Will You Live?

Within the past couple weeks, I've heard of three untimely deaths of acquaintances and a family member.  Early 20's, early 30's, early 40's.  So sad, so tragic.

I loved Ann Koskamp's recent post:

You’re going to have to get it: Death may be certain, but when it comes is uncertain, which is what makes the living gloriously uncertain — a choice.

Who knows if you’ve really got time to clean out the garage, or to read this endless news feed, or to pick up and move to Haiti and live your dream of spending the fleeting time holding the hands of forgotten ones.

The road ahead would seem obvious if you knew how much road ahead there was.

No one tells you that. No one tells you if you have just enough time to laugh till your belly hurts, one more time with the beautifully strange people you love, if you have time to pull their neck close and whisper hoarse in their ear that there aren’t enough words to say what a love like this has done to you.

No one tells you if you have enough time to try to change the world or just enough time to try change your own story.

If you knew how much time you have to live, you’d know how to live.

But that is the thing: You don’t know how much time you have to live — so you have to make time to make the life you want to live.

No one can tell you how much time you’ve got for what matters. Only you can tell how much time you’ll make for what matters.

Everyone knows they will die. They just don’t know when. So forget about the when. Who cares when you die. The real question is: when will you start to live?

You already know: You will die.

So the only question that remains is: Will you live?

Will you risk impossible things today so you remember how much you love the rush of real oxygen in your lungs, adrenaline in your veins?

Will you forget thinking there is no way out– only a way through? Sometimes the only way through is not taking the next step — it’s taking a wild leap of faith. Take it. Do it. Live it.

When will you lay there just to listen to the sound of him breathing in sleep beside you?

When will you memorize the way her hair feels as you stroke it back from her brow? When will you bend over the cup and inhale the steam of tea and breathe in living? When will you have time to walk in the woods with no place to go but looking up?

When will you be done with the armed way of living, the harmful way of living — when will you drop the arms you’ve crossed in front of you like some cynical shield, steeling you from really feeling?

When will you join the brave and move the crossed arms into open hands, into open hands to receive and really feel the glory that is called life as it falls into them –

How syrup saturates the pancakes and wind can lift your hair at the roots and how you can feel grounded just by inhaling. How tears can fall like rain and wash your wounds right clean, how those wounds are beauty marks that make you one of the medalled warriors. How there is common grace everywhere but it is startling uncommon to taste it on the tip of your tongue or feel it pulse through you.

The question isn’t: How long have I got to live?

The point is simply: You got to live. You get to live. Today.

My cousin's 22 year-old daughter died suddenly from an undetected genetic heart defect.  I was so happy my dad and sister were able to go out for the funeral...all of my dad's family is in Idaho and west.  It was a treat to see the photos of everyone together.

I was showing my girls the pictures, explaining how the people are related to us, but found I was having a little trouble with the generation thing.  At first I told them that the two outside girls were my cousins, but then I had to account for the mom in the middle...my cousin's wife.

 And then we got to this picture and I said, these are my cousins.  To which Avery replied, Wow, your cousins are old!  Yeah, I'm not sure when I got bumped up into this generation.

I just love this picture of my dad and his nephews and can almost here the laughter filling the room, even amid such a difficult time.

 This is a sweet picture, too, four of my dad's six siblings.

We GET to live.  Today!  So thankful!