When you signed up to read to the Ramblings you really did sign up to read ramblings...and tonight (this morning? What time is it anyway?) you get to hear all about my thoughts on the "New Best Book EVER"....
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS
I was in McCracken, KS, and decided to download the book to my phone for something to do on the drive to Lakin...I proceeded get out my reading glasses and shush my dad every time he tried to make conversation. Needless to say, I had read the whole book in the course of 5 hours.
If you haven't read TFINOS (The Fault in Our Stars) here is a quick summery. (Spoiler Alert)
Hazel Grace is sixteen and has lungs extremely damaged by cancer. She knows that she has only has a number of years to live. She meets Augustus, who is seventeen and recovering from osteosarcoma, at a cancer support meeting.
Hazel and "Gus" immediately hit it off and start falling love. (And like every other teenage girl, I sort of fell in love with they way they fell in love...which is what had me hooked on the book.) Long story short, she and Augustus date, they travel to Amsterdam to meet Hazels favorite author Peter Van Houten. While in Amsterdam Gus tells Hazel that his cancer has returned worse than ever. Hazel Grace stays by his side, falling more in love as time goes on, until he dies. (I may have shed a few tears at this point, making me glad I accidentally bought water proof mascara.)
But the part that really got me was Hazel Grace seeing Gus for the last time. She truly believed that was THEE last time she would ever see him. Making the end of the book utterly hopeless, completely heart breaking, and making me never want to fall in love. Why fall in love if in the end we just have to say goodbye?
Skipping back in the book a little bit, Gus says that he fears oblivion. Then after he dies, Hazel reads Facebook posts to his wall that are along the lines of, "You'll always be in our memories." So therefore he is remembered. Yet when that person dies, those memories are gone. Making oblivion inevitable.
While the name of God is used multiple times throughout the book, it is always used in vein and never referring to God himself. While Hazel does admit to praying, she says she does not need to believe in a omnipotent God to pray. She and Augustus talk about life after death (the whole beginning of the book we see hazel preparing for death, and the second half we see Gus preparing for death. The whole dang book is a build up for them to die.) Gus does admit to believing in a capitol S-Something after death but does not say he believes in a heaven or a hell.
When I finished the book I was left feeling empty. We live a hopeless life where death is inevitable and oblivion is gunna happen. Then I was reminded
1. That I had hope.
2. That there is more after death and that when I die, I know where I am going. I know that when I do fall in a love so deep the oceans would be jealous (A Hazel Grace and Augustus love, or if you haven't read the book-A love like Johnny and June, Roy Rogers and Dale) and I die, or the love of my life dies-As Hazel calls Gus-I know I will see them again. And live with them for eternity. There will be no 'end'.
3. That I will be remembered, because my name has been written in the Lambs Book of LIFE.
I know that if Hazel and Gus were more than fictional characters, and Gus could come back to life to tell Hazel one thing, I know with absolute certainty what he would say.
"Hazel Grace, there is a heaven, there is a hell, there is a God, and I plead with you to get to know him."
I'm really not sure how to wrap up this post up...maybe because it's 2:00 a.m. and the redbull is wearing off...maybe because I'm not entirely sure what this Rambling's point was, except to encourage you that death is not the end of this life. That we have oh so much more to look forward to.
Anyway, I think I'll just leave you with this verse.
1. Corinthians 15:54-57
"Then, why our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:
"Death is swallowed up in victory!
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?"
For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ."
-Missy