I was baptized Catholic as a baby, and I went to church every week, but I was not a fervent child by any stretch. In high school, that all changed, and I became convinced of Christianity. From that point on, the idea of eternity always stood out to me. We have this short life to determine our eternity. This life, through all its twists and turns, is the path to our eternity, where we hope to embrace God forever. But the immensity of eternity is hard to grasp, so we use analogies: this life is like a drop of water in the ocean of eternity, or a shadow compared to the whole person we will be in eternity. Of course, these are only images, and they ultimately fail to portray how immense and magnificent eternity really is.

There are multiple ways to look at this life in light of eternity. Two in particular have come to me powerfully at different moments of my life.