Life is real, life is earnest

From here via Pinterest

I'm chilling in the kitchen, eating my late-night dinner of reheated pizza and fresh blueberries. I just got home from a 10-hour workday, and I'm exhausted.

More than exhausted, though, I'm feeling very sober and thoughtful tonight. Three of my very dearest friends were in a terrible car wreck yesterday and narrowly, barely, Providentially escaped a horrible death. Two of these friends are Christians, and while their death would have been by far the most excruciating and tortuous thing I have ever experienced, there was something worse - my third friend is not a Christian. Her last chance at accepting Christ was just a breath away from being gone forever.

I have never before felt like I did when I looked at the pictures of the crushed back seat of the car, where she had been sitting. It was that close. This wasn't a hypothetical made-up character, or an emotional ploy in a tent-meeting sermon. This was a real live girl whom I've hugged and laughed with and rolled my eyes at and shared coffee with on a cold winter afternoon. And she's lost. And she almost was lost, for all eternity.

What have I been doing with my life?

Too often, the gray, mundane hum of daily life dulls us to the vivid, intense reality of the spiritual world in which we really live. Life isn't really about wooden spoons and spreadsheets and iPhones and wallpaper paste. Life is about praying, and loving, and teaching, and ultimately showing and telling the wonderful news of Christ's rescuing death and resurrection - not just to the impersonal masses of humanity, but also to our cubiclemates, our kids' babysitters, our friends.

I don't know how to go from shyly showing my faith in nonverbal ways to courageously, lovingly telling people what the Bible says about their need for Him. But after today, I can see how important it is that I learn. It sounds so cliche, but it's so true that we really never know when we will never see someone again. And it's not always the other person - next time it could be me in the accident. Or it could be me who moves, or gets immersed in grad school, or quits Facebook. Or whatever. I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I know I have today, now, this moment.

Abba, make my love for others as bold and brave as Yours!!