters has led me to spiritual ones, so now when I read "those who want to save their life will lose it," I think about it in the latter context. This is a good thing, because that's as it was intended. I'm no longer distracted from the point by fear.
And I think coming to this has been the point of the last year and a half of my life. I've been dying. Not physically, but in ways more mysterious than that. I graduated, so the student in me died. As grateful as I was to no longer be beholden to an educational system, I had been her for 18 years. Loss is never easy. My ambition was to replace her with a new identity as a worker for financial gain, but instead I lost even more than I bargained for. I lost the use of my car. I lost my Internet connection. I lost my phone. I lost my computer. I lost my home. I lost my independence. With these things came the loss of ability to go anywhere, the loss of ability to make money at home, the loss of discovering new music and listening to any music at all, the loss of having the ability to learn anything I wanted to at my fingertips, the loss of the most stability I had ever known, the loss of interacting with family and friends. And just when I thought I couldn't lose anything else, I lost my voice. I lost almost everything I treasured and with which I had aligned myself. I was isolated with no inspiration. That lack of inspiration was the key to my sorrow. Being alone in itself doesn't make an introvert like me sad. But my creativity died. My imagination became dim. My will to drink deeply of life to its dregs disappeared. I lost myself, and then I was truly alone. I had never really known what it was like to so longingly want company before.
Jesus was it at that point. I didn't have anything else. I've been without most things at one time or another the majority of my life, but I've never been without myself.
Spending so much undivided time with God himself helped me get to know him better, and my fondness for him has grown in ways I never would have imagined. I mean that with all sincerity. It's overwhelming sometimes.
Therefore, my breath caught one day when I read this:
"So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." (Colossians 3:1-4, emphasis mine)
So I'm losing my life to find Jesus, and then he's giving it to me better than it was before, because it comes from him, and he is true goodness. Wow.
In this light, death has become a great source of beauty. I don't hear the word and panic anymore. I actually often get an odd sort of comfort from it. Just yesterday a friend started talking about this very subject, and at the mention of dying I started crying for sheer joy. I know what that's like now, how painful it can be, and what wonderful things can come from it.
My epigram came from a brief bit of a conversation I heard someone having with my mother in recent weeks. While both intended for and relevant to her, when I heard it I felt like they were words for me as well. I'm eager to see those lilies. They're a lot prettier than the fear I've been dragging around.
I leave you with a song.
********
"Girl, that's what you've been doing, you've been dying. I'm gonna buy you some lilies to put on your grave, I think you're almost there."
I've been ruminating over death. Excuse me for sounding like Moaning Myrtle. I don't mean to, but these things happen.
Death was once a subject I avoided as much as I could. When I let my thoughts get close to it, it kept me up at night, and even clouded my emotions in the presence of daylight. In all transparency, it was also one of the biggest reasons I sought out Jesus. I heard very young that people died. All people died. Which meant that I, a person, was going to die too. That was frightening. I also heard that asking Jesus to "come into your heart" would save you from hell and eternal death, and allow you to live forever in heaven with God. I wasn't sure how it worked, but I wanted that. Unable to bear the thought of dying, at the tender age of four I asked Jesus to come in and save me. That's all being a Christian was to me then: not dying. And as much security as I found in my position with Jesus, anxiety still plagued me to the point that I asked Jesus to come into my heart several times over, just in case.
When I made this big life choice at the age of four, I was too young and ignorant to see the irony in my motivations leading me to the particular action I found myself taking. I hadn't read much of the New Testament yet, so I hadn't come across "you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God," or "those who want to save their life will lose it." When I did become aware of them, I was more than a little unsettled. I didn't lose my faith, but I wasn't sure what to make of all that. Dying was still terrifying, now suddenly I found out I had to die. There was no way of getting around it.
So I left that alone for a while and tried to ignore it. I don't want to advocate that passivity and neglect is the best way to deal with all problems, but in this case I do think it was what was needed. I wasn't prepared for such understanding, so it was best to leave it alone. When I was ready, it was right there waiting for me.
I've only recently been ready, sometime in the past year and a half.
The longer I live the less materialistic I am becoming. Moving will do that to you. Poverty will do that to you. Being jobless and forced out of your home will do that to you. Since I moved into this house, I've been reevaluating my relationship with the physical world, and I'm finding more and more that I'm not very attached to it. I never thought I'd say it, but that goes for my own body too. I'm not looking to actively get rid of it. On the contrary, since I've started letting go of myself, I've started taking better care of myself. But I know the day of my body's demise is coming and I dread it less every day.
This turn away from physical matters has led me to spiritual ones, so now when I read "those who want to save their life will lose it," I think about it in the latter context. This is a good thing, because that's as it was intended. I'm no longer distracted from the point by fear.
And I think coming to this has been the point of the last year and a half of my life. I've been dying. Not physically, but in ways more mysterious than that. I graduated, so the student in me died. As grateful as I was to no longer be beholden to an educational system, I had been her for 18 years. Loss is never easy. My ambition was to replace her with a new identity as a worker for financial gain, but instead I lost even more than I bargained for. I lost the use of my car. I lost my Internet connection. I lost my phone. I lost my computer. I lost my home. I lost my independence. With these things came the loss of ability to go anywhere, the loss of ability to make money at home, the loss of discovering new music and listening to any music at all, the loss of having the ability to learn anything I wanted to at my fingertips, the loss of the most stability I had ever known, the loss of interacting with family and friends. And just when I thought I couldn't lose anything else, I lost my voice. I lost almost everything I treasured and with which I had aligned myself. I was isolated with no inspiration. That lack of inspiration was the key to my sorrow. Being alone in itself doesn't make an introvert like me sad. But my creativity died. My imagination became dim. My will to drink deeply of life to its dregs disappeared. I lost myself, and then I was truly alone. I had never really known what it was like to so longingly want company before.
Jesus was it at that point. I didn't have anything else. I've been without most things at one time or another the majority of my life, but I've never been without myself.
Spending so much undivided time with God himself helped me get to know him better, and my fondness for him has grown in ways I never would have imagined. I mean that with all sincerity. It's overwhelming sometimes.
Therefore, my breath caught one day when I read this:
"So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." (Colossians 3:1-4, emphasis mine)
So I'm losing my life to find Jesus, and then he's giving it to me better than it was before, because it comes from him, and he is true goodness. Wow.
In this light, death has become a great source of beauty. I don't hear the word and panic anymore. I actually often get an odd sort of comfort from it. Just yesterday a friend started talking about this very subject, and at the mention of dying I started crying for sheer joy. I know what that's like now, how painful it can be, and what wonderful things can come from it.
My epigram came from a brief bit of a conversation I heard someone having with my mother in recent weeks. While both intended for and relevant to her, when I heard it I felt like they were words for me as well. I'm eager to see those lilies. They're a lot prettier than the fear I've been dragging around.
I leave you with a song.
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I like conversation. Your comments promote conversation. You know what to do. Vielen Dank.