Stories end. Life doesn't.

Life keeps happening, doesn't it? It's actually a strange concept considering how many stories I'm used to ingesting via movies and books. In all of these stories, there are endings. Sometimes things nicely wrap up and resolve themselves, and other times it just ends messily. Either way, you can always predict one thing: The story will end. But life isn't like that.

I think that life ought to have stopped for me some time ago considering how nicely everything seemed to be fitting into place, and how awesome an ending it could have been for a movie or novel. The main character wants courage, friends, and a lovely home. The main character is afraid of everything in life, has no friends, and is a vagabond. The main character goes through hard challenges, bests the challenges and becomes courageous and happy with everything they had originally hoped for. The End.

But like all good novels, strange and unpredictable twists are thrown in last minute which completely shake the foundation of the audience (in this case, myself), and test the newly acquired abilities of the hero. Strangely enough, it feels that I closed one chapter of my life recently (the one with the happy ending wherein confidence replaced fear), only to find that there was another chapter already in the making. Beginning the story by living in fear and living in the shadows of unknown outcomes, my life was somewhat small and unexplored. Afraid of trying new things, afraid of people, afraid of myself, afraid to live... That was me.

Some time ago, I faced a few changes in my life that have completely swathed me in new experiences where two simple ingredients have changed the world I used to know. In the first chapter of my life, I would have let my fear guide me when faced with a tricky situation and taken the easy way out. But then I stumbled upon faith in God and this strange thing I call Doing-it-even-when-you're-so-scared-you-are-shaking-bad-enough-you-could-stick-yourself-in-the-arctic-and-warm-the-place-up. Otherwise known as choice. The world I now know is bright, hopeful and full of light. Choosing to do something even when it's freekin' hard, or when I can't speak I'm so scared, is the difference in me between now and then.

I smile more. I trust more. I have confidence. I see truth. And I am happy.

And then the next chapter of life hits.

There's this family move... and reaching toward a mission... and a crazy stressful job... and the recording of my music... and this out-of-the-blue guy... and an attempt at publishing a story... and rifts and bonds of friendship... And all at once, I am faced with myself. Did I REALLY learn my lesson? Did the main character hold to the values she learned? I ask myself this briefly, each time I take a new step past one of my old fears. I look at my metaphorical reflection and exclaim, "No. See? This is who I am now. And I can conquer this fear too," then I step forward and choose to make waves in the ocean on page 1037 of chapter 2.

And I know I couldn't have this without God. I didn't have this courage before I knew Him. He taught me what it is to be happy and to love and to live. He taught me to trust again, and to enjoy the moment. He taught me to see through eyes I have never seen with before, and because I see what I do now, I know He is.

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
C. S. Lewis

Again and again, I can not deny what I know, because again and again He's shown that He lives. God lives, and because He lives, I live. And now, I want to share what I know. It's burning like a fire, steady, warm and contagious... But this doesn't mean I don't make mistakes. I've hurt people and I don't mean to. Even so, I've learned that making mistakes isn't bad. Failing to learn from them kinda sucks, but even that isn't "bad". It just kinda sucks. It makes people less happy. When people hurt other people, it just isn't as happy as it could be. And that's what I believe wholeheartedly. That life is meant to be happy. That's the point. Chase dreams, live happy, make friends, share, serve, be together. This is happiness. This is real. This is the moral to the story for the last chapter I've been through.

I hope this next chapter has as good an ending as the first. Life keeps happening, and now, I'm finally ok with that. I'll embrace it even. I am finally free, and I've got a freekin' awesome sidekick. Come on, Life. Keep happening.