It's Not The End, It Is The Beginning

Yesterday, the world lost a very special person. Miss Kelsi Little left this world and joined the angels up in heaven. Her life may have been short, but she lived it well. Being brutally attacked by cancer is never an easy thing to go through, but Kelsi fought like hell and truly left her mark on many people. God was able to show her just how widely and deeply she was loved in a way only he could have planned perfectly on just the right day. Without knowing when Kelsi's last day might be, many of her friends and former students put together a small gathering to celebrate Kelsi's life and to tell the many memories they had made with Kelsi. They called it "Kelsi Little Day" and what more appropriate of a title could that have been for her last day here on earth. The loss of Kelsi is not easy to comprehend to anyone who was touched by her life but Kelsi did what she needed to do here on earth so that she could be in her eternal resting place in heaven. Losing the life of such a sweet, encouraging person brought me to thinking just how precious life is and how quickly is can be taken away from us. We like to think of death as the end. A scary, sad reality that our time here on earth is over and we will never return. Bur death is only the beginning. We are simply living on earth, our temporary home, anxiously desiring our true home; heaven. It is hard for us to accept this reality though. We view death as a sad and heartbreaking thing when really it is something to rejoice over because a loved one if finally going home. It is hard for us to look at the world the same after someone we love so deeply isn't in it anymore. But this isn't our home. Earth is not where we belong, we belong to something so much greater. Somewhere so much more divine and eternal; heaven. We exist on earth only for a short period of time for a purpose. We are here to love people and to make forever friends and we try the best we can to make something of ourselves and this one shot at life we have been given. But we have to continually remind ourselves that death is not the end, it is the beginning. The beginning to something beautiful and everlasting. God has a plan for each of us and as cliche as it sounds, it is true. God knows what we are going to accomplish with our one life, he knows the children of his that we are going to grow to love, and he knows the number of days each of us have on our temporary home. The amount of time God gives us may seem short, like in Kelsi's case, but I have come to realize that it is not the number of days we have in our lives, it is the amount of living we do in each of our numbered days that matters. Each one of us, as God's children, have a different mission to accomplish within our numbered days. We are all called to a life of loving unconditionally and furthering God's kingdom. We shouldn't fear death, we should welcome it with open arms as a new rebirth to something bigger than any of us could ever imagine. When my time comes, I don't want people to be sad that I am gone, rather I want my life and the things I did to be celebrated. I want my loved ones to rejoice in the fact that I am finally where my heart belongs. I want there to be a "Reya Martinez Day" and for people to celebrate about the life I lived. None of us know when our own time will come to depart this temporary home for our eternal home which is why we have to continually thank God for the people we love and for the chance to see another day. We are only given one life but if we live it right, one life is all we need.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

 This quote by Oscar Wilde couldn't be more true. We tend to think only about the end and all the things that go along with it. We get so wrapped up in the idea that once life is over here, its over. But life starts when we get to heaven. What we have here on earth is all temporary, but God wanted us to have the chance to make something of ourselves and leave something for the world. We can't let our life go on before our eyes merely thinking about the end, rather we must truly live our life and not take for granted our years on this earth. We must always be pursuing a greater purpose and always striving towards our true home. Heaven.