Do You Ever Wonder...

Do you ever get totally overwhelmed with life? Maybe you get physically exhausted from all the work you do, all the people you must please, all the responsibilities you are trying to accomplish. Or maybe you just get frustrated with the world. World weariness, I call it. It's that nagging little feeling deep within the caverns of your soul that tell you this world is not your home. Maybe it is lonesomeness, that soft, quiet whisper in your heart that longs for people who just understand you. Perhaps, it seems like you just can't get it together. That there are holes in your life and gushing out faster than you can handle, goes the very oxygen of your world.

I don't know how Paul did it. He faced so much more in his life than I ever have, but he remained strong and hopeful of what is to come.

"We have been beaten, been put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food." 2 Corinthians 6:5 

Yet, he was still able to say,

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1

I had a thought hit me the other day. What if what we call "life" is really death? And what we call "death" is merely the gateway into life? We get so caught up with busyness and working and thinking about preserving our age, but what if we are missing the bigger picture? What if all this messy and frustrating exisitance is simply our endurance through death? And then, when we cast off these mortal clothes, what if then, and only then, will we truly begin living? Eternity will consume our earthly years; I know when we get to Heaven nothing that happened in this life will bother us again: the long, exhausting work days, the bitterness, the hurtful things people have told you, the backaches, the nightly sighs, the stub toes, the broken families, the lost friends, misquotes, failed classes, sleepless nights, and all the other plights of this life will not be remembered! If this life is death, and in death we have but only to look forward to true life, that should bring such joy to our hearts. It is, indeed, a very encouraging thought!

"When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun." ~ Amazing Grace