"Smoke and Mirrors"

"For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm." (Psalms 73:4) As odd as this might sound, I can relate to most of this, except for the firm part; I seem to remember wearing a mask throughout the day, but at night, crying like a baby. Back in the day, I really had no fear of death, as in dying. I did not want to necessarily die right away, but it wasn't something that I was particularly afraid of facing; at least not the way one might think someone should react to possible death. Did I face possible death? I thought I was going to die several times; so, I guess you could say that I did. For ten years of my life, I was living the party life; from the time I was almost twelve, till I was almost twenty-two, there were times when I had taken so many drugs, most people would have died with those many substances in their system. And believe me, there were times when I thought it was time for me to go. But I would just lay there on my back, as if I was laying in a coffin with my arms crossed over my chest, and I would wait to die. I know it's not a pretty picture, but it is how I remember facing death; or at least what I thought was going to be death. As far as the crying at night, that was mostly due to relationships; I was not a very nice person, and I had hurt several people in my life. Mostly my mother, since I really put her through some very difficult years. Not that see had not been drinking prior, but my running away and staying out all night, most likely did not help. By the time I was thirteen, she had a nervous breakdown; and she even needed to be in an institution for a month or two. I really blamed myself, since I was the oldest, I was also the most rebellious of her children. I don't know why I am sharing this, except to relate my experience with what this verse is saying; but one thing is for sure, none of that was worth the hurt! You can never really take back the hurt that you cause others. Sure, you can ask for them to forgive you, and they can even say that they have; but it's not ever really gone completely. My mother has been in heaven for at least twenty years, and I can never get some of those moments out of my head. We can be so cruel sometimes. If we only could know how to love others sooner, what a wonderful world this would be. Which causes me to think of all these children being taught that God does not exist; I believed in God, and look what a mess I was; I can't imagine what I would have been if I thought He was not there...
"Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. But as I look at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless -like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere. So I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and madness (for who can do this better than I, the king?). I thought, "Wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness. For the wise can see where they are going, but fools walk in the dark." Yet I saw that the wise and the foolish share the same fate. Both will die. So I said to myself, "Since I will end up the same as the fool, what's the value of all my wisdom? This is all so meaningless!" For the wise and the foolish both die. The wise will not be remembered any longer than the fool. In the days to come, both will be forgotten. So I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless -like chasing the wind." (Ecclesiastes 2:10-17) NLT