"Life is not measured by
the number of BREATHS we take,
but by the moments that
take our BREATH AWAY."
That quote is kind of my life motto. If you've been over to my apartment, you know I have it on the wall above my bed. To me, it holds so much. It touches on that very question that so many people ask, "What is the meaning of life?"
Now I'm not going to answer that question in this blog post (mostly because I don't by any means have all the parts to the answer), but I do want to talk a little about what it is this quote is touching on and why it means so much to me.
What is it that takes our breath away - that thing that I desire my life to be "measured" by? Now that's a question I DO have an answer to.
Glory.
What is glory? Well, glory is defined by the dictionary as "magnificence; great beauty." And that immense beauty is what causes us to be breathless. It's when us humans catch a glimpse of the Creator in His creation.
One writer puts it this way, "...any expression compiled in its glory can never encompass or communicate the tremendous value that each word put together holds within its grasp very gently; yet very meaningfully."
Wow. I'll just give you a moment to digest that.
And you want to know something else funny? There is actually nothing being taken away here. It's all being given. Life's purpose IS to give. Every moment is precious and should be valued.
To take this further and apply it to my life, there have been many times in my life when I have been in absolute awe of this earth - watching the sunrise on a plane over the Pacific, looking down on Zion National Park from atop Angel's Landing, standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon only centimeters from the plunge, gazing up at the raging Niagara Falls from a boat at its base, finding glow worms in the rain forests of New Zealand, and so many more that I don't have room to list here.
But there are 3 specific times in my life where I have actually had my breath taken away, and these are moments in time that I will NEVER forget:
(1) The first moment that comes to mind occurred about 4-5 years ago when I first road-tripped across the country with my family. I think we had just hit about midway through Oklahoma when the land hit an extremely flat spot and you could see for miles and miles and miles out the window. For a second, I couldn't breathe - I had never been able to see that far into the distance before in my life! I couldn't even gauge the horizon line. Growing up in the south, you are constantly surrounded by trees and can very seldom even see a mile into the distance without climbing up an incline of some sort. This was different - it was flat, treeless, desolate - beautiful.
(2) Lady Elliot Island, off the coast of Australia - as if this place itself isn't enough to leave you breathless. I want to take you back to one of my very first blog posts, and highlight a couple of lines from my experience one morning on the island.
"I woke up the next morning at 5:45 to go on the 6am snorkel. It was one of the most amazing things I have EVER experienced. I think I had sensory overload from the double rainbow behind me, the sunrise in front of me, the reef below me, and the island to my side."I'm getting chills just sitting here typing about and reminiscing on that moment. I remember thinking that I was already out of breath from fighting the AU current, and the scenery around me sure wasn't helping :)
(3) One night, only a few weeks ago, after getting out of car from Bryce Canyon and the Panguitch Valley Balloon Rally, I looked up at the sky with my traveling buddies - It looked a bit like this. Well, even that Nat Geo pic doesn't do it justice. I could see so many stars that my eyes were having a hard time focusing to tell how many there actually were! The sky was so clear, and the light pollution in the middle of nowhere is virtually nonexistent.
Bosler put it this way in one of her articles, "It takes energy to blow your mind, but being overwhelmed is worth it. It's what gives life its luster." And in my opinion, it's in these moments that we have this revelation that the world and the universe and its/our Creator is more than we can EVER fathom.
I'm going to leave you with a simple proposition to think back on a moment when you were in awe. It's probably a moment that you're never going to forget, but I challenge you to write it down or share that moment with someone. These moments are special, and they don't necessarily happen everyday - but they're something worth sharing.
Megan
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