An Instructive Moment About Our Lives

"Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it."

I never understood that until just recently. It's so funny how, when you don't yet know what the words mean, they seem like complete and total gibberish. It's odd that, on first sight, if you never dug for the true meaning or asked anyone the questions, you'd never see the real meaning? It's right there in front of you, yet, it's so easy to miss. It's like God is saying to us, "If you'll just put forth a little effort and I'll share the entire kingdom with you."

Lot's wife couldn't stand the thought of leaving her old life behind. I can understand that. It's a hard thing to do to pack up and leave your life to move halfway across the continent only to start all over again. Ask any kid whose dad is in the military service. Not that much fun being an army brat.

But let's stop and look at the real meaning. What is this really saying? It's saying that if you don't give your life over to Jesus Christ and change yourself from being that of a worthless sinner to that of a Christ follower, you will eventually die - not only a physical death but a spiritual one as well. But, if you are willing to hand your life over to God, mind, body and soul, then you win eternal life and, oh, how that beats ANYTHING you will ever have here!

Now, let me all just freak you out a bit. :-)

Today, I went back to church at 2 pm for our mentoring match-up meeting. This is where they tell the people who want to mentor and the people who want to be mentored what this process is all about. I came pulling into the church parking lot and right behind me came Patti, my new mentee. We walked in the building together and as we did, I said to her, "So, I hear you just got a new job?" She said, "Yes, I'm starting tomorrow. I'm going to be an office manager-type person for an engineering company called CRB."

She had just been hired to do the exact same job that I do - only for one of our competitors.

We sat in the meeting and listened to everything they said, asked questions and filled out all the forms. We told the woman in charge that Shannon had suggested we work together through this next three month period and she said that Shannon had relayed that message to her and that, yes, we would be paired together. When the meeting ended, we headed out the door together.

Patti told me about how many questions she has about God and religion and how she was going to be a royal pain in my backside over the next three months. I laughed. I said, "That's okay. I was a royal pain in Shannon's backside for three months; I guess I got that coming." We stood outside and talked for an hour and a half! We kept finding coincidence after coincidence between our two lives.

I gave her a link to my new website (!) and told her to go over to Faith or Fiction so she could read more about what I went through in order to get to where I am now. We talked about suicide at one point and I said that I had been right on the edge of killing myself just a year ago. I told her, now that I look back, I'm not even that same person anymore. God had transformed me from the inside out and she'd see that when she started reading my old archived entries. She looked at me and said, "Maybe God spared your life so that you'd be here to spare mine?" My entire body broke out in goosebumps...

As we got to our cars in the parking lot, we burst out laughing. We even drive the EXACT same car!

Then I came home and cracked open the book to read today's chapter and I get to the end of the section right before the prayer and it says:

"And remember that one day you will be remembered too. By someone struggling along life's path. By someone groping to find their way. By someone for whom your life has become a parable."

God was there in that room with us today. He was standing there between the two of us in the parking lot outside the church doors, too. He was even with us in the parking lot laughing when we realized we drove the same car. And he is standing here right now watching me break out in goosebumps because I know that in some small way, he DID save my life so that I could help save Patti's.

God help me, I could just burst out crying. I "lost" my life so that Patti might keep hers. Not only that, but now I get to pay back Ken for what he gave to me.

I need all three of you to promise me that over the next three months, every time you think of me, that you'll stop and say a little prayer for me and Patti. She's questioning and wondering but she can't quite buy into this all yet.

It just keeps sneaking up on me that she's me - she's just a year behind. Wow...

(There goes those goosebumps again!)