Cybercolumn for 10/13: Is this all there is? By Van Cleve_10603

Posted 10/10/03

CYBERCOLUMN:
Is this all there is?

By Donna Van Cleve

I couldn’t wait for my senior year in high school. The seniors were the top dogs who had all the status and power on campus, seemingly coasting their way through that last year.

Homecoming queens, editors, sweethearts, favorites, valedictorians, salutatorians, the most fill-in-the-blanks, the most likely-to-whatevers, scholarships, honors. All these were bestowed on seniors for their accomplishments in their educational, extra-curricular and social endeavors.

Donna Van Cleve

But once I became a senior, it wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. I remember thinking, “Is this all there is?” It was a lot more fun looking up to upperclassmen and looking forward to something rather than arriving as a senior and looking down at underclassmen and back at missed opportunities or half-hearted efforts.

I had yet to learn to cherish life and live in the moment. I spent more time worrying about the future and regretting the past, along with envying those things that I didn’t have or experience. I remember thinking that by the time I was a senior, I would have it all together. I quickly realized that becoming a senior did not make me all-knowing and all-cool. On the contrary, I was just as insecure and ignorant about life, realizing I still didn’t have all the answers. And yet I felt compelled to act as if I did.

I am rapidly heading into the senior years of my life, and unlike high school, I am not looking forward to it.

I am still quite comfortable in this stage of looking up to my parents—letting them continue to be my role models and forge the way for me. I am not looking forward to the time when my siblings and I are the next class in line to graduate into the afterlife. But this time I’m at peace going into my senior years knowing that although I still don’t have all the answers, I have learned some of the most important things in life. And being cool just isn’t that important anymore.

Some refer to life as a hill. The first half is a continuous climb. Some areas steeper than others. The last half is a downhill slide. I think life is more like a sphere, eventually returning full circle. Our lives begin with no choice, and for most people, it ends with no choice. It begins with complete dependence on others and often ends with complete dependence on others.

What happens in-between is what we are given to work with, along with the ability to reason, choose and create. Of course, one’s upbringing and environment can have a tremendous effect, positive and/or negative, on those abilities and the freedom to use them. Adversity can be a destructive or constructive influence in our lives. The same can be said of prosperity. Is character built through the easy times, or is it forged in those hard times?

How many folks drift through life, accepting what comes along, what is handed to or forced upon them, following the habits and traditions of a family, religion or culture without question? How many will come to the senior years of their lives and ask, “Is this all there is?” not realizing that all along it was within themselves to choose and create the kind of life worth cherishing and enjoying. Too many of us are depending on the externals in life to experience joy—other people, material possessions, things happening to them—rather than seeking to know joy from within. And on the other hand, how many allow their lives to be destroyed by the externals, oftentimes the very same things we thought would bring us joy?

A sphere is a figure with every point on its surface at an equal distance from the center. I think that is a wonderful analogy of mankind to God. No one person or group is any closer to God than the other. The only distance involved is due to a person’s or people’s rebellion or lack of awareness of the reality and truth of God, who is accessible through a relationship with Christ Jesus.

I am learning to live in the moment. I am learning to cherish life and to live with the choices that I have made. I am learning how to change those things in my life that need changing—questioning and sifting through everything—hanging onto what’s important and lasting, and parting with those things that aren’t. And the older I get, the shorter that list becomes. In fact, my last breath will instantaneously cull the list down to two things: 1) God and 2) me. The same can be said for everyone, since everyone will have to face God, but not everyone will experience the same eternity.

And for Christians, even heaven will be experienced differently for each of us based on the works we do in this life. We don’t talk much about that, preferring to focus on our salvation by grace, a most wonderful gift of God. Then it’s easier for us to continue to live life as if this is where we get all the “real” living done before we’re promoted to that eternal worship service.

I went all the way through school without really understanding—deep down—that those years of education were preparing me for life. I looked at my senior year as the end of something, rather than the beginning that it actually was. I think that’s how many of us tend look at our lives here on earth—as an end to something rather than a preparation for eternity. Would we live our lives differently if we honestly understood that truth?

Is this all there is? We Christians know it’s not, but we’re far from truly understanding—deep down—that what we do now will greatly impact our lives in heaven.

Donna Van Cleve is a writer and wife of one, mother of two, and grandmother of Audrie, and is a member of Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin.