why are you here?

That was one of the questions we were asked in sociology this term.

Why are you here?

You can answer it on the small scale.  Like “Why are you here reading this blog right now?”

Or “Why are you here living in THIS place you live in?”

Or the biggest one . . . “Why are you here alive?”

 

Last night, my friend Tara and I were talking about organ donation.  Since I was in the eleventh grade, I have been a definite organ donation advocate.  To me, it’s clear and it’s simple: if I die in a way that my organs can be donated to save someone’s life, then TAKE THEM.  This discussion lead to Tara telling me that her boyfriend doesn’t share our views on the subject of organ donation.  And I know I can’t change anybody’s mind, and I know that not everybody is going to share my stance on it.  And in most situations, I can understand people’s apprehension behind some of the things I believe and agree with.  And in regard to organ donation, I just can’t.  Some people, I understand, it’s against their religion, and that’s fine, I respect that.  But to just not want someone taking your organs to make them continue to be useful when you can’t use them anymore?  I just think that’s stupid.

A few years ago, a documentary was made in Vancouver called 65_RedRoses [in Canada, click here to watch].  It followed the story of Eva Markvoort, a young woman with Cystic Fibrosis as she awaited a double-lung transplant.

Eva received her transplant.  In following her transplant recovery and complications, the following quote always sticks out to me.

I wasn’t here for six days, and I came back.  Because people needed me.  They wouldn’t be okay if I wasn’t here.

She went on to continue be a huge advocate for transplant and the CF community in Canada which you can read about on her blog.

Unfortunately, Eva’s lungs rejected and she died while waiting for a second transplant.

 

Eva knew why she was here.

She used every moment she had to love people.

 

Some of us have stared death in the face.  But the truth is, we’re all dying.  What are you going to do to make this moment count?

Why are you here?

Feel free to tell me in the comments.

—

Reading through my old poetry and lyrics from 2003-2006.  It really reminds me of just how screwed up I actually was, how broken I actually was.  Yet, amidst the destruction, the death that was written, there was hope splattered here and there.  And that shocks me.

And makes me believe that yes, God was on my side long before I was on His side . . . and long, long before I was on my own side. 

It took me awhile to be on my own side.

how my sociology prof left our board at the end of class

what i’ve overcome

The thing I dig so much about this song is that it isn’t preachy in any way.  Because Fireflight is a Christian band, and I’m a Christian, I read it in the Christian context.  But it doesn’t need to be interpreted that way.  The Someone saving us, could be anything—a Higher Power, a significant other, a friend, who saves us from ourselves . . .

I know for me, the Someone saving me, though, is God.  God came into my life at a point where I still didn’t actually believe He existed, but I was ready, so ready, to give up and just quit life.  He continues, day after day, to not let me fall into the same traps of desperation, but to continue to seek out happiness, love and LIFE.  Our passions keep us breathing, believing.  My passion . . . Jesus.

Before I had Him, though . . . I was depressed.  Bullying and the delayed by two and a half years realization that one of your best friends really has died, out of nowhere so it seemed, and really generally just feeling crappy about yourself does that.  I spent the summer of ‘05 in a dark place, and either numb or really down.  I felt defeated, and I felt like there really was no purpose to being here . . . I remember questioning my grade seven social studies teacher on the meaning of life if we’ were all just gonna die anyways . . . that was before the depression stuff really kicked in.  I was curious, but maybe it was a lead.  Because really, what is the point if we’re all just going to die?  I thought that.  I thought death was the answer.

That’s why we need passion.  A reason to change this world while we’re here, and something to keep on living for.

But I overcame that lifelessness inside me.  I opened up my heart to feel again, feel things other than desperation. 

Because the desperate spot?  It was filled with Jesus.

These things, though, the things I’ve done in the past—the depressed stuff, the eating-issue stuff, the mistakes . . . have all shaped who I am.  They have no impact on the way the world perceives me now unless I speak of them, but they’ve changed me.  But in a bigger way, God has changed me.  He gives me second, third, fourth, fifth chances.  He lets me make mistakes, He lets me fall, so He can say “Okay, so what have you learned?”

God has used these things in my past, to break me and build me stronger.