Read this and be moved.
Dear Reader,
I am going to tell you a story.
Just a few short months ago I took a trip to St. Louis with my youth group. We attended an evangelism conference called Dare2Share. And it was wicked! That place was filled with thousands of teens on fire for God. It was moving and inspiring and motivational. It made me want to burn with God. It was a great weekend. But it was also a really really challenging weekend.
A big part of the conference was learning how to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with our friends. It was equipping us to know what to say and how to say it. It was challenging us, as teenagers, to embrace the akwardness and start speaking outwardly about our faith in Christ. In fact, the motto for the weekend was "awkward is the new awesome." It was exciting stuff. But challenging. So challenging.
On the very first night, one of the first thing we were asked to do was to grab a Sharpie pen and write three names on our hands. These were to be the names of three people we knew who needed to hear about Jesus. People who needed prayed for and needed the love of Christ to rock their world. Three friends in need of the gospel.
And then throughout the weekend we were given time to ourselves and challenged to CALL each of those friends. Or to contact them in some way, no matter how awkward it be, and tell them about Jesus. Just start a coversation with them, and let the Holy Spirit take it from there. That was a challenge. It was a difficult challenge.
It probably shouldn't have been that hard. We were all Christians. We were living for the Lord. Yet we cared so much about what people thought about us. And being asked to make those phone calls just made the entire room feel tense.
So I....I got in touch with one of my three friends. Via text message. (Lame, I know.) The second one didn't answer and the third I had the wrong number for. But the thing is...the challenge wasn't supposed to stop at that conference. I was supposed to take it home with me and make sure that I got in contact with those friends and tons more people to share what amazing things Jesus has done for me and for them!
...But I didn't. I never talked to those other two people. I haven't to this day. I got back into the swing of life, I sent them a few prayers from my guilty conscience....and I went on.
One of those names written on my hand was Heather.
Heather died yesterday.
At the age age of seventeen, she went to bed and didn't wake up the next morning.
On the brink of figuring out who she was and what she was going to do with her life, it was all taken from her.
In a moment, everything can change.
I don't know if Heather ever found Jesus. I can only hope and pray that someone, somewhere, did what I did not. That someone sat her down and said YOU NEED JESUS.
If I could pick up that phone right now I would beg her to come to God. I would plead and sob and drive to wherever she was so that I could pray with her and be with her and show her the love that He has for her.
Maybe Heather knew God.
I don't have that answer.
But I know I could have.
I'm not writing this so that you will feel sorry for me and cry because my heart and soul have been crushed by the death of this good friend. I'm writing this so that you might read it and be changed. I writing this so that the urgency of the gospel might be made known to you!
Jesus needs us to spread his word TODAY.
Not tomorrow.
Not later.
Not when you get home.
Right now. This is the moment he needs you to move.
Heather was a beautiful girl.
She deserved so much more love than she was ever given.
And she will be my inspiration until the day I die.
She will be my motivation.
I am going to be different now because of Heather.
I am going to live by the following words:
Don't waste today.
Because if you knew tomorrow was not coming...
today would seem a lot more vital.
This isn't about living with "what ifs" and regrets.
Those things have no place here.
This is about being touched
And allowing a really crappy situation
To change your life for the better.
Today is vital.
Our time here is short.
We have a mission.
Glorify God.
I'm not saying you have to go out and witness on the streets every day of your life.
I'm just saying, make today count.
Work on yourself today.
Work on someone else tomorrow.
Spend time on your knees the next day.
Worship your heart out the day after that.
Just make it count, okay?
For Heather.
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