Still wondering why?

I have couples small group on Thursdays, and if there was ever a reason this does not end with us, here it is:

"Thank you for this weekend. I was going to take my life, and now I'm not."

That was written on a card by a student after attending Blast the previous weekend, and shared with us in small group. God so moved in the life of that student that they decided whatever it was that drove them to think death was the solution, they now realized the real solution is the unconditional love of Jesus. The time given by adult volunteers, plus the contributions of the attenders made the change in that student's life possible. How many other students might be thinking that very thing? How many adults? How many need us to be the church so they don't get forgotten or left behind?

Please - let us not let it end with us.

Why?

CCC's Generosity Conference was this past Saturday - I'll talk more about it in a couple days, but I wanted to touch on something. If you attended, during lunch they were showing videos. I hope you got a chance to watch them. Now, I don't know if my mug showed up there (as I wasn't in there watching the whole time), but I did catch the short version of this:



...which, I think, is a great and powerful video. I could be any one of those touching tales. In there, the stories I like best are JJ's at 1:15 (she did another video you can view here) and the woman Ellen at 5:11 (edit: thanks Lisa!). Those two really hit me deep. See, it's stories like those that I need to keep in my heart and mind to remember why I am blessed to give. A while back, someone gave for me. Now I am celebrating the life that God gave me and knowing that Jesus died for me - I cannot forget this doesn't stop with me.

I think back to Dave Ferguson's story of the new kid on the block that invited Dave's father Earl to church, changing not just the lives of the Ferguson family, but hundreds and thousands of others. Because of that boy, I found my way back to God. He started, others followed, others gave of their time and their treasures, and now I am found.

It can't stop with me. It can't stop with any of us.

The time has come.

I will be back here very, very soon. I promise this time.