The Curse of Beauty

Haven’t blogged in month… i think the last post was in may… so its been agggeesss.. half a year…

Well i was just doing some chores for my parents, while I was pondering something that was spoken to me many years ago… well about 3.5 years ago anyways… I was at the time consulting the school psychologist at the time… and she mentioned how she rarely had to counsel anyone with any serious degree of depression or any fears of rejection or peer opinion. I asked her what the the most common cause for counselling was, and her answer was that most of the students that seek counselling are girls, girls that most would consider very beautiful. Apparently, those people struggle to socialise, particularly with the opposite gender, because people do not feel like they are good enough to be around them.

For a while, I couldn’t understand why that could possibly happen. It baffled me that those girls, whom are extremely popular and liked by all, would struggle with anything social. They had such power and influence. Although, at the time, even though there where people I liked, I wouldn’t socialise with them or hang around them… I’d say like an awkward greeting and walk off… and the feeling was the constant gnawing thoughts of “why would she even like a person like me?” or “what chance do I have when there are so many other guys who are stronger/smarter/sportier/better looking/more outgoing etc.?”

I suppose beauty in such a sense… is very much a curse. Noone seems able to relax or be themselves around them, especially when interacting with the opposite gender. Maybe that's how girls would find it, I dunno. You either get guys that are just sleazy and just plain creepy, or they are withdrawn or stuttering messes around you. Awkward either way, and uncomfortable in some cases.

I suppose I’d formerly categorise myself as the latter, withdrawn and stuttering… but I suppose even now, so much energy and effort is required to be myself and not relapse back into the old. It’s like a struggle between wanting to talk and socialising… and why bother trying… you feel inadequate to approach, yet you want to… You talk and you feel like a nuisance… and you try to be yourself and to get to know them, yet constantly expecting to be rejected or cold shouldered/ignored…

Its intriguing and kind of sad how those who aren’t extraordinarily beautiful would be envious and jealous of those who are, or be unable to be themselves around those who are. And those who are beautiful can find it such a burden to carry.

There is no analogy that I can think of that can describe Love… It’s something that we crave for it, we strive for it, we live and die for it. It might feel fantastic and cause your spirit to soar when it is reciprocated… Uneasiness, discomfort and awkwardness when it’s unrequited… Or soul crushing, draining and shattering when rejected. There is nothing that can be used to compare to it. Yet there is nothing that can replace it… this urge and desire for love is almost primal…

Being a christian and all, some might say “well, we have Jesus, isn’t his unfailing love sufficient?”. Well, Adam, the first man according to the bible, even in direct communion with God and all his creation, was given Eve as a partner and helper. There was an urge for a relationship other than the one with God and nothing in all creation, other than Eve, would satisfy that urge. You can’t get away from it… You can’t try and ignore it by filling your life with something else, like pets, or hobbies or games.

Anyways… I’ve sidetracked a fair bit… I suppose the point is that, beauty can be such a curse. Yet it is only a curse because we desire love; and love… is something that one cannot run or hide from. Well you can try… but you can’t run.

That is all…

Road of Life…

When one goes through hard times, one’s motivation to keep walking forward feels like a candle flickering in front of a cyclone. I guess when struggles are really tough, some people effectively get doused out… Those people fall, and like a fault shattering through a piece of concrete to release the stress of the weight on the concrete, and they seek out vents for the built up stress, tension and anxieties. Some people fall into drugs, alcohol and all sorts of addictions… work… whatever… in order to break off and vent like an overheated car venting out steam…. I guess as a christian, faith in Jesus is like having the best mechanic in the world with all the parts he could ever need sitting in your passenger seat… But one must still be willing to give him control of the car, and to let him maintain and keep your car in good shape… Although as humans, we tend to be stubborn… We like to take control of our lives even when the direction we take or our methods of doing things or the way we live our lives simply is not good for us or good for those around us. It’s like driving and ignoring all the warning lights, low oil, low coolant, low fuel etc. We have a tendency of being self-sufficient to the point of breaking down… Until we are stranded and have no where to go, with no help in reach… Only then do we realise that the pers0n with the ability to completely fix and top up our car has been sitting beside us the whole time. With Jesus, one is never alone… He will always be there to help you get through whatever your facing… But even in the face of trials, one must still humble oneself and admit one is lost and broken down, unable to move on by ourselves… We still must commit everything to Jesus for him to get us out. You can’t say, can you fill up my car… but don’t touch the radiator, don’t fill the coolant back  up, because you’re bound to get only a few more km’s before your car overheats again.  You must let him fix everything…

It doesn’t matter what kind of car represents your life, perhaps its a sleek supercar or its a rickity antique of a car. I’d gather most of us do not know how to maintain it. You’re life is a God given gift, the manufacturer is God… the chief mechanic is Jesus… and comes with lifetime warrantee… but you still need to let Jesus into your life to let him change and fix things.

If I go back to the candle analogy, we all know that putting tissue paper into a candle will cause it to burn up very quickly… Extremely effective fuel. But not everything burns up that quickly… Some things don’t burn well… they will cause the fire to diminish, like putting sand into the fire. Even as a christian, sometimes it feels like i’m being blown all over the place… You ask god for direction and he answers… but sometimes what he decides for you is hard to swallow… Like he’s putting in some unknown substance into the candle.. you struggle to break it down and burn it up as fuel. It’s sometimes difficult to imagine how God will get me through some situations… But when he does, you  burn so much brighter than you did before…

Back to the car analogy, I guess even if you hand everything over to Jesus, the road you travel with him will still go through some dark and scary places… but you won’t be alone… and you know he will get you through it… You won’t be stranded because he will always find a way to get you out…

I think even as a Christian, I still struggle to give everything to Jesus… when life gets scary I’m still like a petrified idiot that doesn’t know what to do. When the going gets tough, I still feel under the weather… which is natural… But it’s tiring and nerve-racking… But I know that I am in better hands because Jesus is with me through it all.

Footsteps in the Sand

Today I was driving home in my car and I was listening to Relient K in my car and it got to the last song of the album… And the song is called Deathbed. It’s a fantastic song in my opinion… and it’s about a guy who’s life couldn’t have possibly gone more wrong… A life that is truly pathetic and pitiful… yet its a life you see so commonly around society… His father left his mother when he was 8, he gets addicted to alcohol and smoking at 14, gets married at 21 after getting his girlfriend accident, his relationship with his wife is very tense and unloving, he ends up getting divorced and the wife takes custody of the children and he ends up spending his days drowning his sorrows with whiskey and trying to distract himself by playing bowls. He eventually contracts lung cancer from his years of hardcore smoking and his lying on his deathbed. He reflects on how hopeless his life was… How sad and miserable it was… but as he was dying he remembers that at one point in his life he had accepted Jesus Christ as his saviour. And he clings to the hope of going to heaven because of it… and surely enough, as he dies, Jesus appears before him and takes him up to heaven with Him because of his faith. and the song ends with the famous lines from John 14:6 but slightly modified for the song “I am the way, follow me and take my hand. And I am the truth, embrace me and you’ll understand. And I am the life, and through me you’ll live again. For I am Love” … John 14:6 is “I am the way and the truth and the life. Noone comes to the father [In Heaven] except through me.”

It also reminded me of a poem named “Footsteps in the Sand” and it goes like this.

“One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking along
the beach with the Lord.

Across the dark sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene, he noticed
two sets of footprints in the sand,
one belonging to him and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
he looked back at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times along the path of his life
there was only one set of footprints.
He also noticed that it happened at the
very lowest and saddest times in his life.
This bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.

"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,
you'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most
troublesome times in my life there is
only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why when I needed you most
you would leave me."

The Lord replied "My precious, precious child,
I love you and would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints in the sand,
it was then that I carried you."

Now you might be wondering how these two even relate to each other… So I will explain myself.

Like the song I see that so many people have seen so much pain and suffering in their lives, with no direction and no hope or reason to live… and it’s very disheartening really. Life is like an obstacle course, and a very difficult one at that. and Jesus is always near us whether we believe in Him or not, whether we trust Him or not. He has already gone through the obstacle course of life as a human 2000 years ago and he passed with FLYING colours because He is God and He came down here to save us from ourselves. He wants to help us through life. And when we hit the part of the obstacle course where you have to cross the Grand Canyon on a tight rope, we struggle and we are clinging to the rope by the tips of our sweaty hands, Jesus is standing next to us with arms reached out waiting for us to reach out to Him so that He can carry us through to the end of the course. All we have to do is TRUST that Jesus can do it… Because we know we can’t do it ourselves… So you have nothing to lose.

The picture above is of Charles Blondin. A legendary tightrope walker… He is carrying his manager on his back as he is walking across the top of Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Life will push you into these hard times, imagine crossing the falls by yourself… I know I’d be crapping my pants, almost paralysed with fear… But like the image above, Jesus can carry you across… and although it would still be scary as hell, I know I trust Jesus to carry me through life more than I’d ever trust Charles Blondin to carry me over the Niagara Falls.

But yeah… That’s my interesting sharing for today…

Focus

Some days I find that life as I know it is so distracting. I feel that there are so many petty desires in my life that just bog me down and hinder my every movement and every thought. Just to think of all the things that one doesn't have, material or not, just really puts a hole in the hull. Just thinking about these things causes me to trudge through a day in misery unable to work or be productive, unable to feel joyful. Thinking about me, and the things that I wish I had, that I don't have makes me sad.

I find that I can only really become joyful when my focus becomes fixed on something greater than myself. When I devote my time to conversing with people about God, doing research and doing my best to spread God's word I find that I experience a joy that I cannot normally feel in my life. When I go to be part of worship at church, I feel a joy that I cannot find anywhere else. I just wish that there was no need to do anything than to do these two things in this life. I wish I wanted nothing more than to do these two things and nothing more. Life would be so simple, so joyful. But yeah...

I heard a passage on sunday, went something like this. Philippians 1:21 "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Some days I just wish that I was able to be an unrelenting disciple, wanting to serve and nothing more. I have prayed that God take my worldly attachments and desires away from me, that I could live solely for Him. But, God has chosen not to do that, though I know not why. But nyeah.... Confusing... When one doesn't know what God wants of him...

Life isn't a walk in the park huh? With the storms and the calms... The highs and lows... Sometimes God feels so close, yet sometimes feels so distant... But hey... Enough of this..