Nuclear Explosion From a Bedroom Window

Ever wondered what would go through your mind right before you die? I got to experience that the other day. Well, kind of. I don't normally remember dreams. But this one, I did. And I've never died before in a dream. But in this one I did. It was weird. My dream consisted of the following: I was sitting in my bedroom looking out the window and saw a nuclear bomb go off. I have no idea who would waste a nuclear bomb on Harvest, Alabama, but they did in my dream. It was pretty cool though. I knew I only had a few seconds to live. A lot of things went through my mind in those 5 seconds before it hit. The first thing that ran through my mind was denial. Maybe it won't get this far. Maybe I'll live through it. That quickly turned into, "Oh man, God is going to be maaaaaaddd at me." I quickly started a "hail mary" type prayer (you like that? I thought it was funny) and for some reason, tucked up into a bomb like that would protect me from the explosion coming in my direction or something. The weird part was next. I died. I didn't wake up first. I think the reason we always wake up before we die is because of the stress. We're falling off a cliff or something and then at that last second, we hit a peak in our stress level that jerks us awake. But by tucking up into a ball, I couldn't see the explosion coming and just waited. I was abnormally calm for seeing an atomic bomb explode in my general area. This death, in my dream, was almost worse than knowing you're going to die. I was just floating in blackness. Reflecting on my life. It was almost a sense of purgatory. I started asking all these questions. Did I do this, did I do that. Am I going to heaven or hell? What's next? And I just floated there. Curled up in a ball. Then I woke up.

Why am I sharing this? For one, it's the first dream I've remembered in a long time. Wanted documentation. But the other reason is because it got me thinking about things I normally think about, but from a different perspective. Even though it was a dream, I died. Everything I had been wanting to do and saying I would do could no longer be done. I had a few seconds to break down all of the things I did that were completely pointless after the fact that I was dead. I've blogged about this before when I talked about Ecclesiastes. But this dream gave me a first hand view of what it would be like to truly realize that some of the things we do are completely irrelevant when we die. I can say things are pointless. Anyone can tell you the amount of Facebook friends you have will not matter. But I don't think we will finally realize it until we actually die. And this was just a dream that lasted a few seconds. Imagine eternity. You will have plenty of time to reflect on why you spent 20 minutes of your life angry, all because someone said something about the football team you were a fan of. Guilty. I've spent more than 20 minutes mad at someone for that. And for what? This is a team you aren't even a part of. Much less the fact that all you get is bragging rights when your team wins. You don't get money (unless you bet on it). You don't get a trophy. You didn't even do anything. So why do we get so upset when someone says something you don't agree with?

Think about all of the things we waste our life on. Modern technology has made it almost impossible to not waste a good chunk of your every day. I have 3 stars on every Angry Birds level on the iPhone. Am I going to go down in history for that? No. Heck, in 3 years that won't even matter. But I spent my time doing it. It's hard to pull yourself away from stuff like that. But maybe if I try a little harder every day, I can get to the point where I truly enjoy life for what it gives me, not for what I force out of it. Maybe being entertained isn't about having the latest games or watching football. Maybe I can just spend an hour on my roof and stop taking what God gave us for granted. What did people do before technology? They enjoyed God's creation. I know I've blogged about this before, but I really feel like we're falling farther and farther away from that. God gave us life, earth, and space for a reason. And I have a good feeling that reason wasn't to play video games.

Another thing I thought about after that goes along with the last paragraph. How many things do we say we are going to start doing? How many times do we go to bed saying, "Ok, tomorrow I'll take some time to enjoy creation." Or, "Tomorrow, I'll start reading the bible more." But we wake up and forget about it. Only to remember the next night right before we go to sleep. Then feel bad about ourselves because we never do any of the things that we want to do. We're too consumed with the way we are "supposed" to live life and other distractions. I'll write all night about things I need to start doing and why I want to do them. But in the morning (I should say afternoon. I like sleep.) I wake up and am either too lazy, don't remember, or just don't want to. I don't have an answer for this one. That's all me. And just to level with you all...I still don't do half the things I've blogged about. Very hypocritical, if you ask me. I'll say I'm making an effort. But really, how hard am I trying? Not hard enough is the answer to that one. Saying and doing are two different things. And the effort involved weighs heavily towards the latter.

"We are all going to die. Just a heads up."
-Stephen Christian