What Are We Waiting For?

I was at the memorial service for a dear friend. And amongst all the differing thoughts and emotions of celebrating life and seeing family and old friends, this is what I take away:

Don't wait until you are dying of cancer before you start really living.

My friend said that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to her. Hmm. Better than meeting your husband? Better than getting pregnant? Better than being offered your dream job? Most things in life, we think we have a choice about. Most things don't just "happen" to us, or so we think, but nobody chooses cancer. The best thing? She said that the things that truly matter in life became the most important things, and every day, she asked God, "What's the most important thing I can do today? What will really matter to me and to you?"

In this she knew that her marriage really mattered. Her husband said after the service that it is an amazing thing to know that you really matter to someone. "I mattered to her," he said with tears in his eyes.

Her children mattered. God gave her 13 years to raise her children from the time she was diagnosed. A beautiful endowment of favor, and she knew it.

Loving people mattered. Friends, family, homeless people, her counseling patients, other cancer patients.

Enjoying life mattered. Life itself and the ability to wake up everyday was a gift. Gifts are meant to give pleasure, to get use from, to be treasured and enjoyed.

The sum of it for her - Living means loving people. That's what she did, and I benefited from her love for 32 years. She didn't wait to have cancer to start loving people. That's what she did, but the fact that she didn't know how long the rest of her life would be made loving and enjoying people the thing she lived for. It's what mattered for the amount of time she had left.

What really matters for the time you have left? None of us know how long that will be. I think God would love us to ask him daily, "What's the most important thing I can do today? What will really matter to me and to you?"

What are we waiting for?