They said you stepped in front, in the very path of danger. I can only imagine what those last few seconds were like, as you saw the thing that would kill you move faster and faster toward you. It makes me wonder what your life has been like for the last few days, weeks, and months. What led you to that place, the place that made you believe your life wasn’t worth living anymore? Did someone close to you die? Did the one you love choose to walk away? Were you just overwhelmed and empty from a life of loneliness?
We’ve all been there, ya know. And not everyone will get it, but I understand the voices that were in your head telling you your life was over. I understand what it’s like to contemplate death, and I thank God every day that He intervened before the voices could convince me to go through with it. I wish that could have been your story, baby. I truly wish there would have been an intervention in your life from someone, somewhere. And who knows? Maybe there was, but there wasn't enough time to stop it.
Your story, what happened to you, makes me renew my commitment to not let go of people. To fight for them, no matter how broken, messy, or lonely they are. I’m not anyone’s savior, but baby, I’ll be their friend. I’ll be there for them long enough for them to know they are never alone. I’ll be to them what I wish someone could’ve been for you – a messenger carrying the message that there is a Lifeline Who will never let go.
Because at the end of it all – what’s more important? Being comfortable and right, surrounding ourselves with the neat people who are just like us? Or loving anyone, everyone, the people set before us? Entering in to someone’s pain isn’t pretty, my love. And maybe that’s why you’re gone now, because no one around you was brave enough. But I don’t want that to be said for the people around me. I don’t want someone making the choice to end their life all because I was too scared to love even in the darkest of places.
I’m going to love because I have first been loved. I am going to forgive as much as I can, because I know I have been forgiven for everything. I am going to walk into the hard places, and love someone amidst their pain, because that’s what SomeOne did for me. It might break my heart, and mean dirt underneath my fingernails but so what? He broke His heart and His body for me, and left me with a call to love… To care for, so that they might know how He loves.
It’s Hosea and Gomer all over again, loving the unlovable and pursuing into the worst and dirtiest places… And I won’t always get it right, and I might have moments like Hosea where I don’t want to chase, and I don’t want to obey, and I don’t want to go any further into the darkness. And I can promise I’ll have my moments of being like Gomer, running away from those who love and fight for me, falling back into my sin, but that’s where Grace lives. In those moments where our call leads us to the end of ourselves, Grace breathes. We end, He begins…
And maybe that’s where lives change, and we won’t lose any more people the way we lost you.
No comments:
Post a Comment