Open Book

15. Wanting Someone Else's Life

Occasionally we think how it would be like to be someone else, living another life. Some look at the most excellent accomplished people as their example; Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Tony Stark... These were the examples while I was growing up – men of money, fame and status. The Men of many. There may be new celebrities that many look up to, silently wishing in their hearts to be like those people. Before I found the Lord, I looked up to some celebrities myself, choosing between them which one I liked the most. Some were Korean singers, some Marvel actors, others animation characters. Anything that would speak to me by means of their way of being – I wanted to be like them in those certain areas. "Who is your idol-person" some used to ask me, or even I made myself question that.

While it is okay to look at them as inspiration to follow dreams, to grow in virtue and to persevere, it is totally another thing to wish THEIR lives, THEIR beauty, THEIR accomplishments or anything else they had.

Even now many of us might look at saints who have already run their race and did a marvelous job while on Earth – we also find ourselves wishing to be like them. "How I would like to be that saint right now. How I would like to be that martyr who so freelygave himself to the Lord...they did so much better than I, now, in these last days..." Bitterly we lament. Yet though they might have done marvelous things in their days you must see that they cannot live and do the things YOU are supposed to do. If you switched places with them, they would have done horribly in your time.

Unique destinies everyone has been given and with them comes unique crosses. Why crosses? To prepare us for the greatest things yet to come! Everyone has them, either little or bit at first, it does not matter –they are there! Going further and climbing higher on the mountain holiness, more trails and more sufferings come. Why? So that we will be meek and humble, not seeking ourselves as more fit than others, thinking we are more favored by God than them. Therefore, many who respond to the Call suffer a bit at the very beginning, some even have faced this since childhood. Let us say, the bigger the calling, the more purifying flames in one's life.

Wanting to carry a cross for the Lord is pleasing to Him but wanting some other cross – like the big cross of your friend, thinking yours is not good enough –that is not pleasing at all when the motive behind is envy or jealousy. God has shaped a unique path that leads to your ownunique destiny. If we were to wish to be in the place of another, would we not show ungratefulness and displeasure over what He has given us? Say there is a soul who got saved and now leads a life for Jesus, and that person got there because you were led to cross paths with her, to help and guide gently. Now, if you were not there, but living and wishing to be someone else, to have their sufferings, their destinies and almost all they had from inside-out – what would have happened with that person that got saved because of you? You would have not met her which means the words about Jesus would have never gotten deep into her and she right now could have been wandering somewhere in the darkness, headed to perdition.

So, you see, do not place yourself in the shoes of another person's destiny. You have got your own. What you do and where you walk, others do not do and there they do not walk. What others do and where they walk, you do not do and do not walk. Each step is a different per person, but all is the highest good for souls to be saved, for God's plan to be fulfilled –all for the glory of God! Wanting to be someone else frustrates that divine plan in your life, delaying the progress and resisting Him. That is not smart! He leads you in such away that everyone He sends (and you accept what He sends) becomes a huge blessing for the others and it brings glory and joy to Daddy. There is NO other soul in this entire existence that could do the things He is given YOU to do. They are yours to be done, not the others. Just like the things that the others do are theirs to be done, and not yours.

A lady once mentioned something about Mary being chosen to be Jesus's mom, and not her. I really get her, because even I have thought of it at times. However, God is good, I pondered and He led my thoughts about Mary's destiny and at the time she lived, the way she lives, the struggles she had.

Say that Mary was not born at the time she got born and she did not have godly parents. If she were not born atthat time, Jesus would not have been born either. People would have still been under the Old Testament Law, they would have died and went straight to hell or in Abraham's bosom realm, or who knows. And the killings would have happened continuously! All of this would have happened if Mary were not born at that time and age of that Era. She is known for being very pure and godly, and how did she come to that point? Through purifying fires, trials, sufferings and complete detachment of the world and its evil. God's grace was given to her since from the womb and so she became the way she became. Imagine that she was not pure and godly; God could not send Jesus. He is pure, He is the Son of God and the earthly mother had to be pure and goldy too. That was her destiny, there at that time, at that age. Somebody had to be that "someone", and that someone was Mary. What she did there, others could not do. What some would do here at the End Times, Mary could not do. Just like what Peter or Paul did, otherscould not do and what the souls of today do, Peter and Paulcould not do.

So, you see? Everybody is that "someone", fitting perfectly at the times they exist.

Imagine the Father saying, "I have this certain amazing plan filled with so much that I would like to do and release so much goodness through. I need someone to carry them out—" and He pulls out a small light straight from His heart, looked tenderly and smiling from ear to ear, "YOU!" He says. "I will equip you right now and make you fit for it!" And so, you appeared in existence.

Every small light He pulls form His heart is different and the life of one builds the life of another. That life builds the life of yet another and so on. Therefore, hold precious to this life the Lord has given you, especially your crosses – big or little – for its presence in your days matter more than you can dream or imagine.

Jesus mentioned somewhere (I cannot recall where exactly), how one soul going to Heaven and seeing the things God had prepared for her and the lives she would touch...That soul would not even think TWICE about wishing to change it for the destiny of another! That is how much your uniqueness affects those around you and how the uniqueness He invested into you and everyone else is so important. All in all, we are connected to each other to bring glory to God and to see His plan fulfilled, having His Children with Him for eternity.