Day 3???
Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011 4:43 PM

"To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to the knowledge you have not, you must go by a way in which you know not." - St. John of the Cross

So, I meant to update this every day for the next 40 days in my pursuit of the Purpose Driven Life, but I have found that I can't read the book every single day for 40 days straight. And it's not because the book is bad or anything, it's just life. It keeps getting in the way.

Yesterday was Kent's birthday. He turned 36. That's 18 more years than his expected life span. It leads me to question doctors and the time limits they put on people's lives. I know they are just doing their job and preparing people for the worst case scenario, but look at Kent. He's lived 18 years more than he was ever expected to live. 18 years. That's two lifetimes for him!

The doctor he has now says he's not giving up hope, but Kent's worse case scenario is that he'll be gone in 6 months to a year. Everything depends on his chemo and the gastrin levels his body produces. I wonder if he'll ever be chemo free, let alone tumor free.... or if this is just something that we're going to have to life with for the rest of his life.

Which leads me to chapter 3 of the Purpose Driven Life book. I actually liked this chapter. I took a day or two to reflect on it, and I left my Kindle at home, so I can't quote from it or depend on my haggard memory right now. All I know is that this chapter made me think. I know this because I'm still thinking about it. It basically explained the different ways people are driven in life. And I don't know exactly how I'm driven because I seem to be slightly driven by all 5 of the examples. Kent says the one that fits me the most is fear. I thought the one that fit me best was the need to live up to my parent's expectations. Since neither one of us could figure out which one fit me best, I decided I was a mixture of the two.

I know I am guided by fear a lot. I don't do a lot of things based on this fear so it rules my life in ways I wish it didn't. I fear rejection. I fear acceptance. I fear dying yet I fear living. I fear going through life without a partner yet I fear this life I'm living now won't be fulfilling. It's a very see-saw kind of way of feeling. It's black then it's white. It's wrong then it's right. It's up then it's down. Kind of like that Katy Perry song she sings, though I can't remember the exact lyrics and I'm far too lazy at the moment to look them up on google.

And the acceptance from the parents bit? Ha ha. I know I lived most of my life trying to please them, always seeking their approval... needing them to be happy with me. I don't live life as much in that regard as I used too, but it still lingers on. I still wonder what they'd think or do in situations... if they'd approve or disapprove. It's a very tragic way of living going through life like that to be honest... because you're living for someone else and not yourself. Granted, parents live for their kids in a lot of ways too, but I think you get my overall meaning of this. Forget the kids. Forget they exist for a minute. Then look at things.

Now I can't remember what the most important part of the chapter was. Something to do with how your life is meant to be lived by way of the gifts that God gave you. So like I'm supposed to be driven by my talents and gifts. So if I was gifted at playing the piano, the drive to excell at the piano and share it with others in a kind God giving way is what my purposeful drive should be.

I love to write. I love the way words fall down onto a piece of paper. I love it when words spark emotion and make you feel something. So I know that my driven purpose has to do with writing. I need to write. I need to write and write and write and write. I just need to figure out what to write.

Anyhow, it's the end of the day and I'm ready to head home now. Thank goodness it's stopped snowing. People are crazy behind the wheel when it's raining or snowing out. And I really don't feel like dealing with crazy people right now.