AFTER WE’RE GONE

This week, at Heartline, we hosted some of our sponsored students for a field day. The kids sang, listened to Bible stories, drew pictures for their sponsors, played games, toured the Heartline facility, jumped on the trampoline, played on the swing set and, of course, kicked the soccer ball around.  Oh, and they ate, ate and ate some more.

These students are in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade. They’re young, three to six years old. Watching them throughout the day, I was thankful to God for the opportunity of helping send them to school.  It is safe to say that most of them wouldn’t be in school if they weren’t sponsored.  I am thankful for the privilege that we have to invest in their lives, in the lives of these kids that will still be here after I’m gone.

I’m sixty-two years old. Most of my life here on earth has already been lived. It is likely that I  won’t see many of these students through high school or college.  Such thoughts don’t discourage me, but rather they spur me on to invest in lives that will still be here after I’m gone.  It gives a resolve to speak into the lives of others who will, I pray, then show the love of Christ to others, who will continue the thread.

I became a Christian at the age of eighteen. I spent a year in a drug rehab program and then returned home to the Boston area. There, I attended a church where the people were very  different than me. They were church people, I wasn’t.  I dressed differently, had wild messy hair (still do), and eventually I started to  bring people to this church that were different as well. They would come high on drugs, some having not bathed for days (yup that’s still me), their clothes would be tattered and torn and, of course,some would put their bare dirty feet up on the back of the pews in front of them.  The pastor and wife, the youth pastor and wife and the people of that church were largely amazingly patient and accepting of me and the others who weren’t like them, but who needed God.

Many of those church folks are gone now, having died; but I am still here. Beth is still here. Others that were loved by the people of that church are still here. I can’t really understand the challenges that we may have been for many of them, yet their love for Christ outweighed those challenges and so did their love for us. These folk left behind an example and legacy that is being propagated through those of us still here.

I think of the words of C.T. Studd

Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.

Am I passing on the example, the message, the legacy that was shown to me?  Am I investing in the lives of others, that they may have the opportunity to know our God, and then tell others?  Am I using resources that I have to help others be equipped for life? Am I investing in things eternal?

I read of a reporter that, in India, came to a leper colony, where he found a catholic nun, caring for the lepers.  He said to her, “I wouldn’t do what you’re doing for all the money in the world.” And she replied, “Neither would I.”

I encourage you to take some time, some quiet time and ask yourself “What will be left behind after you’re gone?” What are you doing for others? What are you doing for Christ?

 

John McHoul

www.heartlineministries.org