Every Time You Run...

You’ve probably seen a picture or read the Poem “Footprints In the Sand”. It is one a poem of perspective and comfort for those in difficult times. A Poem that points out even in times we may feel alone and abandoned, we are not.

You may know that Courtney and I volunteer at our church to work with the High School Youth group. I have come to realize that perspective is sometimes a difficult thing for students to understand. They are at a point of feeling like they should be treated as an adult without the majority of the real life adult experiences. They feel like they have their whole life in front of them, there is rarely a sense of urgency. I have watched on numerous occasions from the back of the room as Chad, the youth pastor speaks passionately to these kids about HIS life experiences, and why there is no time like the present. He tells them stories that shock my world, stories of missed opportunities to say “I love you” because of an unexpected death, stories of suicides because someone thought life was hopeless and the destruction of emotions that the suicide leaves in its wake, stories of bullying because it makes someone feel good to demean someone else. None of these things were something people saw coming. I can’t say that I can relate or “understand” what some of these students go through, I wish I could. What I do know, is that reaching out to people and living your life with a sense of urgency can be contagious.

I am struck by 2 stories when I thought about this. The first is on the night we went out to celebrate our friend Megan’s birthday. Life was fun. For a few hours we laughed, told stories, enjoyed being together, and forgot about life’s difficulties and struggles. As we all drove home late that night, we came across a car accident. It was a single car that lost control and had ended up on its side an ejected the driver. It must have just happened only minutes before we came across the accident scene. We could see emergency vehicles arriving, and as we passed, we saw something that I might never forget. We saw the car on its side, and we saw the legs of a woman lying on the ground as a small group of people surrounded her. We could see blood on her legs, and one gentleman desperately trying to keep her alive actively doing CPR. I remember Courtney being absolutely traumatized, and I really didn’t know what to say to comfort her. The next day we found a news clipping about the accident saying alcohol was not involved and it was unclear why the driver had lost control. The woman was only 23 years old. I wonder if she was living life with a sense of urgency or if she was living as if she had another 80 years to “figure life out”?

The other story is the opposite side of that continuum. You know we just got married. Just the other day Courtney was going through the wedding photos to start the process of identifying which ones we want for our formal wedding album. As is the habit with her, this exercise quickly devolved into just going down memory lane with squeals and giggles. I rolled my eyes while sitting on the other couch. I was way more interested in writing an immature Blog post about “carpooling”. What Courtney did next is why I love her, and is something I am not as good at as she is. She decided to share the joy that she gets with from those photos with our photographer. She didn’t need to, after all, she was paid to do just this wasn’t she? Courtney just wrote a simple note expressing how thankful she was. I am pretty sure our photographer was a bit taken back by it. I know she gets “thank yous” all the time as almost a course of business. This was different. This wasn’t in reply to an email, or as we picked up our pictures. It was just genuine expression of gratitude and a compliment for the work she had put in to make Courtney’s life just that much better. Our photographer decided to repost what Courtney wrote as her facebook status saying essentially, this made my day, don’t forget the power of a compliment.

It can be difficult to live with a sense of urgency. It can be more difficult to reach out to someone. A compliment might be all you do. I am constantly saying to Courtney that we need to be looking for ways to “plant seeds”. I am not talking about growing a garden. I am talking about planting seeds of Hope. For some it is just that simple, a small seemingly insignificant compliment that makes them think about their life and putting it into perspective. For others it is deeper. For Courtney and I, it is planting seeds in the youth we work with about the genuine love of Jesus. We don’t beat them over the head with it, we just want them to think about it. Plant the seed. Let the seed grow. Whether you believe in Jesus or not, planting seeds of Hope is something we can all appreciate. Living with a sense of urgency is difficult, but in my view necessary. If you feel that Hope is lost. I assure you it is not! If you know someone who is going down that path, reach out, let them know they are appreciated. Let them know they are loved. You have no idea what seed you might plant that might one day grown to plant seeds of Hope in others you don’t even know. Hope, can be contagious.

The modern version of “Footprints in the Sand” might be the lyrics from one of my favorite songs right now:

Every time you run, every time you hide
Every time it hurts, every time you cry
Every time you run away, every time you hide your face
And it feels so far away, I’m right here, with you



Jon