Continuing on my weird journey

The question in my last post started creeping into my brain back in late October. I'm glad I didn't post about it then because I think I would've sounded quite hopeless if I had. At first I felt quite void and lifeless when I was asking it. After wrestling with it for a few months, while I'm still asking the same question, "What's the point to my life?" I have hope again. I believe that my friends asking me what's going on was the first step in me being honest with myself that something, in fact, was going on. Then I could start dealing with it. There are 2 things that I believe have helped me have a brighter outlook again.

1) I started reading One Thousand Gifts
I know that there's controversy around this book and I get it. I really do. However, I'm trying to look past that and really get to the meat of what she's saying. I'm only a few chapters in and here are some of my journal notes:

She starts off the book talking about how when her little sister died, her family became closed to "any notion of grace." She started believing "the Serpent's hissing lie" that God isn't good, that He "withholds good from His children, that God does not genuinely, fully love us." I know I haven't had a hard life so some people may say that it's easy for me to not have turned from God, but even now when I'm questioning my point in life, I'm SO glad that I still believe God is a loving, caring God. I'm not mad at Him at all. She goes on to say, "Satan's sin becomes the first sin of all humanity; the sin of ingratitude. Our fall was, has always been and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives." Lord help me NOT to be ungrateful! That was a good wake up call as to why I was really asking myself, "What's the point to life?" Am I unsatisfied with where I'm at? I believe that my answer to that question is no, but then why am I asking what the point is? I'm confused. Maybe I am a little unsatisfied. I'll be honest with God about that and ask Him to really unveil my heart ... since He knows it better than I do!

Like I said, I'm only a couple of chapters in on the book, but I've heard that this book talks about keeping a gratitude journal, so even though I haven't gotten to that part of the book yet, I've started one. I don't want to become a spoiled brat that thinks, "God owes me more than this!" I want to live daily and to not live in the future. I find that I really start thinking, "What's the point?" when I start looking too far into the future. I want to live in the moment and to know that God has me exactly where I'm at, at that moment, for a reason. God does nothing without a purpose. I want to choose to live a life of gratitude.

I've had a few friends lose a parent over the last year ... 2 within the last month alone. Just before Christmas. As I read the next Chapter of One Thousand Gifts, it talks about living life to the fullest NOW. "How to live the fullest life here that delivers into the full life ever after. Thinking on the beginning of this year, who does He call to come home? Is it me, Lord? May I be ready." Wow ... may I be ready ... those are powerful words. "Will I have lived fully - or just empty? How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die?"

I know that death isn't the most uplifting topic to think or talk about, but it's going to happen to all of us sooner or later. I want to be ready and to have truly lived every day to it's potential.

I'll write what I've learned about joy tomorrow ...