Life Before and After France

19:25 Iinameri 0 Comments

Once again we're examining the question of #whatislife. Only this time to share some thoughts on what was it all about, living in a foreign country, leaving everything behind and then returning home.

So. Let me start from the beginning.

For about two years ago I figured out the big question of #whatislife. I figured out that my life is exactly what I'll make it to be. It cleared out to me that no-one is a victim of the circumstances but in charge of his or her own happiness.

During the next year or so my life was the best it had ever been! I bet anyone watching close enough could see how well everything was in my life and how good I felt! It must've been something that showed! It must've been. I enjoyed everything I did and I was so grateful for everything I had. Thö bestttt feeling everr!!

I continued doing what I was doing but slowly, things started to feel different. Step by step the incredible joy I had started to faint away. I still had in my mind that it was all up to me, and if I just try harder and "get my shit together" all will be amazing again and the joy will return.

Plot twist: it didn't.

I could've not understand why it felt like everything was falling apart all in the sudden. Where the heck did that even come from? And where's the joy I used to have and the overflowing love I used to feel? How can something so great disappear so quickly?

So many questions.
But I didn't mind too badly since I knew there was a new begging around the corner. I knew I'd have a chance to start fresh when moving to France. I knew I'd have the opportunity to "get my shit together" again and get back the joy, the enjoyment of life, the love, the.. well, everything!

Little did I know....🤣

Haha. In France.. All the shit, yeah, they got together. Onto a huge pile. Above me and around me..... And then there was me, somewhere there, underneath all that shit plus some extra which I got from the way.
It was.... Interesting 😁

Then one day, someone asked me why I was so angry all the time. Like heckssss, anyone who knows me well enough knows I ain't a angry person, everything but! That's when I realized something was truly wrong: this ain't what I am and more importantly, this ain't what I want to be!

I turned to God for help. And surely he helped, when ever I remember that he could. And even when I knew he was there, and he was there for me, I still felt soooo friking lost. Lost like I've never felt before. Good days and bad days, but still lost every single day.

I mean, I did make a conscious decision to give up everything and move away. To just trust in God and live fresh, with him. But bahaha, it felt like it couldn't be further from the truth! I tried, and sometimes we were close but nahh. I was too tired to even think! Yet alone open my mouth and pray.

At this point, I also cursed the day I decided to take my dogs with me on this journey. I did not understand what was I thinking when bringing them along! I just wanted to send them back to Finland and turn my life around, to do things I've never really enjoyed doing but now felt the only right things to do.

Well, I can't blame if the dogs, especially a tiny puppy felt my inner misery. And he expressed it by destroying... the entire apartment. But not knowing any better I did blame him anyways. And I made a decision to find him a new home when we're back in Finland, since it felt like we're not a fit with him in any given ways.

But either way! Things did actually get a bit better towards the end, and I started to feel hints of joy again. And soon enough came the day of my return back to Finland. Could I not have been any happier to go back having MY LIFE!!! My people!!! My routines!! My hobbies!!! My frikin everything!! My life.

...

Soooo....

I've been here for over 3 weeks now. Just to realize there is actually no such thing as my life here. And oh, how many tears have I wept for the sake of this. Way too many....
But then. One day I realized; anything that had ever described me or defined me was not me. I was not, and I am not, the things I do or what I have in my life. Those were nothing. I was nothing.

I stopped trying to reach out to my good old life I used to have. I stopped reaching out to the things I had loved. And decided to become a plain, empty piece of canvas. To become no-one. And to give that empty canvas for Jesus to fill: with colours, with aliveness, with love and with joy. With life.

So, when I finally re-connected with my mate, my mannn Jesus Christ and read some Bible after a much longed prayer, I got this:

"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."  

Matt. 10:39

Wait, what?!

I took my time to think and to process and analyse what I just read.

Then it hit me.
That Bible verse revealed so many answers for my questions! I realized where the joy once went. I understood why I lost the overflowing feeling of love. I discovered the reason for why did I lose the amazingly great enjoyment of simply being alive!

It's cause I got so caught up with the life! It's cause I was simply so head up in my own arse thinking how great of a life 'I've affirmed for myself'. It's cause I was so deep in the paradox of how everything is so up to me and how I am the only thing that affects to my feeling of fulfilment and my feeling of happy.

And I realized that while I was searching for greatness in life I had lost Jesus. But now, beginning to search for the greatness of Jesus instead, I found the fulfilled feeling and happiness again. I found the joy of life once again.

So. I guess what I've figured so far about the question of #whatislife is that no matter how in charge of your own life you are, that's not the full life you can have. Because a life without Jesus can't ever reach the life with him. And now, even when there's not much of life going on besides him, my life feels much fuller than it has ever felt without him.

That is simply how I conclude today the question of #whatislife with an answer of #Jesusislife.

Oh, and what it comes to the furry friends of mine: they ain't going nowhere. Both of them, they're gifts from God. They'll stay. 

And while we're at it, may God stay too. May He stay with you, with me, and with all of us. Even when we move around, move houses, move cities and move countries, may God stay with us to give us joy and give us life. 

Love,
Iinameri