life

oh my goodness... so i was just now standing outside talking with my neighbors (who i rarely get to talk to, it's almost always "hey! see ya!" or a wave of the hand, a sweet smile as i'm putting on my shades and i'm out of the parking lot)...the mother shared her life with me. she died in a car accident and everything in her body was damaged to the bone. broke both ankles, left knee, left hip, her 5th lumbar, no tissue support around her spleen, fractured her entire rib cage, had 24 stitches to her head, and there was alot more... she told me she remembered everything that happened when she died for those 12 minutes of her life. she saw a dark tunnel, it scared her, and then she saw the white light. she saw her grandmother and her great-grandmother who wore enormous white wings and she even tried touching them but they wouldn't let her. then she saw her grandmother's two children and they "escorted her out" where she found herself in the hospital, on heavy doses of medicines. this was another day for her. it was 6am when she was driving to work. just driving along until her car skidded because of a flat tire.

her story reminds me so much of the words Francis Chan uses... "It's easy to think about today as just another day. An average day where you go about life concerned with your to-do list, preoccupied by appointments, focused on family, thinking about your desires and needs. On the average day, we live caught up in ourselves. On the average day, we don't consider God very much. On the average day, we forget that our lifr is truly a vapor. But there is nothing normal about today. Just think about everything that must function properly just for you to survive. For example, your kidneys. The only people who really think about their kidneys are people whose kidneys don't work correctly. The majority of us take for granted our kidneys, liver, lungs, and other internal organs that we're dependant upon to continue living. What about driving down the road at sixty-five miles per hour, only a few feet away from cars going the opposite direction at the same speed? Someone would only have to jerk his or her arm and you would be dead. I don't think its morbid; I think it's reality."

i told her tonight that i'm so glad she is here. i think i even remember saying something like "welcome back" (what? haha) she is here with us. on earth... able to enjoy this little life we have however she does. i hope i can encourage her. she even said when we both left to our own place "i will be talking with you more later" sometimes, i think it's somewhat strange how people can open up so honestly about their own personal lives. but when i hear stories like these, it makes me think how much i want to experience Heaven on earth. seeing miracles happen is one thing i am trying to work on-to believe with that childlike faith. hearing her story tonight, has really pushed me. i just kept asking questions... and she answered all of them. maybe why she said "i'll be talking with you later."



"Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever." -Frederick Buechner

"Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." -James 4:13-14