Fully Alive

This is where I spent a large portion of today. I never used to like Flyleaf's music very much. It sounded too raw and unmelodious, so I never tried to appreciate it. But I had my iPod on shuffle yesterday, and the most beautiful song by them started playing. I caught enough of the lyrics to know I wanted to read the rest, so I looked up their lyric page and began to scan song after song, listening to each one. Each one is filled with its own unique, pure message, cry, and resolution. I love all of them, and many spoke to me, but one more than the others.

"Fully Alive"

Telling Layla's story spoken
'Bout how all her bones are broken
Hammers fall on all the pieces
Two months in the cover creases

Fully alive
More than most
Ready to smile and love life
Fully alive and she knows
How to believe in futures

All my complaints shrink to nothing
I'm ashamed of all my somethings
She's glad for one day of comfort
Only because she has suffered

Fully alive
More than most
Ready to smile and love life
Fully alive and she knows
How to believe in futures

Fully alive
More than most
Ready to smile and love life
Fully alive and she knows
How to believe in futures

Fully alive
More than most
Ready to smile and love life
Fully alive and she knows
How to believe in futures

bam bam smack smack WAKE UP

It was like a slap in my mopey face.

There are people out there who starve daily, who are abused daily, who are hated and nearly lack purpose in life, who suffer constantly, who endure chronic diseases, who are glad for just one day of comfort because of how much they suffer...

...and yet, persevere. Continue. Pursue. Live. Are fully alive, believing in their futures.

I recently read the book "Night." It's a memoir of a real person who survived living in three or four different concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The details were so horrible, disgusting, and painful. To think of real people--hundreds of thousands of them--enduring such weakness and hurt daily. It washed any pain I've ever felt down the drain with my somewhat embarrassed conscience. And yet, through all of it, so many inmates fought on, found their wills to live, and even held their faiths in God. Even when they were in living hell.

It's insane. And it makes me realize how fully, deeply, incredibly blessed I am.

So why am I the one who, despite my comfy life, does not always live fully alive, exploring my life to its deepest, most beautiful qualities? How come I complain, complain, complain? How come all I can find are faults in this glorious life--both earthly and heavenly--that I have been freely given? It's disgusting.

I look around me, and that's the problem that seems to override American society. So many people live cushy lives and have never experienced a single day of true need, so when one inconvenience meets them on their path, they flip. Not having the money to pay for a ridiculously overpriced product [which is only "needed" do to peer pressure] suddenly becomes the latest catastrophe of the century, and everyone near needs to drop whatever they're doing to shut up and listen to this unsolvable issue.

Of course, I could add personal pronouns to all of that. This is how I live far to often--so caught up in society that I never pause to say, "Oh wait. This world is beautiful."

So here's my pledge to be more like "Layla."

Sometimes, I do suffer. Harshly and legitimately.

But that is not the end of the world as I know it.

That is not a reason to complain.

That is not a reason to give up.

That is not a reason to live half-heartedly.

I am blessed.

I am provided for.

And I will live, fully alive, because I believe in futures.