It's actually ironic that my last post, though quite some time ago, spoke of my funeral.
This morning, a colleague and friend of mine at Etix passed away while running in the Rock and Roll marathon in Raleigh. He was in his low 30's with two kids. Last Saturday, the father of one of my youth group guys passed away suddenly. This week will make 4 funerals I'll have attended over the past month.
Honestly, I've had a thought or two that somehow or another, death is following me; but I know that's silly.
It has definitely been difficult not to get depressed when death is all around. It's hard not to get sad or angry when those around you are leaving behind loved ones, friends, and lots of unanswered questions. I've had to watch a sophomore in high school cope with the loss of his father, had to see families grieve the passing of their loved one. Today, my friends, my coworkers are hurting, grieving, and stuck in a place without the answers that they so desperately search for. It's been the hardest, personally.
I can't stop thinking about how weird it will be to go to work tomorrow, and to see and personally experience the void that is the loss of a friend and coworker.
I'm not sure how I'll react. I'm not sure how my coworkers will react.
The reality that where someone once was they no longer are is profound. It's incredibly humbling for sure. Life can be so short.
HOWEVER. Oh, the great however.
In death, Christ gives us life. It isn't always pretty, it isn't always the way we expected, BUT through death Jesus gives us life. And, we're called to live life to the fullest.
In one of his last posts before he passed, my coworker wrote this: "Under promise and over deliver, care more and complain less, live and love in this moment..."
Live life to the fullest. Abide in Christ, and he will produce fruit in your life. "Life to the fullest" might not always fall into the plan that we had for ourselves, but I do know that life, when lived to the fullest in Christ, is more glorifying and more gratifying that any other form of life. We are called to LIVE into the resurrection, into the life that Christ defeated death for.
