I Found the Meaning to Life

It was late in the night. It was clear and pleasant, with a cool wind. My legs were propped up across the parapet and I was calculating the distance from the fifth floor where I was to the ground.


It wasn't too much. Maybe 50 ft. The time it would take my body to hit the ground would be approximately 1.7 seconds.
For that 1.7 seconds, I wondered if it would feel like flying. Logically, there was a very good chance of surviving the fall. A broken neck - paralyzed for life, that would have been survival.


My hands became sweaty.
There was a train station nearby... maybe I could go lie on the train tracks. That would be easier.


I stared down. I took a deep breath. It's ok. It's now or never. Either you do it or you don't.

And my heart was beating wildly. It was crying out " I have so much to give!" And somewhere in that moment, I heard my dog barking.


Something was so wrong with this scene. Why on earth would someone like me want to take such a drastic step. I seemed to have it all. Why had I reached that end of the rope?
Life had no meaning for me anymore.
And why?

I was a young bright scholar and I had many friends. I had loving parents and everything that you could imagine someone needed to be happy. I thought I was too.

I had always lived for that high of success. That moment of struggle when you finally break through, when you finally achieve your goal - that thrill, that rush of feelings - I love it.
And I seemed to have achieved it.

Except there was an unbearable void in me that refused to be filled. The highs of achievement only seemed to temporarily ease it.
I had many admirers and many friends. It seemed all too easy for me. If I liked someone, I didn't struggle to get them. I was never turned away.
There were boys who confessed to having deep love for me. There were girls who wanted to be my friends. I had enemies too. People who disliked me for all the favour I had upon me. It never bothered me so much.

I was so focused on other things, that these social interactions was never of much concern to me. I was always a bit aloof, a loner.

I loved working hard. I loved pushing myself.

I loved math and science. I loved taking things apart and putting them back together. I loved new ideas, new thinking, new philosophies.
It excited me - the possibilities that were in front of me. Here I was. Young, ready to conquer the world.


Yet there I was looking down on the ground. Faced with the stark reality that life was meaningless.


To be continued.....

The sound of my dog barking shook me back to my senses.

I was shocked to see my little dog had followed me all the way here. I shouldn't have been surprised though. All throughout my depression he had given me company- sitting with me for hours outside, as I cried softly.

I quietly jumped off the parapet.
And this time, the floodgates in me broke. I was on my knees crying. "Jesus, if you're there. Please help me. God if you're there. Help me now."

And I just knew He was there. I knew it. He saved my life and I knew there was more to this life than what I thought it was.

I wiped my tears and resolved that by the end of the year I would know everything there was to find out about life and I would find who God is. I would resolve this mystery and be done with it. I wanted the truth.

As a child, I loved God. I knew He was there and I loved listening to stories of Jesus and the Bible. Now that I was older, I wasn't so sure.

Meanwhile while in school, I had gathered by myself , a circle of similar thinking people. Smart, ambitious, and very atheist.
We had discussions and arguments and I was content being in that intellectual circle.

However something inside me was fading. I realize now that it was happening in my friends too. I know now that we were all frightened individuals, scared about the world, afraid of the future and trying to make sense of it all, but we couldn't.

One of the girls in that group, who used to be my desk mate would cut herself.


I knew what she was doing and i didn't know how to help her. If I was honest with myself - I was disgusted by her.
I was disgusted by all my friends and my perception of their weakness. I think they were disgusted by my weaknesses too.


My beliefs in God and my refusal to completely accept that the universe was created by chance earned me a lot of ridicule. It was me being ''quirky'' according to them.

Living in India, surrounded by so many people with so much of misfortune , completely full of religion, somehow we were anomalies. We had also numbed ourselves. To the world outside and to each other.


I couldn't relate to any of them. I was surrounded by people but I felt alone.


Soon enough I had graduated from school by then with top honours. I was the valedictorian and I was accepted in a highly respected college near my city.

But I had a bigger goal - to know God.

That night I had felt the same comforting presence I used to feel as a child. He was there. And I needed answers. I was determined.


To be continued....

you are beginning to begin when you think you began..
wen i tried to end it all,God didn't approve it....He didn't let me go...
Wen i thought it was the end,God just began..He was just waiting for me to completely surrender..

And i realized later in life that when i really gave up and wanted God to take my soul,i was actually fully surrendering to God...
To measure God's ways is not within our reach and when He comes in,Life has meaning where there was no meaning till then..
Hebrews 11 chapter.

I know . I agree.

You know the sacrifices to God are a broken and contrite spirit. (Psalm 51:17)

And we also know that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18)

I believe in that moment of brokenness, when we let it all go to God and surrender to Him, it is an epoch moment... However Ji I am not finished


The story has to be continued.

To be honest, I understand how dramatic this all makes it. But well, life has a bit of drama

Ok I realize I need to finish what I started. It gets harder as time passes, because while your testimony is just a story to someone else, to you, it's your heart dangling on a bait for fishing (and you know there may be piranhas)

Also, when writing about what you believe life is, it's hard to avoid drama. It's hard to avoid getting personal, but here's what I can manage. What you see is, what you get mostly

So the saga continues -

So that year passed by, during which I made some new friends and even found love.

I had not forgotten my original goal of finding the exact meaning of life though I was slightly distracted by the trials of college. It was conveniently put on the back burner.

I was excited about life. I had found new love and a new direction in life. Things were going great. I believed in Jesus. He died on the cross for me, I have eternal life in Him.
I was a Christian. He saved me. That bad part of life was over. My troubles were mostly gone.

Or so I thought.

My old determination to find the truth had started to waver. Time had started ticking and my memory had started getting hazy.


I loved and lost, won some and lost more. Life with all its daily drama, had me distracted. There were some fresh wounds though I found myself relying on God more. There were old wounds being reopened, and I found myself hurting a lot. I didn't know why.

People disappointed me. I disappointed them.
I fell often and each time God picked me up. Most of the times, I found myself grieving in secret.

I realized that , "why re-invent the wheel all the time when seeking out things. Let me know what other Christians think."

This led me to CC.

CC has been the most interesting, enlightening and comical experience. My growth as a Christian from then to now is amazing. The information overload that I got from CC was such a blast!

Learning all the different doctrines, learning to spot the false things,reading my Bible more, making new friends... it's all been really fun. The fellowship that I finally started receiving, to come close to the body of Christ helped me heal and grow.
I didn't receive that before. I didn't know anyone who was a Christian except my family and my interest in religion always frightened them.

I learnt to pray for others. I learnt to care. Slowly and surely, God was teaching me about trust, submission and such values.

I literally saw my ideas break down before me in the light of what God wanted but I just wanted Him so much I was letting it all go.

I had my highs and my lows. I still do.

Life was to me – working hard, getting results and that was it. It confused me so much. In some ways there was happiness, there was more sadness and then there were periods of quiet peace and impasse.

There's a lot of dejection and misfortune in this world. Sometimes some people win it, and sometimes they don't. It's not always fair. I couldn't understand how such a system worked, if God was really there.

Why was something like this? Why was something like that? The questions made me afraid and I doubted God again. I doubted He really cared about the domestic tribulations of human beings.

Read my blog post here in which I wrote about overcoming that ---> Click Here
Anyway.

I came to this understanding that I don't understand anything.

Life was always convoluted and that to find a meaning in everything was pointless. Some things are beyond us and sometimes we just don't know. (This could be termed as an existential crisis, but I already had that before)

There are some people who have an answer for everything but even they don't really know. We're all here trying to figure things out.
Having the courage to say all that, freed me really. It's been a humbling process from my arrogance to think I could know everything to my acceptance of my limitations.

However I wasn't done yet. Because that isn't the meaning of life

The last week I faced an intense trial – extreme pain and a flurry of emotions. It was so bad, I thought that I wouldn't make it through.
Three years after my experience on the balcony that night, I prayed this prayer.

“Dear God, please , you only take my life from me. I am really tired and I do not understand what life is about. I am in pain, I am hurting and I want rest.”
In tears, I went to bed and went to sleep, wondering if I would even wake up.


To be continued....

Thanks for letting me know about this. I don't normally read much in this section, but this made me hone in more on thoughts of my own i'd let flitter around in my brain.

Continuing where I left off - after my prayer to God to take my life, I did go to sleep and I did wake up.

I don't think many of us realize that life is a gift. None of us know if tomorrow we will live or die. I heard someone once say, "What is hope? Hope is to set the alarm clock in the morning to wake up the next day."


I took this as my second shot at life. Another chance from God. My journey on this earth wasn't yet over.
The intense trial that took place in my life was still going on, but I decided to face it head on. Jesus said His grace is sufficient.
I believed it.

I did overcome this. I don't know what will happen in the future or how things will turn out in the end, but I know that this trial I completed.
A friend always says, "Each day at a time." And isn't that true? Each day has its own troubles. We need to first cross the bridge in front of us. Each step leads to the final destination.


Right so, what is life?

Countless times, God says in the Bible - Choose life. Eternal life. Life in all abundance.

Well.... during this period of trial for me, things from the past came back to haunt me.
My past mistakes, the things other people said. I looked at the mirror and loathed myself. So much self disgust that I couldn't stand my reflection.

This wasn't life in abundance or all that good stuff to me.

I remembered the girl who used to cut herself and for the first time, I sympathized with her. I understood what she must have been feeling.

When the pain inside is so bad, any outlet, any thing to make it seem real... it hurt so bad!
What I was going through was so overwhelming, I thought to myself, what's so great about life. If life is like this - then nothingness is better.

That death where it just ends and there's nothing but blackness that is better. I certainly can't do an eternity of this life.

I was tired of crying endless tears. I knew though, that if I could get through this - I would. I did.
God is great.

Meanwhile something else was happening. A college friend of mine , a staunch atheist, who knows that I am a Christian started calling me up.
This is a text he sent me-

"Rachel20, how can you discredit evolution? You think God gave us the appendix just so that he could test whether we believed in Him or as later stages of human advancement would discover, it is a vestigial organ?"

That weekend he called and we spoke.
I was already undone. So all I could tell him was. " Hey. I know nothing. I just know that there is God and in Him I find peace."

At this, my friend stopped the questioning. He agreed. He said the only time he felt profound peace, was when he first heard of Christ. He was troubled it was his mind but as he said, nothing - neither pills nor even self "pep" talk could give him that peace.

That was a truth - the peace that passes all understanding - that comes only from Christ.
So we spoke, I read Scripture to Him, and this is something which I never did for people in real life before. I prayed for him. Right there on the phone.

I was learning compassion. As he told me about his feelings, and how he was always disappointed, I recognized all those emotions. I had just gone through all that myself!

God was teaching me and giving me the compassion to pray for him, to understand what he was going through.

I've been talking to my friend for three years now, and that night- he accepted Christ. He told me this "I know there is a God, and in Him, there is rest and peace. Outside. Outside it's scary."


It was such a profound moment as I recognized that Christ is life. Life in Him. There is God and outside there is the dark, the rulers of this age - but in Him there is that peace.
That even when the world outside is burning , in Him there is incredible peace. God is in charge and He would take care of us.


Two days later I saw his facebook status . It said "Phillipians 4:6-7. Best antidepressant. No side effects at all."

Amen, God bless you sister.
Stay Strong in the Lord.

This is wonderful to read! I am glad that you found the meaning to life and that, that meaning is in Christ alone.

As for me, I am still grappling with my questions. This path has not been easy for me, despite being brought up in it. I have various questions about my painful past, the people who call themselves 'Christians' but are not, etc.

I guess I will wait for you to finish your testimony. I believe that there may be something in it for me.

Thanks , I need to gather my thoughts. I keep telling myself I need a quiet moment to compile them - After all this is the Eureka moment/Archimedes discovery for me. So....

I guess I was making excuses.

I will complete it ASAP.

Thank you for reading it

So here it is - the last and final part of my long testimony.

The Eureka Moment - the unveiling of the discovery - except that I want to keep it as short as possible.


This so called discovery though, is not something new. So for that matter it shouldn't be called a discovery. This is not some new fancy shmancy philosophy either. Everything that has to be said , has actually already been said. There isn't anything new under the sun.

Though some of us go through our entire lives, never stopping, never thinking for a moment what our existence on earth means.
There are other people who ascribe all kinds of meanings to their lives. They are driven to push themselves to great heights of success - be it wealth, or a sport or relationships.

They put in measures and parameters to judge themselves, their peers and family provide another yardstick and once they reach that threshold , they believe they have attained fulfillment.


Man is an amazing creature. Show me a man who has accepted his ability to push his boundaries and pursue infinity and I will show you a man who has attained success.

Show me a man who claims to be successful all the time, and I will show you a man who ignores reality.


Limitless as our abilities can sometimes seem as a collective, as an individual though, we are limited.

Life limits us. Stumbling and falling we get through. Honestly its a joke, to read about people who claim to be highly prosperous and happy all the time. Happiness is a choice, they claim.

Well then, I would rather choose to be sad, to be aware of the brevity of life and live in the fear of God, than to seek the pursuit of pleasure all the time.


Because let's face it - it's all useless!

The meaning of your existence of earth - is just that- it's useless.

Philosophers like Sarte and his band of friends have been celebrated across the world for pointing these things out, but this is no great discovery.


The Bible actually has taught us all this a long while back. Ecclesiastes. When I first read it, I was amazed by how profound it is.
People have seen it as negative and depressing but I think it's extremely positive.

Positive for us because we can take comfort in the knowledge that we're not crazy loonies and this IS how the world really is!!

As human beings we are never satiated, never completely whole. Just walk down the aisles of a mall and look at the vast variety of choices thrown at us.

We were made that way. Who can really understand God ? He is too mysterious.

There is no meaning that we can ascribe to our life here on earth. Our meanings will disappoint.

There is only one true meaning and that is outside of us.

It's Jesus.

The only sense that I can see , the only meaning I can understand is that God loves us and Jesus came for us.

Like my friend said, "Outside of Jesus it's just scary."

This is an individualistic truth again. You just have to discover it for yourself. No one can spell it out for you.

Like the parable of the sower though, if the seeds sown are in deep fertile ground, it will be fruitful. When you are deeply rooted in the absolute reality of Christ - terrible heat and drought and you'll survive.


I no longer care anymore about what life truly is, in an absolute metaphysical sense.

It is a gift though. Each day is a day that you can use for the glory of God.

Each tear that you shed, each heartbreak that you felt, all the pain that you experienced - all of it, was maybe for someone else.
Our failures, our mistakes , our past - everything when submitted to God and when given to Him, I trust that He can use it

After all, this is what the Bible says -

Ecclesiastes 3:11

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end



All you need to do in life is this - Love God and Love your neighbour as you love yourself.

You learnt all of it - the pain and the suffering, so you could love them. You could give them the exact words and the exact support that they needed to just get through.

You were taught that so you could share the gift given to you.

You got to share Jesus, and He was life to someone who was dying.

That's what Jesus did for you too.

Though I think, from the first post to this.

I just came full circle

Though this doesn't faze me anymore. God is amazing.

Through all of our trials( 1 Peter 1:3-9) we endure.( Heb 10:36) And arrive in our mindset here!!Daniel 3:16-18) verse 18!! But even if he does not! Established in Christ, is being confident in Our Lord Jesus as well!Thanks sis for all you said as well!!

LOL, man the Lord is great, He did the same exact thing for me, only I live a completely different life then you (I know an "exactly the same but totally different" statement). I was all "Da streets" not collage, but was that to a "carnal Christian" (I didn't think of myself that way, I was just the average professing Christian living in this world in sin, and completely blind to Truth). I went through tragedy and got to a point where I wanted nothing but to die (my testimony is posted here too for details). The only thing that kept me here was knowing no one could take care and love my 2 boys the way I would. If I would have thought for 1 second that there was a man out there that would love and raise my boys the way I would, I not only would have cut my wrist, I would have tried to cut the useless, completely numb, lump that was my arm off. God did one of those crazy, overnight, miracle before your eyes type conversions on me. LOL, It actually took my a couple days to put together why I no longer felt like dying. I knew it was from God, but I thought I was already Christian, so I didn't know what was going on at first. So I understood what you meant. All glory to our God, His ways never cease to amaze.
This was very well written, and a great testimony to His power. Thank you so much for sharing it.

Hi.

I read your testimony. I was so moved and so touched. Your life is incredible and amazing. I thank God for saving you and taking care of you.

I actually know someone close to me, who lost an arm, his dominate arm too, and reading what you wrote brought me close to tears. Thank you once again for sharing that.

I am not so sure now that what we've been through is "exactly the same but different". You've had a tougher and grittier road to take, but I can see how you felt emotionally.
I guess the paths were different but the destination and the final knowledge is the same.

God is the same.

Without God we are nothing. He is faithful and never leaves us nor forsakes us.
He's so good!

I pray He continues to bless you and lead you.


I also want to thank you for another thing -For bumping this thread.

It reminded me to look back again at my testimony , to remember all that God has done for me, and I couldn't stop praising Him.

I also couldn't wait to get back home today and read yours.

You have blessed me so much Jimbone - not only by your testimony but by the reminder of this thread.

Thank you so much again!
With Warmest regards,

Rachel

The similarities I saw where the whole wanting to die thing, and more of realizing how God's been there for us throughout our whole lives in retrospect. Of course the over all mercy He shows us all, but it was more about the internal conflicts then the details of our lives that I saw as "the same", I guess Gods fingerprint always leaves the same mark, and I saw that all through you testimony. Thank you so much for the kind words, and any God that can take a heap of a sinful mess like me, and make it into something better deserves much more glory then my small words can bring Him, but that won't stop me from putting them out there. All glory to Him.

Thank you!

I know what you mean. I felt the same way too, and I could recognize God's "fingerprint".


You have blessed me by your testimony so much and I praise God for it.

God is amazing, so awesome and so wonderful. He is powerful and has conquered all.
May Jesus be with you and continue to use you. God bless you!

In Christ, your sister
Rachel