Today marks 5 months from my first real run in with death. People have obviously been passing away my entire life, I knew what death was but I had never really experienced death in a way that made it personal. I didn't know what the emotional side of death was until five months ago today. A friend of mine, and nearly everyone at my school, Eric Sorg, passed away extremely unexpectedly while on a family vacation at 3:43 on the morning of August 21st. It rocked my world. Eric and I weren't the best of friends but his passing was so different from all the others I'd heard about it the past, I knew that his absence was one the I would most definitely notice and miss. For days upon days it didn't real to me, I thought that I was living in a really sick dream and one day I would wake up and he'd be back. Unfortunately that wasn't the case; he was gone. Three weeks before the start of senior year, gone, just like that.
We had learned about his accident the day before and immediately a gathering was called together for the next day at the neighborhood park to pray for Eric, his health, and his well being. Everyone in the community was scared out of their minds, this kid was the nicest, happiest kid in probably all the neighborhood, and he'd spent hours at the bottom of a ravine and was now fighting for his life in the hospital. He didn't deserve this at all. The concept of him dying hadn't even crossed my mind making waking up on the 21st and finding out that he had even harder. We still met that morning, and instead of praying for our friend to make a quick recovery and return to normal life as soon as possible we ended up praying for comfort for the mourning family at the loss of their son and brother. That day made death so personal and real for me that I couldn't even wrap my mind around it. I hated death, I hated heights, I even hated God for a while for taking away a friend.
I think that death is something that we all live in fear of at some point in our lives. It's an unknown, and unexplored territory that we never want to venture into. Last night I was talking with my good friend Townshend about my response to the shooting at our school and he said something that really challenged me: "We should not live our lives in fear. God has the destined date, and if more lives can come to Christ through my death than what I could do with my life, then God ought to take me." Those two sentences made me sit back and think for a second, he is totally right. Death is really, really for human kind but God commands us in Joshua 1:9 to "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." In death and in life God is walking right along side of us and we shouldn't be afraid of the hurdles that we encounter, even death, because He is so much bigger than all of the things we are afraid of, even death. To bring Jeremiah 29:11 (my fav verse at the moment) into this situation, remember that he has "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." He will never forsake us and always lead us down the exact right path to help us be lights to this dark world and brings the dead to life through a relationship with him.
After Eric died I realized something: he wasn't expecting to die that day. Death could be lurking around the corner for each and everyone of us and we don't even know it. We've all heard the concept of "live today like you're going to die tomorrow" and thanks to Townshend I found a really encouraging verse on this sublject. Ecclesiastes 9:10 says "Whatever your hand finds, do it, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." Don't live a today that you will regret tomorrow because tomorrow may never come. Live TODAY for God, live TODAY to the best of your ability and find a way to glorify HIM in your every thought word and deed. Death is scary, but with God it doesn't have to be. Thank God for that (:
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