I was on my way home from the movies listening to "We Need You" by JR and found myself singing sincerely "I need you". I meant it with everything in me. I had a flashback of when I was in first grade (I was a part of a Christian School) and my teacher was saying a prayer, as usual, before class began. We were standing behind our seats, closed our eyes and she began. While she prayed, I felt something holding my hand. When she got done, we all opened our eyes and I distinctly remember her asking "did anyone feel that? Did anyone feel something grab their hand?" I will never forget that moment. If I allowed myself to be, I could be envious of the six year old me who held the hand of Christ. It's more meaningful to me now as an adult dealing with life in all areas.
I'm not going to bash 2009 anymore but I have talked to enough people to know folks have gotten hit, and not just hit but hit hard! There is a movie called Never Ending Story and for those of you who have not seen this movie, here is a short overview:
Through a book called The NeverEnding Story, a boy named Bastian is transported into this world called Fantasia (a world of imagination). There is more to the movie but for the sake of not rambling, I will get to the point. Fantasia is this beautiful land with this Empress and all these creatures. Anyway, turns out he ends up on a quest to save the land because it was being destroyed by the "nothing" (when the reader has lost their imagination). So stuff was disappearing into this blackness until there was nothing left but the Empresses tower and that was the last thing to be destroyed. All that was left was a grain of sand. All this chaos was going on and then all of a sudden, everything went black and silent. Bastian heard the Empresses voice, instructing him to make a wish with that one grain of sand and everything would be restored. He had to get his belief up to even do it. But he did it and everything was restored.
Ok cool. Minus all the fantasy and wishing, take it as is. Things are being destroyed and are disappearing by something powerful. Sometimes our lives feel like it's swirling in chaos and then everything goes black and silent. The "nothing" has reeked havoc. All that's left is a grain of sand or maybe for you it's a cookie or a shoe...something random. For me, I was starting to feel like all that was left was my breath. I had been reduced down to breathing. Who cares about clothes, shoes, cars, money. I don't. They can enhance my life but they don't make life or make my life. But it's the things that are hard to replace that hit home the hardest. I had to be careful to never step foot on the ground of unthankfulness. I was stepping very close to that line. Then I realized that if I don't learn anything else, it's to be thankful anyway. I am thankful for my breath because there are those who don't have that anymore. I have EVERYTHING to be thankful for. You never know what you are thankful for until you lose it either temporarily or permanently. I don't want to find that out. Hurt and pain can cloud your willingness to be thankful, though. I don't know what your Bible reads but mine says "give thanks in all circumstances" (1Thessalonians 5:18 NIV). That means the good, bad and the ugly. It takes your focus off what's not right and puts it back on what is right. It gets easier and easier to do when you meet people who got it worse and when you realize you aren't entitled to anything. I have.
So whether you lost someone to death or lost someone to life, or you lost something because you lost yourself or that something got lost on its way to finding you or your path doesn't look familiar anymore, hold onto that grain of sand, cookie or shoe that you have left, believe and watch everything be restored. It has happened for me before so I am believing for it to happen for me again. I am still walking through my valley with lessons to learn but when I was riding in the car, I asked the Lord to hold my hand again. You gotta realize when this thing is bigger than you, all you can do is hold onto God. There is something poetic about it and beautiful. In the end, my plane may have suffered several engine failures and a crash landing but just imagine me sticking my arm out of the wreckage waving and saying "I'M ALIVE!" ~living a life of thanksgiving.
P.S. The power of Bastian's belief trumped the power of the nothing. Selah.
