What I learned from Breanna

It's the end of 2009 and I'm sitting in the Denver airport feeling a sense of urgency for you guys and for myself. Can you feel it too? I feel like big things are happening all around us but we're getting caught up in the ridiculous and missing the point of this life. And I can't stop thinking "What if this is my last day? What if I have one more day/week/year to live? When it's over will I have wasted the whole thing or did I make the most of every opportunity and think beyond myself to what really matters?"

When I was young, like in grade school, I remember having this thought - "If my life is all about me I will have wasted it", which is pretty good thinking for someone in grade school if I do say so myself. But I can't say that I've maintained that perspective and I know that I've gotten so caught up in myself and my life that I've spent a scary amount of time pursuing things that don't really matter. Like success, or the approval of people, or being the best/smartest/funniest person in the crowd. What about you guys? Have you taken time to think through 2009 and consider how you did with what God gave you this past year? Did you love the people around you and pursue Jesus as much as you could or did you accidentally get caught up in Twilight and your appearance and school/friend drama and forget that the one thing that matters most is knowing Jesus and following Him? It's so easy to do and we have this stupid enemy who works really hard to keep us off track and bogged down in things that can suck the life right out of us.

Let me tell you a little about my cousin's daughter Breanna. When she was twelve she was rushed to the hospital with a high fever that turned out to be stage four brain and spinal cancer.
For the next two and a half years she and her family fought that thing with everything they had, and the rest of us prayed and prayed and prayed that Jesus would heal her, but instead He came and took her home when she was fifteen. Fifteen. We never think that we might only have a few years on this earth and then it will be over, we tend to think that we'll have a long life and don't really consider the end much, but what if the end is next week? What Breanna did with her last few years was truly brave and beautiful, because she took the opportunity God gave her and did the work He had planned in advance for her to do. She asked almost every person who came into her room if they were a Christian and tried to talk to as many as would listen about this Jesus that she loved so much. Sitting in a hospital bed, blind and bald, that girl kept her eyes on Jesus and tried to love the people He had placed around her. She even said at one point "If my getting cancer brings even one person to Jesus it will have been worth it."

We won't know until Heaven the effect her short life had on all the people she met but I know she heard "Well done my good and faithful servant" when she finally met God face to face and her life has been a challenge to me ever since. The truth is that Jesus doesn't owe us a long life or a happy marriage or cute kids. He doesn't owe us an easy life or a good life or even the breath it takes to get through this one day. Each day is a gift from Him to be used either selfishly or for His purposes - we get to choose. So with that in mind I'm planning on living this year as if it's my last. I want to think each day that I might not see the next day and then live a life that I won't be ashamed of if Jesus were to show up tomorrow.

Feel free to join me if you haven't already made plans for 2010 :)