Just the other day I watched a documentary titled an versus Wild? Someone very dear to me thought that it might be the kind of show I would enjoy sensing my love for rock climbing and the like. He was wrong, and whilst it wouldn have been the kind of show I stop channel surfing for, it did leave me with one thing. To cut the long story short, the show is essentially about an ex-SAS man who is left in the middle of nowhere and has to figure out the way to civilization using only a knife and well, nature. One part left a lasting impact on me. As he was trudging through the rainforest he looked up and saw one beautiful flower and he said something to the extent of his just shows God generosity and extravagance, he plants a beautiful flower up in the middle of nowhere despite the fact that so few enter this forest?I made up the bulk of that sentence, but that was effectively what he meant to say (I think).

I well aware of the fact that my little anecdotes or pieces have become rather dark of late. Ie had so many of my dearest friends come up to me gently trying to prod me back to the person that I used to be. The truth is that for a long time, Ie been unable to see the light. Life seemed meaningless and I felt that each day that went by was just another day that went by and to a certain extent, I was an empty shell of a person, struggling to find a reason for my existence.

 I talked to a kindred spirit today and told him a story I remembered about a lady who was supposed to break some record for swimming across a channel or sea (or something that equates to a huge expanse of water) and the first time she tried, the water was deadly cold and the sky was foggy. She gave up after a while. She broke the record on her second try. On being interviewed, she said that she couldn visualize the end the first time round and just could not find it in her to complete the entire distance. On her second try, she had her goal firmly etched into her head and was able to go the distance.

For so long Ie lost sight of what was important to me. I used to be someone who loved God and was determined to live a God-fearing life. Not to say I was a Bible thumper, throwing out Bible verses after every sentence, but I had my priorities right. I loved God more than I loved anything else in the world and I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to make a mark, just so people would look at me and know God love. (Not to say that I thought I was God). I wanted people around me to be touched by this passion and love that was overflowing and through my actions, my life, perhaps see a little bit of Heaven.

I fell far from grace. As my life went on, so many other distractions came in. Things that on their own held no weight, but when put together with a whole load of equally irrelevant things, served to be a dead weight pulling me further into a sea of lost dreams and failed ambitions. For a long time, all I was doing was struggling to stay afloat, more concerned with not drowning than keeping my focus firmly on the prize. And one day, I became so caught up treading water, I tossed my focus, my deep beliefs and my principles away, thinking that was what was pulling me down. What a huge mistake.

The truth is, I may not have been the coolest person in town, nor the person people looked up to and emulated, but long ago, I was the person that loved. And I loved strongly because I never ran out of love. I never ran out of love because God in his generosity and extravagance kept pouring out His love over and over and over again. And when I decided to go my own way, I pulled away from that. And then I became the cold, dead person I am right now, constantly trying to relive the past, when in reality, Ie become a lost cause, drowning in my own vainglories.

Perhaps it all coming back to me now. I trying little by little to claw my way back to the person I was, whilst slowly unloading one foolish ambition at a time. And things are becoming less fuzzy. The fear of how I can find meaning in my life is fading. And I starting to notice God works of beauty day by day ?his awesomeness with each bolt of lightning, his artistic self in the inspiration given to musicians and to writers, his love for beauty in the purple skies that come with each sunset. The reason for all this? Simply because God loves us that much. How then can I say that my life has no meaning, when I surrounded by beauty beyond human invention and intelligence behind human invention? I should be dancing every day in the knowledge that I was given all this and fervently sharing God crazy love with the world. That the least I could do. And for the longest time before this, I couldn even offer the least.