Victory

Death is such a ridiculous concept.

I thought Andy's death would make me able to comfort and encourage those who also experience loss, yet this week when another gal lost someone beloved, I had no words. None at all. I never want to forget Andy. It's a weird thing because you need to heal and move on, yet move on with it always in the back of your head. Because as soon as we forget, then his life and purpose and witness are lost. And people should know. People should know how awesome he was. Andy was an example of Acts 2. Andy loved people, helped people, fed people, tutored people, prayed over people, drove disabled people to sporting events, everything for people. His funeral filled up an entire court at SMSU. The entire basketball team was there, the entire Crusade group was there, the entire church of Marshall was there, it was insane. How did he know so many people? How did he possibly touch that many lives in the short time he had. And most remarkably, why wouldn't God keep him on Earth to touch that amount of lives tenfold?

It makes me wonder if God takes us right when we're ready. Maybe Andy was so ready to be with God, another day on Earth would have been ineffective. There are so many weird, freaky things that happened leading up to it. The way he said, "Now is the perfect time to go." How he looked for the seatbelt but couldn't find it too far tucked into the seats and so gave up the search. The fact that he learned the song "One Day" just in time to sing it for God, unveiled. Just in time for us to sing it, a gym full of hundreds and hundreds of people, trying to grasp the meaning of each word. The fact that in his final seconds, he thought fast enough to take the full extent of the blow and weigh Amanda down in order to save her life.

There hasn't been a Sunday in passing that I've not prayed over and over again, "Take care of him, Lord. Just take care of him for us." We all will strive the rest of our lives to be such a man. Andy got it down just a bit faster than the rest of us. Why waste any more time on Earth, right?

"When this happens--when our perishable earthly bodies have been transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die--then at last the Scriptures will come true: Death is swallowed up in victory." - 1 Corinthians 15:54