Done Living

Two Sundays ago at church really struck something inside of me. Justin McRoberts was a guest speaker (if you don't know he is a Christian music artist). His main message was to introduce Compassion International, a Christian charitable organization that sponsors children in impoverished nations. As part of his message he sang a few of his songs, one in particular stood out more than the others. It was titled 'Done Living'. The chorus of the song goes like this:

"You see the question isn't are you going to suffer any more, but what will it have meant when you are through? The question isn’t are you going to die, you’re going to die, but will you be done living when you do?”

The question really hit me; if I died tomorrow, would I be done living? Would people look back at my life and say that it was full, that it was not a wasted life. When I evaluate that question myself, I can't say that it would be. I have changed and grown so much over the past year and a half that it still continues to amaze me. Yet when I really sit down and dig deep and ask myself, 'am I living the full life, a life full of God, full of love, full of selflessness, full of joy; am I full?', I would not be able to say yes. There are definitely moments in my life where I live this out, but as a whole, I am not there. It's not so much a somber thought as it is an eye opening one. Where is my life right now, and where is it going? Why am I not living out life as it was meant to be? It's amazing how we as people tend to forget what God has brought us through and where He has brought us from, and focus on the insignificant current frustrations of life of the present.

I leave in two weeks to spend six days in the mountains at a high school camp, where my job is to portray the love of Christ to kids who have never known it, and to show them that the full life is the only life worth living.

I came into this world full of life, full of hope, full of dreams.

And slowly over the years I allowed the world to strip me of these things.

Every step taken, every success made, every worldly gain,

Brought me no more closer to joy or peace or rest, but instead diseased me with pain.

And when I could no longer contain inside myself all the anger, hurt, fear and doubt; when I no longer had the strength to cope,

God ripped it out of me, every last bit, till I thought I was dead and was left with no hope.

But in that place and through those times, the conclusion that I drew,

Is that He loves me more than I could imagine, and that He really does make all things new.

And I will continue to fight to hold on, to embrace God as my life, my hopes and my dreams, to continue to grow from that deep planted seed.

For I was created to be a light, an encouragement, a reflection, a friend; and when I get to the end I will say it with a smile, I have lived the full life, I am done living indeed.