Today, I Choose to be Happy

The most profound of keys can be found in the humblest of packages. Those words, "Today, I choose to be happy" are famous for the one who said them before I did. Her name is Anne Frank, if you don't know her story, it is one that is full of treasure and wisdom...how she chose to remain positive in the middle of the Nazi horror.

It took me 32 years to find the heart to say the same.

I may not have lived inside a literal death camp, but I have seen a brand of horror that few know...a brand which marked me down to my very essence of life. I say this just so you understand the depth from which I came, I spent years trying to kill myself, but being unable to. Eventually, when all my plans did not work, I simply resigned myself to death from a long fall or to see if I could throw myself in front of a bus.

How I am still alive is the stuff of miracles. Many times over.

How I am happy now...is beyond miracles.

It is like miracles are stars that shine in the darkness, over the course of many years they have sparkled over my life...but they could never make me smile. I could see the beauty of heaven all around me, but I was still deeply hurting. There was nothing I could do to reach these stars that shone so brightly.

I could reach to the stars, night after night, yet hold only nothingness in my hands. Every day the question inside me burned, "Was I born only to reach, never to hold...?"

It was only when I closed my eyes that I could see the way to heaven.

It was only in my dreams that I saw the way through the nightmare of my life.

So, I followed my dream into the dark...into the spaces where stars don't shine...into the place beyond miracles; into the space outside time.

And there I found out that I did not have a dream, rather...there was a dream that had me. From the perspective of eternity, I could see why everything had to happen to me the way it did. I had phase-shifted...but now I was part of this darkness without stars.

I learned to accept it, and when I did, she appeared to me.

It is a long story, but when I was a young boy of 7 years old, I had a vision of a woman. One who would see me, with all the wounds I bore in darkness, alone...and love me. I saw her again when I was 20, praying...another vision of her came to me. This time it was with another. It was like God was giving me the choice:

The woman of my dreams
OR
The dreams of God for me

I struggled in prayer with that, and eventually made my choice...the latter. It is why I say it is a dream that has me. I gave up my most precious dream that day & I know God has accepted my sacrifice...that it pleased Him. For as soon as I had made the choice, a woman came to me, laid her hand on my head and said "God is doing something very holy here."

I tell you the truth, this woman, who I saw when I was 7 & 20 and countless times in my hopes and dreams appeared to me in the very fabric of reality...just over Christmas. I was so shocked I hardly knew what to do. I prayed and prayed and prayed...and...of course, I loved her. So much. So very very very very much.

Of course, she loved me too, the same. She wanted to marry me...

...and then everything changed.

It was like some kind of door opened within me...a door that could only be unlocked through her love. And when it opened, I knew I could not marry her. I had already made my choice, years ago.

There she was...the most precious one to me. And I told her, I cannot...with a smile on my face. Of course, she did not take well to that. I don't blame her, I don't think any human could.

How on earth can a man be so in love with a woman and say "No" to being with her with a smile on his face?

I'll share with you what I wrote in that moment.

"Because I lost my pieces...is this never to be mine?



How many more times must my heart break before it is gone, and I no longer hold this hope inside me?

I can only hope this time is the very last.

Dear friends, fear God.
You have no idea what He can do to a man.
How this pain, somehow, now makes me smile.

And with this smile, perhaps...I have really lost it."

As I smiled, the pain vanished. It could seem like I lost it, but what I really lost was my need to be with someone. It was like in finally making that choice, in the hardest way possible, that room was given to God to come in and change me.

Ofc, PMO is such a thing of the past now too. It is merely a little footnote here in this grand success story.

For now, that one thing I held onto, deeper than my own dreams...has been given to me. Since I was a child, all I ever wanted to be was a fighter pilot, a hero...it was the tradition of my family.

The only thing I inherited from my grandfather were his wings, and the mark of his character upon me...his own thirst for the skies, for honour...a true WWII hero.



PER ARDUA AD ASTRA
"Through Struggle to the Stars"

As much as I want for him to be here to see me today, I know where he is...for in some small way, he lives on in me.

I'd like to think he saw the moment where God first promised to give me a set of my very own wings. My dream of being an actual pilot may never come to pass...but God gave me the hope and dream of wings when I prayed and He sent a butterfly to rest in the palm of my hand.



It is just that which I now have...the feeling of flight in my heart, strong & free. It sounds like this inside me now, all the time:



"Amongst the endless clouds
I wonder where all things are moving towards.
A desired place of tranquility,
the path traveled by the descending angels
probably leads into my arms.

If you take to the skies, I want to be your wings.

No matter how strong the wind is,
they will never break,
these resilient wings..."

that I now have.

All I needed to do was look at all the hell I had been through, and smile...

Today, I choose to be happy.

Today, I choose to fly.

Today, I have reached those stars I tried to reach my whole life...and even though my hands may be empty...

...my heart is overflowing

 

Aye, he was a special man, passed when I was still just a boy. In a way, perhaps, it needed to be that way. I'll always look at him through the eyes of a child. He'll always seem, so big, to me.

I love all my family, so much. Love is what makes family beautiful. Indeed, love is what makes family...and for the love you've shared with me here, bless you. May your own family run rich with love

 

And I admire the you who admires me! Really! It feels so good to be honoured and I know that honour tends to come from those who themselves are honourable...for they can see honour plainly.

So, really! So glad to receive your words

It's just been one surprise after another lately, each one just keeps getting better and better and better!!!

 

I apologize for not responding sooner.

It seems my words here have taken a most strange twist of fate. Just three days after you posted that, I ended up being kicked out onto the streets by my aforementioned family who I said I loved so much.

And still, I'm happy. What I caught and embraced above was so real that it has carried me through some really rough things ^_^

Treasuring your words, and everyone else's here, all the more now.

 

Please, don't be sorry for me. I am not sorry for what this means

Though it is difficult, I see the value in such an experience. Yeah, I get your point because we should all have such better lives, shouldn't we? Human suffering is such a seemingly needless thing if we lived in a world where everyone cared for each other in the simplicity of love. It is just this thing which I must be careful for because we don't live in such a world thus that kind of belief would cause me misery.

Instead, I embrace this kind of suffering because it is necessary to change myself and through me, my life and everyone my life will ever touch. For the way this world is, I understand that these circumstances are a way to bring peace and healing to what is otherwise ordinarily so wrong...so long as I can open my heart to accept what I must become through them, my life can become so much more than anything I presently am.

Aye, I've put my faith where it belongs and am already happy, even now. I am finding that the less I have the happier I am becoming...because my desire is to be someone that causes Him to smile. I don't need a thing to be that.

So, paradoxical as it seems, my life falling apart like this is one of the best things that ever happened to me. It's like all the superficial things were stripped away, and I'm still standing strong without them. Because of this, I know what I have inside me is real, you know? That alone gives me peace.

Glad you enjoyed my words