So, today/tomorrow is Palm Sunday, as you know.

Here in Spain, it's a really big deal, with processions and everything.

What really got me thinking today, though, were the palms.

The same palms that get waved around excitedly this weekend will be rubbed on people's foreheads in the form of ash next year. The same people waving the palms will have the palms rubbed on their foreheads (or as is the tradition here, dumped on their heads) to remind them of their mortality.

But I think it may be more than just a reminder that we will die.

I have a really good book that my brother gave me about a year ago, and I unfortunately don't have it with me in Spain to look up the author.

But in the first chapter, he talks about how God created everything out of nothing. And in fact, the only reason anything exists is that God is constantly willing everything into existence.

As in, we think of everything around us as so solid, so indestructible. Matter can't be destroyed. We tend to think of each other and of pretty much everything around us as more real than God, whom we cannot see or hear directly.

But really, all of this is made out of nothingness. We are made out of nothingness, and it is the constant loving will of God that stops every nano-particle from simply blinking out of existence.

It's a strange thing to contemplate. Much more than "From dust you were made and to dust you will return." You were made out of nothing.

Absolutely everything around you, in your room, even people, are formed out of nothing. And God is holding everything together, absolutely everything. He is actually the something, the only something in all of existence, who is weaving through everything and causing all things to exist.

I feel like I'm sitting in a bed, in a room, in a building, situated firmly on the Earth, held in place in space by the gravity of the sun. Everything seems so solid, so real.

But in reality, I am sitting in the middle of a vast universe of nothingness, all being constantly willed into existence by God himself. This bed, this room, my computer, even myself, could vanish back into pure nothingness at any moment if God willed it.

It's kind of a weird yet exhilarating experience to realize that God is really willing every subatomic particle into existence around you at this very moment.

I'll continue this train of thought with tomorrow's post.

I'm praying for you!

:)