Dot Dot Dot

Did I mention that there would be a lot of randomness in my posts?  Well, consider yourself warned!  This could possibly be one of the most random things I've thought of yet, but as I was trying to fall asleep last night I was composing this blog in my head, so I figured if I'm going to go to all of that trouble and postpone sleep, maybe I should just go on, put it in a blog, and get it out of my head!  So, here we go . . .

I think that the ellipsis is quite possibly my favorite form of punctuation.  I definitely overuse them.  Just about anything I write will contain an ellipsis in it somewhere (just look at the end of the previous paragraph!).  According to wikipedia, an ellipsis is "a row of three periods or full stops" and I LOVE them.  I think the appeal for me is that an ellipsis leaves things more open-ended.  It's more like a long pause with the ability to come back to that conversation later, whereas a period has such a sense of finality to it.  A period means that it's the end of that statement and now you must move on.  An ellipsis allows for more elaboration . . . it's like the speaker is just taking a deep breath before delving deeper into the conversation.  For me, an ellipsis allows me to gather my thoughts and expound on an idea.  I guess you could maybe compare it to "um" in a conversation, but it looks so much more intelligent that "um" sounds - at least it does to me!  I like the way an ellipsis creates a more fluid thought.  Periods tend to chop things up more than I like.  I don't like my thoughts "finely chopped".

Finally, as I was attempting to drift off to sleep last night, I thought to myself - why would anyone want to read a blog about a form of punctuation that I really enjoy?  My answer - they wouldn't.  So, in an attempt to make this more interesting, I began to think about how an ellipsis could apply to life.  This is what I came up with . . .

Many people who don't know Christ probably view death as a period (assuming they look at life by way of punctuation).  It is final.  Life is over.  End of story.  However, we as Christians get to look at death as an ellipsis . . . it's just a brief pause as we move from the life we knew to the life that's more amazing than we ever could have imagined.  Our story continues . . . and, really, if we think about it . . . death is only the beginning of that story.  There you have it . . . my insight into the ellipsis . . . and now maybe I'll be able to fall asleep tonight . . . dot dot dot.