4) It’s easy to acquire a bunch of stuff you don’t need, all the while thinking that you can’t do without it.
Last year I lived out of 3 small suitcases. For the entire year, although I did acquire new possessions I also gave away old ones, leaving me at the end of year with simply the same 3 small suitcases. Which leads me to question- how many possessions do we accumulate each year? How many do we give away? If you had to fit all of your things at the end of each year back into the same amount of bags that you started with at the beginning, what things would go?
5) Proof that God exists.
Oftentimes after a break-up we hear people say that they are heartbroken. They say that someone in their life took a part of their heart, and ripped it from them, leaving them broken and incapable of the same type of full, pure love as they had previously. By contrast we know that God loves all unconditionally, and no matter how many times we sin or hurt him, he still loves us all the same. His love is unconditional, ours is not. This is how we separate the divine from us. But after this past year I see this a little different.
I left my family and friends in America and was stationed in the small village of Masealama, South Africa where I knew absolutely no one. Throughout this amazing year, I came to love the people of Masealama as family and close friends. Even though it was only a year, I feel like I have loved them my whole life, and I love them equally as my family and friends in the States. And as I had to leave them I realized just how much my heart was able to grow this year- it seems as if we do indeed have an unconditional ability to love as God does. Loving my family and friends in South Africa didn’t mean that I loved those in America any less, nor did it mean that when I left them I was left with half a heart. My heart is full and forever expanding as I meet new people and proceed to love them as well. God has formed us in his image- giving us the ability to love unconditionally. Our hearts will never be full or broken, just as God’s heart will never be.
6) Whenever I see water wasted on TV I cringe.
~Heather Anne Nelson
