Survival?

At my job, I encounter many different people. Mostly, however, they are bankers, accountants, lawyers, consultants... the sort of high end, high class, high paying type of jobs that some of us dream about having one day. The allure of a big pay check, cute skirt suits and authority is what some people crave. What they tend to miss is the high stress that often comes along with all of these so called fabulous things.
More often than not, the people that I encounter seem to be stressed to the max every day of their life. Today one of our regulars came in. She is a beautiful, mid-30's business woman with a wonderful sense of humor and an immaculate eye for style. And today, as with most, she was stressed. After a nice conversation, as per usual, I shouted out 'Survive!' to her as she made her exit. This single word was greeted with a laugh and an 'I'll see you tomorrow".
This got me to thinking. Is it ok to merely survive?
Many people talk about survival as it is a positive thing. Which it is! To survive a hard time in your life is brilliant. To survive after your husband dies, to deal with this pain, creates a beautiful and strong woman. To survive a plane crash like that young girl did recently off the coast of Africa I believe, a miracle. To survive a rape, emotional abuse, even something like a bad break up or a bad performance. Many music groups have sang about it. Diana Ross produced the wonderful hit that I'm sure every girl has sang in her life, "I Will Survive". Beyonce, while she was still with Destiny's Child, had all preteen and teen girls (and though their not willing to admit it, a lot of 20+ women as well) singing "I'm A Survivor". Why, there's even a t.v. show about survival. But is it enough to merely survive?
I don't think that it is. I used to think of myself as a victim. Eventually I came to view myself as a survivor. But now I realize that this is not enough. Because I do not think that you can really LIVE if you are merely surviving. Life goes on around you, but what happens to you? You survived, yes, and that's incredible and wonderful. But now... once we've gotten to the step of being able to believe that we HAVE survived, we need to take that one step further... we need to live. We need to embrace life. Embrace every day that the Lord has given us. I'm not saying that we cannot grieve whatever happened to us. But we were made to live for so much more that mere survival... we were made to live life, and live life abundantly. With passion. With joy. With love.
Embrace the life you were given. Embrace the hardships. Acknowledge the struggles. Deal with them. Move on. Become not only a survivor... but breathe into life once again.
Blessings and love
Deena.