sharing 

In the depth of my mind, May 00

"Rushing to get to school, having extra classes, forcing myself to sit properly and to do a huge amount of homeworks each evening, cooking for dinner, doing houseworks, shopping, attending Sunday church service, sleeping, eating, talking on the phone, playing the internet and missing my family..." Everyday I spent my life like this, "Is there a meaning in it?! I wonder, "What is the value of my life?" Or "why am I here for?" "What is the purpose of my life?" "Is it to keep struggling in order to accomplish a so-called 'achievement' or 'success' in life? Or should I learn to be a simple person who is always content with everything she meets or she has?"

Facing a determining big examination, stress seems to be inevitable. While I think that I am able to manage some of the exams, the reality that I still have more which I do not know disillusions me. We can never be sure that we will perform well on that important day of life. We even cannot be sure that what will happen tomorrow. Life is full of uncertainities. That is why we worry. However, aren't these all meaningless?

A few weeks ago, I attended a wedding. How happy were the bride and the bridegroom and everyone around them! Everyone was so enjoyed when the best man spoke of their romantic love story - they encountered at the Unversity, they spent lots of time together, the first time she brought him home... Although I shared the happiness, my grandfather's recent death came to my mind. "What a contrast it is" I thought, "How long will my grandmother be grieving?" I worried. I did not have the chance to go home to attend the funeral, but no matter how much comfort I got from my housemates, once I thought of my grandfather and how sad my grandmother would be, my tears came out constantly. I could not speak, there is no words for my grief. I did not want anything else in the world, but I only wanted to hide. I only wanted to be left alone.

All the past memories appeared in my brain as slides of images. "I didn't like my grandpa", I recalled, "He always looked so strict and so solemn." Yet, now, everything is too late. Why was I so childish? Why didn't I spend more time with him? However, in my memory, he was always a healthy man. Just half a year I didn't see him, it discovered that his liver had cancer, and it was a very late stage already. One week before he died, I talked to him on phone, he lost his conscience, he could not remember who I was, though I was one of his favourite grandchildren before. Then he passed away duing his sleep on a Friday night. "Here goes grand-dad", one of my little cousin said, as they attended the funeral the following week. Yes. indeed, there goes my grandfather - a man of seventy-three years old who lived his life without regret.

"Life is useless, all useless. You spend your life working, labouring, and what do you have to show for it? Generations come and generations go, but the world stays just the same... Everything leads to weariness - a weariness too great for words." Are these words from the King Solomon's Ecclesiastes speaking to our hearts? Although, it seems that the World and our human destinies are pessimistic, there is an offer of hope in God who gives life a greater meaning - a meaning to live fruitfully.

"No one can keep himself from dying or put off the day of his death. That is a battle we cannot escape; we cannot cheat our way out." Therefores, dignified acceptance is the answer. We should not "analyse God's breath in common statement", but giving up all "the clay-minted wages of pleasure, knowleadge and the conscious hour." There is a time for everything, and I believe "He has set the right time" for all.

In life, we should know our positions and aims - not to obtain "successes" but to have reverence for God, to obey His commands as we are the creations of God. God Himself is the life. All the things I am doing may seem to be in vain, yet my meaning of life does not lie in what I am doing, it lies in my heart. In the depth of mind, I have God with me. I know He always takes care of me, my shelter is in Him.