"A lot of life"

When you consider "living your life", what kind of picture does that paint for you? I buy into the idea of the abundant life. I have been convinced that life is to be embraced since I can remember. I considered people to have a functional identity, that is, how they perform on a daily basis and the things they do to survive (like have a job, interact with other people etc.) My theory has been that people should take the time to know themselves, that knowing the person beyond the functional identity would lead that person to their own fulfilment. My idea was that if you knew what was in your heart and who you were exactly as a member of the world, then you would be in the best position to get it (and hence, live in abundance). I want to explore with you now some questions on how one lives life in abundance. Does that seem strange to you? I phrased it as A lot of life in the title because I think that paints an interesting picture. What if an abundant life was simply a lot of life happening all around and to me? What if an abundant life meant that everyday I would interact with the world in a real and honest way, that the world would reciprocate and we would both receive something, feel something. What if the abundance of living included the hurt, the unrequited loves, the failures, the received anger, the unemployment, the reprimands and the shared anguish?

I am going to be open about a few things that have been happening with me over the last seven months. I graduated in December with my Masters degree and had every intention of continuing my education come August at a PhD program back in the States. I had prayed, and thought long and hard about it and decided that what I would do in that 8 month interim between graduation and the new program was go home to my parent's house in Trinidad. This grieved me, honestly, because I just didn't feel ready to be back in Trinidad. I had a plan and it didn't include regressing into my teenage existence at 26. It also grieved me because I now had more friends outside of Trinidad than within it after 7 years. I also was dealing with the end of a very long standing and (what I thought was an) important relationship. I felt like if I left, there was definitely not going to be any chance for us, and I was right.

So, I found myself at home and facing the realities of disappointing local friendships (save a few), and then in March I learned that the funding had been cut at my PhD program of choice, so I wouldn't be going. I began to feel as though I was being led in a different direction to the one I had mapped out, and it was difficult, to say the least. I'd been on several interviews locally by this point, and was beginning to despair. I hadn't planned on staying in Trinidad, so I didn't really even have a clue about how my life would look. I didn't have any idea how to live an abundant life in the sense that I was working toward the things that I had in my heart. I felt God ushering me to stay in Trinidad, yet my whole heart was elsewhere. What happened was I got horribly depressed. I was 26, unemployed, single and living in my parents' home. This is not an abundant life I thought, and it is barely a life at all.

Fast forward to the last month or so, and I began to experience a few new and interesting things. I am an emotionally closed person. I am sure that this post has more information than the vast majority of people who know me have ever heard about how I feel, but in the last seven months I have been so consumed with emotion that I really had no choice but to express it to my loved ones. I needed support and help and care. I needed to receive from my friends and my family, I needed to be vulnerable enough to admit that I was hurting. What I found was that they responded with arms and bosoms-for-pillows and words. They said "how can I help you?" and you know, it helped me. It also gave me an education about a great deal of living. I have never felt more real than I do this year. The last twelve months have been a journey for me into discovering the untidy realities of open human interaction. I have been travelling through an education on the beautiful mess of emotional honesty. I really never knew that I had missed something in terms of how I structured my interactions with other people, but I had missed something fundamental.

There is a verse that says "The thief's purpose is to steal, and kill and destroy. [God's] purpose is to give [us] a rich and satisfying life" (John 10:10, NLT). Another version puts it this way "¹⁰ The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (NKJV) What I found is that abundant living is not the absence of suffering, but rather the acknowledgement of all the facets of that living. I could deny the fact that I was depressed or hurting this year, I could paint a tailored, perfect picture of my life for you to read about, but I wouldn't find that cathartic, I wouldn't grow in my vulnerability or my education about love and I would deny someone else who could be hurting the opportunity to know that someone out there cares when you are upset, and they would reach out to you, if only you had the courage to experience "A lot of life" and cry, yell, scream if you have to. Abundant life to me now is the presence of everything. The fullness of a rich and satisfying life includes the acknowledgement of pain, the shedding of tears and the experience of being comforted and receiving healing. 


You are not alone, and neither am I.