Life is Precious

It always strikes me, when I hear of some kind of disaster or accident, how much I assume that nothing like that will ever happen to me.  Not in a "I'm so great and powerful" kind of way, but I guess just kind of a more naive way.  If I'm careful how I'm driving, who I hang out with, where I go, etc., I should be fine, nothing will happen to me.  And then it always strikes me that those people affected by that disaster or accident were probably thinking the same thing.

I guess that just really struck me with reading about the ferry sinking in South Korea.  Most of the people on that boat were teens on a school trip.  I'm sure they were thinking it was going to be a good time, they were getting to hang out with their friends, what could wrong?  And then suddenly everything changed and they were fighting for their lives trying to get off a sinking boat.  It reminded me that life is fleeting and that life is precious.  We don't know how our life is going to end, whether we're going to live to be 100 and die of old age or live to our 20s, 30s, 40s and die of sickness or from some accident.

You always hear those sayings to live like today is your last.  I've heard that for years and I've never really paid a whole lot of attention to it.  I always figured it was a great quote, but it wasn't something that I applied to my life.  I take my life for granted, like I think most people do.  I wake up and I'm full of life with hopes and dreams.  Maybe I do feel a bit invincible, I've got a life to live and things to do.  What's going to stop me?  I take it for granted that I'm going to achieve my dreams, that I'm going to grow up, that I'm going to get married and have kids and raise a family.  I just automatically assume that's going to happen.  In all honesty, I have a tendency to look more at the future than the here and now.  Maybe in a few more months I'll go back to college, maybe next year I'll meet a nice guy and start dating again, maybe in a year or two I'll be able to move to LA, maybe I'll have a career I actually enjoy a couple years after that, maybe, maybe, maybe.  I'm looking ahead when I should be focusing more on the now and the opportunities I have today.

Maybe part of the reason is I don't see my life as being precious in the here and now.  I can see it in the people around me, but not in myself.  My thinking:  if I disappeared off the face of the earth right now, it really wouldn't make a difference, nothing would change.  Truth is I don't like myself.  I'm fat, unattractive, loud, annoying, awkward, insecure, shy, the list goes on and on.  So instead of looking at the now, I look at the future where I can envision myself the way I want myself to be.  Not that I do anything in the here and now to start working to get myself to that point, that's the hard part.  But I digress.  Point is, even my life is precious.  Maybe not to me, maybe not to anyone else, but to God I certainly am.  I'm unique, there is only one of me in the universe, there never has been and there never will be another me.  Same goes for everyone else God ever created, there is only one of them and they are completely precious and unique.

I've always loved Psalm 139:13, 14 - "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."  Whenever I struggle with thinking that my life is nothing, these are the verses that I turn to, to remind myself that I was created by God Himself and that He clearly thought I was worth creating.  When you create something, whether it be artistic or practical, to an extent that creation is precious to you.  You made it with your own hands and many times, you put a bit of yourself into it.  How much more precious are we as humans to God.

My point is, life is precious, whether you believe it or not.  It's not something that we should take for granted or something we should waste.  Life is something we should treasure.  That doesn't mean we should idolize it, but we should recognize its value and make the most of it.  And to me that means we should live every day to its fullest and focus on what we have here and now.  That doesn't mean planning ahead or having dreams is a bad thing, but actually do it.  I'm not going to lose weight or achieve my dreams by lying on my bed blogging, I have to actually get up off my butt and work my way towards those things.  So live your life, stop putting off things till tomorrow.  Your life is precious, live it!