The world is really awesome.
I don’t think I fully understood how incredible Earth is until I watched a sunrise on the beach with my friends in high school. We woke up at like 4:30 a.m. and drove the 30 minutes it took to get to the ocean. I remember walking up the small boardwalk, past the Spanish style mansions and muddy showers, and as soon as the curve in the floorboards declined, the sky peeked through and then it all hit me at once. I remember the wind being knocked out of me, my body stood perfectly still and my eyes open, the painted watercolor landscape reflected in my wide eyes. I remember barely whispering, this is so awesome.
And it was awesome. So majestically wonderful and breathtaking and I just sat there with my friends taking in the rising star, welcoming a new day. I witnessed the beginning of a new day. So many things could have happened that day: a baby born, a couple wed, a house bought. Like, how cool is that? We all got this new day that was brought in maybe the most beautiful way ever. The colors all melted together, blues and purples and oranges and pinks, bleeding into each other slowly enough that you couldn’t even catch them doing it. And it happens every single day.
When I was a freshman in high school, I was eavesdropping on a group of 14-year-old boys taking at the gym. They were all in a huddle and were passing around pictures of a naked girl. I remember one of the boys looking away and trying not to be part of the conversation, even though the boys were his friends. One of them tried to force the phone in the boy’s face, telling him to look at the pictures, but the boy said no. This 14-year-old boy refused to look at these offensive pictures while all of his friends were watching. I’ll never forget that. How that boy was able to stand up to his friends and stand up for what he knew was right, even though no one would have known if he’d looked at the pictures. I never told him how much that meant to me, but I think about his courage often.
A couple weeks ago, I went on a hike up these mountains with some friends. It was only a couple of weeks after I had moved from Florida (very low elevation) to Utah (very high elevation). After we started the hike, I seriously thought I was going to pass out. I could barely breathe, I was seeing stars and my lungs felt like they were going to collapse. Somehow, I kept moving and until I was finally able to reach the end of the hike and it had the most incredible view. I could see little buildings all bunched together and the entirety of this huge lake. I was so high above everything and so distant from everything. Isn’t that insane? Isn’t that so awesome that I could walk up an actual mountain and be able to view so much from my small eyes? I felt so accomplished and awesome.
Thousands of years ago, the Son of God came to Earth and took care of every wrong doing, every sin, every pain and every hurt. He paid the price for my sins. Sometimes I think about how many times I screw up in just one day. Just one. And then I think about every single person in existence and how many times they’ve screwed up in their entire lives. That’s a lot of screw ups. I think about how much I’ve felt hurt and anger and sadness and despair when my heart is absolutely aching and I don’t think I can go on anymore. Then I think about people who have had it so much worse than me and how much pain they’ve ever experienced. Isn’t it incredible? Isn’t it incredible how Christ atoned for everything? How can we let go of our hurt and how He paid the price for our screw ups? How much He must love us to be able to pay the ultimate sacrifice for all of us? Everyone. Literally everyone. That is so awesome.
Sometimes I think about everything amazing and wonderful and inspiring and my heart feels full and my hurt goes away for a bit. And I have Jesus Christ to thank for that.
Our bodies are incredible. The world is incredible. People are incredible. You are incredible. You just have to be willing to seeing it.
