Lust for Life

(Post title being a reference to the biographical novel, bearing the same title, of the life of Vincent van Gogh, written by Irving Stone)

 I've been thinking about Vincent van Gogh. And about sunflowers. About how he's the reason that I love sunflowers. Because they make me think of the person I'd like to be. I'd like to be the sort of person who would've stood by him. I'd like to think I would've stood by him. Because he was spectacular, even though he was different and difficult and tragic. He deserved to have somebody stand by him, just one person to take his hand when the rest of the world turned their backs on him, to make his life better and brighter when it was dark, to give him hope and strength and quiet the demons in his head. And that's the person I'd like to be. I'd like to love the different and the difficult, and to be able to see the spectacular in the different and the difficult. 

I've been thinking of Vincent van Gogh. You know he started out his life wanting to be a missionary? His whole heart wanted to serve God and help people, and he was so willing to give up what he was born for to do it. He wound up in a mining town, trying to preach hope and redemption to people who had literally no way out, and he made himself sick trying to help them, gave them everything he had, down to the shirt on his back, to try and make their lives better. And he just saw too much of pain and hurt to go on believing in a good God. And then these people, the mission board, decided that he wasn't good enough to do what he was doing, and that was enough to make him snap, to turn his back on God. I've wondered why God would let that happen to someone who loved Him and only wanted to serve Him, but then I kind of realized: it took snapping and turning away from God for him to make a selfish decision. Without that, he never would've chosen to do what made him happy for the rest of his life. Cause he didn't paint for anyone else, not a soul ever told him that was he was doing was good, was worth it. He did it because he loved it. And think of what the world gained because of it? Maybe God let him go, pushed him away, to let him do what he was born to do, and to give the world a gift. Maybe what we think of as the selfish decision, can sometimes be the most beautiful thing of all.