Live like???

A few weeks ago
my Sunday school teacher here ( who also happens to be the pastor here) , gave a lesson
challenging us to answer the fill in the blanks:

To live is________, to die is_______.

I put up a note card on my headboard and ask myself the question every other day or so.
What does it mean to me for me to live?
Most of this year I haven't wanted to live.
I can honestly say that I think to die would be to gain, but what does it mean to live???
How do I honestly answer the question of:"What is it to live?"
For many weeks now I have been thinking this over and over in my mind.
When I was on the verge of suicide I felt like that I had done all that I was ever going to accomplish.

I felt like that if I couldn't have my husband back the way that I wanted that there was no other purpose for me in life. I had a hand in raising children, I finished college, I have worked with children, I got married, I got to see all of my friends have babies.
I really felt like all of the things that I have ever wanted had come to be, other than to get back with my husband and have a baby and watch the older kids go on to adulthood. Which isn't an option so all is done.

Most days here I feel like my life is over.
That I have done all that I can do on this earth.
I am no longer in any of the positions that I am used to being in as you know from earlier blogs.
I am alone almost always and I truly feel like that if I died that my purpose here would have been fulfilled.

Tonight at church we watched a video of a preacher giving a sermon. The preacher had been given a diagnosis that he would die at anytime and that his life was over. He gave his message on: "Living like you are dying".
He encouraged everyone to begin to say get in place of got or have. Such as:
I get to go to work today, or I get to rock a screaming baby tonight, or I get to go to a meeting.
That nothing is a have to but since we have life that we get to.
This man ( who's name escapes me) is living with the knowledge that one day soon he will die.
For him to live one more day is to preach one more day and to die is to go home to heaven.

For me I have decided that:
"To live is a gift and to die is gain"

What on earth I am going to do with my gift I don't know.
Most days when I get my gift I say" you shouldn't have".
But God who knows how my story ends, knows that I need life and that I must go on and I know that one day I will know the next step, I will feel purpose again, I will know why I was alive today and I will know what to do with my tomorrows.


Karen