Life is Short, Love Boldly

"Love and say it with your life." ~St. augustine

In this season of my life God has been showing me just how short our time here on earth really is. We were created for eternity and our time here is really so brief. I am once again reminded that my perspective needs to be an eternal one, not just a here and now. Basically it comes down to three questions:

Am I loving God fully (more than anything or anyone else)?

Am I surrendering to Him completely in all areas of my life (and obeying no matter the cost)?

Am I showing His love to every single person I encounter (selflessly and unconditionally)?

God has been working in my heart through recent situations. It all began with a sudden and shocking death in my family. When someone I loved died far too young. It wasn't fair. He wasn't even 20. I struggled through this knowing full well that God was still on His throne, He is the Almighty One, and He will redeem even the worst of tragedies. Yet I was hurt. I wanted to be angry. I wanted an answer. But like always, the Father gently pulled me in close and whispered, "My sweet child, I hate this as much as you do. You are right, it's not fair and he was much too young. But don't doubt my love or my power. Don't you know it hurts me greatly to see my children in pain. Don't you remember how much I love you. I watched my Son agonize and die on the cross because I couldn't bear to be seperated from you for eternity. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world." These words spoke straight to my heart and continue to bring comfort. Instead of allowing Satan to claim victory in this tragedy by allowing my anger and hurt to take over, I allowed God to claim yet another victory in my life. I have decided to learn and grow through tragedy as I have only become more firm in my resolve to live everyday of my life passionately, recklessly, and fully for the GLORY OF GOD. I continue to learn more and grow stronger in my resolve as I work everyday with the dying. As a nurse's aide at a hospice center I experience life and death on a daily basis. Of course, death is a part of life. We all will die. But sometimes, when the person is young, it is hard to watch. I find myself questioning, wondering, and on the edge of doubting God's sovereignty yet again. A 27 year old with cancer, a wife and a baby....Lord why do I have to watch him die? You can heal him so why aren't you doing something?! I watch a woman in her fifties waste away as the cancer eats her up. I see the heartbreak of the families. I feel it in my heart too. Somedays I feel like my heart won't even be able to beat anymore because it feels so broken for all the hurting around me. But this, this is what God has asked of me right now. To walk alongside patients and their families in the final and often hardest days of their lives. It is a privelege to love them. To allow God in me to minister to them in His great love. It is hard. It breaks my heart daily. But the day things stop breaking my heart, is the day I will have lost it all. After all, I pray often that God will break my heart for what breaks His heart, and I know it breaks His heart to see us in pain. In this world, there is so much pain, heartbreak, and tragedy and if we let it, it will overwhelm us and paralyze us into a state of helplessness. My heart is so broken. It breaks for the families I encounter daily. It breaks for the 143 million children who have no one to love them, hug them, kiss them, or hold them. It breaks for the children forced (and sometimes sold by their very own parents) into a life of modern day slavery. It breaks for the young woman and even young girls who are forced to think that prostitution is their only way out. It breaks for the millions of people who don't know Jesus as their loving Savior. It breaks. But God, in His perfect love, holds me together. Reminding me that I can't fix it all and He isn't asking me to. He simply calls us to be obedient and love boldy, passionately, and without end.

"No one person can change the world,

but you can change the world for one person."

~George Hoffman

"Jesus had one objective in life. He wanted to glorify the Father. His attention was on the Father. He came to do the Father's will. Think of how far we have drifted from Jesus' objective." ~Ron Auch