No Time To Waste
In Secondary School I had a classmate I'll call Amy, who was tall and pretty and in the basketball team. She wasn't popular with us because she had a habit of talking only about herself, and because she just didn't seem interested in our lives. She never did her work and always got thrown out of class, and she had one boyfriend after another outside of school. Even the teachers disliked her, and she was classed as a "hopeless" person, one who would never change.
She wrote well. Her stories were always slightly morbid, about girls who cut themselves after fights with their mothers, about broken relationships, about twisted things. She wrote poetry. Transparent poetry. I remember one of her poems, "i dont ask for any advice. all i ask for is a listening ear."
She was Catholic and I remember having frequent friendly debates with her over my faith and hers.
Her parents were separated and she frequently hung out after school shooting hoops in the basketball court.
She didn't do well for her O-levels. We never saw her after secondary school, she didn't come back to get her O-level results. She was brilliant, but somehow never put her potential to its fullest use.
In Junior College word trickled through the grapevine that she had sold photographs of herself to a pornography site and one of my classmates told me to call her. "You're the only one who can talk to her," he said.
And I couldn't, I thought. I wasn't close to her; true, I had been nice to her in school but we had never been good friends, I wouldn't have the words to say, etc. And I didn't call, someone else would, I thought; there's always someone else to do anything.
A year later I got a call from an old classmate of mine saying that Amy was dead. We went to her home and there she was, eyes closed, face swollen and garish makeup painted on by the undertaker, killed from a fall no-one knew was intentional or accidental. She was gone. She would never play basketball again, never write a poem again. Never ask for a listening ear.
Because there's only one life, and once it's gone, you have nothing. No other chance to be alive, no other chance to do the things you used to.
And there's no time to waste because the friends you have around you won't be around for long. You have to seize every hour, every minute, every second, to show them you care, to build up relationships, to give something of yourself to other people, because - why are we doing the things we do? What are we aiming for in life? We want to leave a legacy.
And my mistake of not caring for that one person needing me so much at that instant cost a life. Help me not to live in regret... help me to continue praying and being a friend to those who need someone just to listen.
I've been thinking about this because a dear life has been taken back recently, and I wish that we had had greater fellowship. I wish that I had overcome my shyness and had talked more to her, I wish that I had encouraged her more, I wish that I had struggled more in prayer for her.
And life goes on, friends around me still laugh and joke and everything carries on as per normal, and that's what makes me a little wistful; only the few will remember you as a burning brand imprinted on their hearts, and the many will just remember you as a dear name. And the majority will not care at all, save a few sighs and regrets. And in the end, if life is so short, what's the point of living our lives for the smaller goals, for our own petty purposes? Would it not be better to look in the perspective of eternity, and focus on what is really important?
Will I not treasure the people around me more dearly, will I not make more effort to show I care, will I not agonise more in prayer, if I realise that there's no time to waste, that all our lives we're searching for fulfillment, for legacy, and this can only be found in knowing God's purpose for your life? There's no time to waste because one day we are going to have to give an account to God. What we have done with our lives. And you know, deep in your heart, that if you do not know the One who created you, then there is really nothing worth living for.
If you want to know more, please click here...
O, that all of us would find the greater purpose, would seize every day with such urgency, and set our hearts on the important and eternal.
She wrote well. Her stories were always slightly morbid, about girls who cut themselves after fights with their mothers, about broken relationships, about twisted things. She wrote poetry. Transparent poetry. I remember one of her poems, "i dont ask for any advice. all i ask for is a listening ear."
She was Catholic and I remember having frequent friendly debates with her over my faith and hers.
Her parents were separated and she frequently hung out after school shooting hoops in the basketball court.
She didn't do well for her O-levels. We never saw her after secondary school, she didn't come back to get her O-level results. She was brilliant, but somehow never put her potential to its fullest use.
In Junior College word trickled through the grapevine that she had sold photographs of herself to a pornography site and one of my classmates told me to call her. "You're the only one who can talk to her," he said.
And I couldn't, I thought. I wasn't close to her; true, I had been nice to her in school but we had never been good friends, I wouldn't have the words to say, etc. And I didn't call, someone else would, I thought; there's always someone else to do anything.
A year later I got a call from an old classmate of mine saying that Amy was dead. We went to her home and there she was, eyes closed, face swollen and garish makeup painted on by the undertaker, killed from a fall no-one knew was intentional or accidental. She was gone. She would never play basketball again, never write a poem again. Never ask for a listening ear.
Because there's only one life, and once it's gone, you have nothing. No other chance to be alive, no other chance to do the things you used to.
And there's no time to waste because the friends you have around you won't be around for long. You have to seize every hour, every minute, every second, to show them you care, to build up relationships, to give something of yourself to other people, because - why are we doing the things we do? What are we aiming for in life? We want to leave a legacy.
And my mistake of not caring for that one person needing me so much at that instant cost a life. Help me not to live in regret... help me to continue praying and being a friend to those who need someone just to listen.
I've been thinking about this because a dear life has been taken back recently, and I wish that we had had greater fellowship. I wish that I had overcome my shyness and had talked more to her, I wish that I had encouraged her more, I wish that I had struggled more in prayer for her.
And life goes on, friends around me still laugh and joke and everything carries on as per normal, and that's what makes me a little wistful; only the few will remember you as a burning brand imprinted on their hearts, and the many will just remember you as a dear name. And the majority will not care at all, save a few sighs and regrets. And in the end, if life is so short, what's the point of living our lives for the smaller goals, for our own petty purposes? Would it not be better to look in the perspective of eternity, and focus on what is really important?
Will I not treasure the people around me more dearly, will I not make more effort to show I care, will I not agonise more in prayer, if I realise that there's no time to waste, that all our lives we're searching for fulfillment, for legacy, and this can only be found in knowing God's purpose for your life? There's no time to waste because one day we are going to have to give an account to God. What we have done with our lives. And you know, deep in your heart, that if you do not know the One who created you, then there is really nothing worth living for.
If you want to know more, please click here...
O, that all of us would find the greater purpose, would seize every day with such urgency, and set our hearts on the important and eternal.
