Tonight at Northaven, I’ll be inviting our folks to watch this short, but powerful, video from Ryan Woods. Ryan died of his cancer last Fall, but his openness about his dying stands as a challenge to all of us to live the time we have left.

As he says in the video…
 

“We’re all in the process of dying.

So the question is: What kind of story are we going to live out as we’re dying?

I would just invite people to live out a beautiful story…to live out their lives, make beautiful music, regardless of what kind of brokenness they have to deal with.

And on our journey toward death, which is inevitable, we have the opportunity to let a beautiful story be told. And it’s up to us to allow that story to become something beautiful.“

— Ryan Woods

Time is short. For all of us. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. Ash Wednesday is the day each year where we stand and look death straight in the face, without flinching, and ask ourselves the very question Ryan asks in this video:

What kind of story are we going to live out as we’re dying?

The season of Lent then beckons to us. It beckons to us to “turn in a new way,” to make the choice to live into our lives to the fullest, loving God, loving ourselves and loving our neighbor with new and renewed passion.

Hope to see you tonight at Northaven.
And if we don’t, may your Lenten journey help you turn back toward life, and back toward God.