Have you ever considered life? Seriously? Just actually sat down and thought about it, about how much its given you, all that you have, everything you've been so greatly blessed with. Be honest now. Just give it your deepest answer, have you ever just realized everything you have is all you need to be a good person? And that maybe, being not the best at everything is what's right for you. Because when you're faced with death, you see that you have everything...
At my church there's this 13 year old girl, who on October 9th will be 14. She has spent her entire life with major health problems, mostly in her heart. All she wants is to be a normal teenage, 8th grade girl. When I was in 8th grade she sat next to me in choir and to be honest, she wasn't the best singer, but she had a big heart and an attitude to match. And her name is Marissa Orlando. Beautiful, inside and out.
Could you imagine it? From birth being fragile in your main life source, your heart. Having to spend your life getting surgeries, pretty much living in the hospital. But even through it, Marissa, she smiles and tries to be happy. Its hard to face trials in your life, but what if they were so hard they brought you face-to-face with death? How scared would you be? What if you were the one who had to be enduring this? The one who no one would have ever expected to be like this? Do you ever consider what you have?
Be grateful. Look at you, look at me. My whole I've been nothing but a lazy bum, sitting around doing nothing, wasting my time. Eating junkfood and not getting up and making myself a healthy, happy person. Now look at where I am. I'm blessed. Because even though I've spent so time being so unhealthy I still have a strong heart and lungs, because God blessed me that way, he gave me life that was strong and willful. But one girl, one happy-go-lucky girl who I have been so ever blessed to meet in my life has touched me, without even knowing it.
I hear her story, I've talked to her, I've sang beside her, and boy do I wish I had been more aware of her life beside me. Lives are precious but we take it all for granted. We take everything we have for granted. We're lazy and stupid. Look at school for example. How many of you are relieved at the end of the day when you don't have any homework assignments? How many of you don't want to study because it takes up too much time? Yeah, well look at Marissa who begs to have her homework brought to her, because every moment of her precious life needs to be lived to its fullest. Why are we any different?
Why do we look at our time as endless, as if ever second doesn't matter, as if we can let an hour go by watching TV or texting or messaging each other on Facebook pass us and we don't even care? Why do we act so stupid? Why do we take our LIVES for granted? We only have so long to live, and so far we're screwing it up.
God has created us to live our lives to the fullest, doing his work, doing our work, loving each other, helping each other. He didn't create us to sit around and ignore him, or ignore the lives of others. He's brought us up to care and we obviously aren't listening. I'm guilty as charged, I've spent my life on the couch with the TV only eye shot away. But it took one girl, and one story to change my life, to change how I see things.
I'm freaking blessed. God has gifted me with a healthy heart and lungs, with a healthy body which I have wasted and ruined. God has gifted me with talents including writing, drawing, and singing, and what have I done? Compared myself to others. Ruined my self into believing that thought I've been gifted, its just not good enough. God has gifted me with beauty, inside and out, but I've spent my life acting like I'm the ugliest thing to walk this planet, and I ignore it when other people notice what God has given me. Why do we treat ourselves like this? Why do I treat myself like this? Why do I act like I've been forsaken and that God has made me in ruins only to make me experience torture itself, because he hasn't? He loves me, and he loves you, and he loves that little girl who opened my eyes, even though his plan including making her go through what she has.
You think: how can God be so cruel to just a little 13 year old girl? But he does this so people who are wasting away, people like me, can have their eyes and hearts opened and can change, so they can move towards him instead of away. He's put many people through hardships, only so they can learn and teach others. Where would you be if God never put you through anything? Would you be uptight and mean? Would you be so full of yourself that fear meant nothing to you, because God made fear nonexistent in your world? Is that the kind of life you'd like to live? Hated by others, loved only by God, selfish and mean. Is that what God has called for us to do with our lives?
But you know what the sad thing is: Marissa treated everyone nicely back then in choir, and everyone else treated her like crap. They called her names, talked about her behind her back, thought cruel things about her, even dismissed her as a friend because they were afraid of loosing their reputation because she wasn't the most popular girl. And I need to be included in that list of people...
But now that I see straight, I'm gonna stand up and apologize and when I see her again tell her that I am definitely sorry for not being a good friend to her when she was to me. I'm gonna hug her and love her, like God has called for me to do. And because God loves me as much as I love her, I know I am forgiven and that He knows I am sorry for what I've done and that I've changed. It took this dramatic turn in Marissa's life for me to see, that I've been living in the darkness for so long, pretending that I'm actually seeing the light, when all I had was nothingness around me.
So the point I'm trying to make is be grateful, for everything you have. Your health, your friends, your family, your talents, and your life. God has blessed you with those things and we just take it all for granted, pretending like it doesn't matter if another second of our life is wasted. And we also need to make a bigger effort to love others, because God wants us to, that's what he's called us to do. He wants us to look at those who need and help and say, "I'm here for you, because I love you." We need to be more kind and thoughtful and we need to do stuff for others, for those who are sick and unhealthy, or who are poor and weak. Because that's why God gave us our life, to help other lives. We're called to follow his lead and take our own stand on saving the world. And if we don't, we might as well not have a life at all...
If you've been touched by Marissa's story, stand up and talk about it. She's one of God's messengers. He's sent her to show us that we aren't forsaken, we aren't damned, we still have a chance. He's shown us that even though we've been living in darkness this long, we have a chance to follow Him. And if we ignore this, well, kudos to you, and good luck. But my eyes have been opened up to my friend's story, and I hope yours have too. Learn to love, because in the end, that's all that matters. Love really, really matters...
