"Enjoy the Journey"

I found myself confronted with an image much like this for a couple of hours, and though it was a very dark and dreary picture, I looked at it and felt complete happiness. Happiness that I hadn't felt in a long time and I wondered if there had been something in my peach snapple to make my mood so uncharacteristic of the norm.
















I'm learning what it means to wait on the Lord. Many characters in the Bible waited their whole lives for the fulfillment of a promise from God, and some never lived to see happier days. I'm learning what it means to not only live in the present, but live in it without change for long periods of time. To mourn for weeks and weeks that turn into months, and to live in that state with hope because I understand that it will not always be this way, but to also revel in the fact that this is a real experience. Both joy and sadness are both to be tasted and seen with full appreciation. And patience.

When I was 16 I was in my "Yes Man" phase. I said yes to everything and soaked in every experience to the fullest. I need to remember what it was like to enjoy every moment, no matter what it brings, and love the unchanging periods of my life for what I can learn from them, and for simply what they are. Because I do in fact enjoy feeling: I listened to an interview with J.K. Rowling in which she talked about how she knows what it means to feel great sadness, but her clinical depression was the absence of even that. Of all feeling. Therefore I can appreciate both the joys and tortures of my life.

And staring at that dark picture of trees and mountains and being happy was the equivalent of staring at these past months and patiently enjoying them in the present for what they are.

Picture is called "Mountains at Night" by lonewolfhowling on deviantArt.

12/31/10