Life & Death

I feel like the past couple of months have led up to this...

I attended a funeral today. These things can be so awkward. Although there were personal distractions, the service was one of the most beautiful things I've experienced. Everything, even down to her obituary was a testimony to us all, saved and lost. One of her grandchildren even decided to commit his life to Christ after the service... I imagine the angels are singing.

Just going through the motions, being with the family and kids all week to prepare for their grandmother's funeral has been eating at me. For a couple of months now I've had death on the mind. Not to worry I promise, but rather about how I will die and so forth. One day at work I was listening to a co-worker, who is an older woman, talking about how she's "losing her mind"... and rather than joking with her, I thought to myself "Will I make it to the age where I may begin to lose me mind?"... this is all such a mystery to me. Will I ever make it to an old age? Will I die in my twenties?.. and that leads me to thinking about when I DO die...

I know I say I think about it, but at the same time I try and make my mind shut it off and shut it out, so that I can't think about it. Am I making sense? I know as a follower of Christ, I should not be afraid... and I don't fear where I'm going.. I fear how I will die and just dieing in general. All I know is this world.... I don't know Heaven, and I'm scared. I watched a video of this grandmother before she passed and she talked about what she thought Heaven would be like and I just started to cry... not because she was gone, but because I'm so scared... Is this a control issue? Maybe.

I trust that however long I live, God will make my life fruitful... I know that when I enter the gates of Heaven and Christ's arms are wrapped around me, I'll be much better off... At the same time, I wonder if I'll feel his arms? Is there life beyond this, is there eternity? I believe there is... but do I believe it just because it's been spoon fed to me?

I need to start "feeding" myself....Now, where do I begin?

What is Joy?

Well to keep you up to date from my last post. I was able to make "good tapes" with my friend. It's helped so far... I'm just needing to keep up with it.

I gave my testimony today in speech class.. chapel had a lot to do with the same subject and it got me thinking about Joy. About what it is and what it means to be joyful.
Reaching back into my past to talk to my entire class about it was a little hard to do. It was hard to tap into my experience with depression and think on how I reacted to it. I never ate, I didn't sleep at night and slept all day. I cried every day for 1 1/2 years.... it was not fun.
I think about all the pain I went through and at times I thought God had to have hated me so much to let me endure so much pain.. but that's the thing, I endured... and by Christ's strength alone.

During this time is when I realized there was a difference between happiness and joy. Toward the end of the relationship, as I got even more depressed, I remember knowing the end was coming, but there was a certain day that I felt the most unexplainable joy, a joy that brought me to tears... the reason? Because my God is who He is. I was completely depressed and sad, but I was joyful because my God loved me and had my best interest at heart....

This whole situation gives me hope... hope for the future. I can rest knowing that as I follow God, He will allow me to experience Joy. I trust that in the future, God will create things from my pain.... Beauty.