The Brevity of Life

The Lord has impressed upon me the past few weeks the brevity of life. Just little things I've read that really hit home about someone's life tragically, unexpectantly ending - just doing a normal thing and then poof, it's gone.

Live life to the fullest and one cannot live to the fullest truly without Jesus Christ. We can risk it all, but for what? The vanity of life.

As I look back in some areas, sometimes I wished I would've done this or that. Perhaps like traveled around the world more before I had children, wasn't afraid to get help for my "issues", wasn't afraid to open up to people, wasn't afraid to love, living with all these constraints that I thought would give me a fulfilled life, but didn't.

I'm not going to love unless . . .

I'm not going to be happy unless . . .

I'm not going to wear this dress unless . . .

All these conditions. What if those things never happen? Life is too short. Wear that dress. So what if it's a little out there. We choose to be happy. You can choose to be happy even if the circumstances do not dictate it.

I fell in love with a man that I wasn't expecting to. He was very much many things I wanted, and in other ways, he isn't. Will this end in me being hurt? Maybe, maybe not. But, at least I got to experience what it's like to fall in love and to have it reciprocated. Whether there is hurt or not, I get this opportunity to experience this wonderful thing of being in love and I get to learn.

We have but this one life -- I want a purposeful life built on Christ, inspite of all my imperfections. As I shared with a friend recently, David was a man after God's own heart. He was far from perfect and even purposefully committed some pretty grievous sins. But, it was his acknowledgement and repentent heart that God saw and it spoke to God's own heart.

I've made so many mistakes in my life that on the one hand isn't funny, but it is. What have I learned? How has it changed me?

I love greatly, but loving greatly means it opens me up for more chances of being hurt, or perhaps, it gives me a greater capacity to love more people where they are. What do you think?

Life is short. Love greatly.