My First Kiss
Was with a girl called Faith after high school. I’d always wanted to know what it feels like to kiss someone. It was amazing.
The relationship didn’t last, though. We ended it after one year. Actually, I ended it. To be honest, I didn’t deserve her. I was young and foolish, so after ending the relationship, I vowed to become the kind of man a beautiful lady deserves. Never dated since then.
Not because I never met other people I could date along the way. But because I wanted to be the kind of man who would be willing to offer himself for the woman he loves. Is that me today? I don’t know.
But I know something that’s not just a desire for me. It’s someone I need to be, someone I want to be.
The ability to love someone more than life itself. Giving yourself wholly not because of a feeling but because deep down in your heart you know that life is beautiful and amazing, and with them it’s 1000 times better. Maybe even a million times better.
The Worst Thing In The World
Is waking up one day and realizing that you are all alone.
You could have all the wealth in the world, you even have all the health and eternity to experience. You could have new galaxies to explore, all the food you need, name them all. I am sure you know them.
But without someone to share them with, it’s all pointless.
I would give it all up to spend 70 years of my life in a small hut and a farm with the ones I love.
Yes, we would be squeezed in a tiny house, yes, we might even go hungry for a few days, but it would be worth it. Bearable.
We’d dance, make memories, and laugh. We’d even cry together, fight on some nights, disappoint each other.
But I would never leave, I would hang on so tight because I know the darkness that lurks in loneliness.
You think Jesus was killed by the nails, piercings, and hanging on a tree? Sure, Peter being crucified upside down, John boiled in oil was crazy. John Huss was burnt alive. He experienced worse than the cross…
He cried out, “…Father, Father, why hast thou forsaken me?”Fully forsaken, by His Father (His eternal companion), the world, his friends (betrayer, another denied Him thrice), nature itself forsook Him.
All alone. He didn’t die because he was hung on a tree. He died of a broken heart.
Yes Loneliness Kills
Every hour, 100 people die because of loneliness. Every year, about 871,000 people die because of loneliness.
Right now, as you are reading this, there is a man who is married to a computer just so he can get rid of the unbearable darkness of the lonely world.
There is an old man in the hospital today who doesn’t have anyone to visit them. A child who has just been left in the trash by his parent. A young man who is contemplating suicide because they have just had their heart broken.
The darkness of loneliness is engulfing our world daily.
You don’t believe me?
Have you ever been in a room full of people and felt completely alone? I have, guess what everyone in that room was doing? We were all scrolling through our phones, trying to escape from the same loneliness and empty feeling inside our hearts.
The World Is Full Of Selfish People
You and I being the first ones.
My goal is not to make you feel bad for scrolling through your phone in a room full of people.
Forming good relationships is hard, I know that better than anyone. Instead, my goal is to show all the missed opportunities for knowing someone who wants to be known.
This world has taught us to be selfish. It’s everywhere, even in all these self-love agendas…
“No one is coming to save you. You have to look out for yourself and save yourself.”
“You know your ‘when’ your wife divorces you, she will take you for almost half of everything you own. And also get full custody of your kids.”
“Why bother with marriage when a click on my phone gives me sex with no strings attached?”
It’s all about you. Your happiness. Your peace of mind.
And I say that’s ridiculous. Does it have to revolve around you?
What’s the point of being happy alone?
Feelings that you can’t share with those you love. Why can’t you see how lonely you are?
You think true peace is about being in a monk state, up somewhere in the mountains, in constant meditation, trying to find, as Shifu would call it, Inner peace?
Let Me Show You What True Peace Looks Like
Someone spitting on your face and you responding with, “You are too beautiful to be doing that.”
Someone stoning you to death, and the deepest desire of your heart is for God to forgive them.
It looks like the woman who visited a man who murdered his son in cold blood in prison every day and brought him food. Home-cooked food that she used to make for her son. Not poison him. Just so that she could adopt him into her family.
True peace looks like the man who loved us above all. So much so that he was willing to die for us so that we don’t have to experience the darkness of loneliness.
True happiness? It’s love we must hold on to.
Never easy, but we can try. Sometimes our happiness is captured, somehow time stands still, and you get a glimpse of eternity.
Even when it is hard to love. Even when it hurts, especially when it hurts, choose to love.
Love people who haven’t experienced or know what love looks like. Because you were made for love, not just to be loved, but to also love.
Love deeply and devote yourself to something greater than yourself. And slowly by slowly, your loneliness will disappear, peace won’t be about monk states, and joy won’t be a futuristic event.
You will be experiencing heaven on earth.
