I was sauntering across campus this morning, delighting in the warmth of the sun on my back and in the way that the wind gently tousled my hair. The birds sang perkily while I watched my friends stroll around the quad, reveling in the morning as much as I. As I paused on the sidewalk to try to impress upon my memory the loveliness of the morning, a thought came to me as softly as the breeze playing with the edges of my clothes. It occurred to me that I love living.
This isn’t to say at all that I would want to not be living or something like that. Rather, the essence of living gives me joy. Many people go through their weeks and months and years in such a way that their days consist of being harried and trying to simply make it through the day and the day’s work in order to go back to bed for a few hours before getting up to repeat the process. (I had one of those days yesterday.) It’s so easy to get wrapped up in surviving each day’s problems that one lets that absorb the whole of their thoughts and energy. This isn’t living, though, not really. This is only existing.
Some could argue with me here that living is simply to be breathing, for one’s heart to be pumping blood so that one is conscious and functioning. To me though this sounds very similar to Merriam-Webster’s definition of ‘exist’: “to continue to be.” In strong vibrant contrast however, Merriam Webster defines ‘live’ seemingly redundantly as “to be alive.” Alive! What a glorious and intriguing word. It’s a word that we think about maybe once a year (Easter) then ponder it very little the remainder of the year.
To be alive, to live fully, is to be able to find something every day that humbles you and challenges you. To live is to not feel like your day is complete until you search out and find something beautiful. To live is to savor and cherish those moments that bring you to life inside, knowing that we only have so many of these moments. To live is to remember once in a while that it’s quite ok to act like a kid sometimes because it’s no fun to be completely grown up. To live is to feel the joy that comes from reaching out to someone when you’re having a really rough time and giving of yourself even when you feel there’s nothing left to give.
To live is to have a constant peaceful discontent with the level of our relationship with God- to always be seeking out a deeper relationship with and knowledge of Christ. To live is to purposefully expand your comfort zone- knowing that everything you can’t do through your own strength- He can. To live is to walk outside on a cloudless night and look up, seeing the multitude of stars and having the realization hit you that you are so infinitely tiny and powerless….to live- is to then sit down and ponder in awe the greatness of the love that the Father has for us even small and insignificant as we are.
Right now, I sit in the music building trying not to think about the very intimidating day in store for me tomorrow. For me, over the next two weeks of craziness and finals and juries, to live will be to wake up each morning and try to genuinely thank God for each day no matter what it holds. To live will be to look at my finals and juries and give my all over and over, knowing that where my strength runs out, then am I really strong in Him. To live will be to remember that as much as there are parts of some days that I detest, there are so many more moments that I love and look forward to.
Fully living will have some of those moments like this morning, where I will just pause and look around…I’ll watch and smile at my friends, laughing at some of their antics, knowing that the life I’m making with them here now is something that makes me feel alive. I’ll quickly pray silently and thank the Lord for the gifts He has given me in their friendship and their love and in the memories we’ve made together……then I’ll smile, turn around, and go back to work, not merely existing but in His grace being more and becoming more.
I love living.
