Well, this week I started reading Les
Miserables. It is a great book and has many important, vital things to think
about and discuss in the classroom or with friends, since they are applicable
to all of us. One of these things was a quote that I did not really talk over
with anyone, but that stuck in my mind and I have not been able to silence it
in my mind ever since, it is as follows: “Nothing being sacred to him, he had
taken up smoking”. For some reason this stuck with me, so I thought more in
depth about it. This quote is talking about a fellow named Tholomyes, who is an
example of a person you could have seen walking down the street back then in
France and a person you can see walking down the street today in Russia. A type
of person that has been disappointed in life, mankind or society, therefore not
able to see the value behind a person and a person’s life. None of the things
that had disappointed him he found sacred and worthy of the struggle to keep
them in good condition, so he gave up, he gave up on others and since he was
disappointed in himself, he gave up on himself. He gave up on trying to be
good, trying to save goodness and worthiness in himself and stopped believing
that there is goodness and selflessness in others. He did not see any value in
his life and health, which is why he started smoking. After experiencing disappointments and let
downs he lost track of his personal worth and the worth of others. When
Tholomyes gave up on himself, he did not only hinder himself, but his
girlfriend Fantine too. He not only ruined his only real shot at happiness and
meaning in life, but deprived her of that as well. So think about it and think
about it hard before giving up on yourself, because you will cripple not only
yourself, but those around you too.
Today I started praying that people would not
forget, and those that do not know, would learn that they are worthy. You and I
are worthy of love, compassion, sacrifice, forgiveness and second chances. I
also plead with everyone not to give up on themselves, no matter what and no
matter who. I plead with you not to discard yourself, even when others do,
because you are priceless. You and I were bought with the blood of the Son of
Man and if he did not discard us, what right do we have to throw ourselves
away?
This blog post made me to think about people's value once more! I liked the point where you mentioned about people give up themselves because they think they have no hope nor worth, because this is what non-believers generally consider about themselves.
ReplyDeleteI think Jesus is hope of our life. However, non-believers who don't know about Jesus don't have any hope. As a result, they believe that their lives are no longer worthy. Because of that, many people try to fill that emptiness by worldly things for temporal happiness, but really, this doesn't do anything. However, since we believe that Jesus is our eternal hope, we know who we are and we know the reason why we're living.
Your post also made me to think about how to value the others. I thought people blame and don't value others because they are afraid of showing their weaknesses, and that's why they act stronger than they really are. Your post made me to think that as Jesus did, we need to put others before us, serving them. I think that Christians are not the ones who try to brag about who they are and how great their God is, but the ones who don't hide their weaknesses but show it and say that God strengthened that weakness.
However, this raised me of some questions. When people gave up everything, were the consequences the result of their fault?