5. I wonder if the adventure has simply been an escape or a way to avoid post-grief real life?
Rick’s death helped make perfectly clear something that I had already known but did nothing about. Life is short…and it can be shorter than you ever expect. Think about it…the American Dream is a national ethos that includes the promise of prosperity and success. To achieve this so-called success, people work 60 hours or more every week, have a compulsion to climb the corporate ladder, put up with stresses that seldom produce the desired results, and kiss behinds that don’t deserve it. I realize this American Dream is partly generational, and that not every component is always all that bad, but you get the point.
Rick’s death showed me that by the grace of God I can choose how my life plays out. I can choose what “real life” is and I know for certain that I never want to return to that kind of existence. I mean to say that the purpose and meaning that comes from missions is so much more fulfilling than any stereotypical real life could ever be…at least for me. Have I avoided real life? Maybe. Or maybe I've redefined it.
Maybe my new real life is defined by the faces of the children who are caught up in an existence that gives them no power or protection. Maybe my new real life is defined by women who are not allowed to grieve let alone stay in their own home when their husband dies. Maybe my new real life is defined by fighting to eradicate the corruption from educational systems. Maybe my new real life is helping people create a self-sustainable living for their families.
Life doesn’t get any more real than that.
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