I just got home from the officially most depressing funeral I've ever been to. I've only been to maybe 5 funerals before. 3 of them were for Christian people, and two of those were old Christian people who were happy to be going home. The other 2 were my grandma and uncle, they at least had some symbolance of Christianity in their catholic rosaries and funerals. My uncle's funeral was hard for me because I saw how much the people thought that they were all going to heaven because they did all the good catholic things, even though they didn't have a relationship with the Lord.
But today, I went to a funeral for a 21 year old boy who was shot by an angry man. Justin used to work with me at the pizza place. Did I always enjoy working with him? No. But he was nice to me. His life wasn't the picture of perfection by any means. In fact, I don't think I realized that there were really people who lived the life of the typical super-dysfunctional family shown on COPS or CSI or other shows like that. Well, there really are people like that, and Justin was one of those people. I don't know how he was so smilely all the time. I guess drugs help a lot with that as long as you keep taking them. One time, Justin randomly told me, "I wanna get baptized." I was like, "huh??" He said that he wanted to get baptized so he'd go to heaven when he died. I told him that getting baptized won't get you to heaven. That you have to live for the Lord. He didn't like that idea, and decided to talk to pastor Colin about just baptizing him anyway. (He lived right next to my church). I don't think he ever did. I left for college the next week, and never saw him again.
Justin's family was very distraught. His relatives were yelling at Colin when I entered the church before the funeral. I don't think there was a reason for that, just that they don't know how to react to this death. How do you react to a sudden death from an act of violence when the victim is not going to heaven? Well, there was no pretending that we're all going to see Justin in heaven after we die like there was at my catholic relatives' funerals. Just that he's gone and everyone was crying. His friends who used to come in high to the pizza place were bawling.
2 people younger than me died suddenly through acts of violence in the last couple months. Laurie was an amazing Christian young lady who acted on a terribly misguided thought that she shouldn't live anymore. Justin was a fighter and was going to duke it out with his friend's dad, but the dad didn't play fair - he brought a gun and didn't give Justin a fighting chance. The two young people couldn't be more different. Laurie - an example to many in their walk with the Lord, she was from a good family (well, every family has some problems) with parents and siblings who love her and love the Lord and who were law-abiding citizens. Justin was a live for the moment kind of kid, loving others but not thinking through the effects of his actions before he acted, with friends who helped him find drugs at a younger age than I was when I first heard the "F" word. But they both died at age 20 and 21. And both deaths could have totally been prevented. Can Christians care less about others? I don't think it's possible. In reading though Laurie's families blogs, I've seen them write several times, "If we'd loved and cared about Laurie like she loved and cared about us, she would still be here." Could someone have influenced Justin in the ways that drugs and violence is not the answer? Maybe. But no one did. Laurie still had the relationship with her Heavenly Father. Justin didn't. I'll never see him again, and maybe I could've done something about it. It's easy to say that nothing I could've ever done or said would've changed the path of his life, but maybe it could have. Did I do all I could when I knew him? What about the people I work with now? What about Amanda and Erin, and the other people who live normal, moral lives, but haven't received God's gift of salvation? Am I doing all that God asks of me for them? How can I use my position as a "normal, non-eccentric" co-worker and friend among my co-workers to tell them about my Lord?
I have no answers to death and how things like this can be prevented. But I'll bet that if we all actually did what the Lord asks of us, things might be different. Or at least we wouldn't have any regrets.
Laurie
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Justin
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