As I was reading a beautiful excerpt about purpose in my bible, I found a picture tucked away on this page. It was a picture of a young man named Riley, that my husband and I spent countless hours counseling over the phone and in person, to be there as a friends and to encourage him in his great times of need, desperation and loneiness. He was broken - hearted young man on a constant search for someone to love and accept him. Riley was also curious and loved to experiment with new things. One evening about six months ago, he experimented with this new "epidemic" sweeping among our youth today, where they tie a noose or a rope around their neck, to temporarily cut off their air supply. The result is that the lack of oxygen to the brain creates a "natural high" or feelings of sexual arousement. (Don't ask me how, and PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!) Needless to say, Riley couldn't get the noose free from his neck and he was strangled to death. His parents found him early the next morning, the noose still around his neck.Chris and I were devastated when we received the call early that morning to hear the news. You see, Riley had tried to call us the evening that he died. It was after midnight, and my husband was so exhausted from working tireless hours at work, that he decided to let the phone go . He thought he could just call Riley back in the morning. We felt like, if only we would have answered the call maybe Riley would still be alive today. But after the grieving process, we realized that God has a rhyme and reason for everything that happens on this earth, and someday, we will find out His reasoning for Riley's death. But let this be a lesson to all of us - that for as long as we have been given this precious gift of life, air in our lungs to breathe, and most importantly, if we know the Creator of this universe, and have a deep understanding of His love for us as His sons and daughters, than we have the beauty within our hearts to encourage, inspire and give life every moment of every day that we are here on this earth.
Let us not waste the precious time that has been granted to us . . .
~Riley we loved you deeply from our hearts ~
I AM grateful, God, that I have finally come to realize your purpose for me. Just when or how this came about I can't say. It wasn't sudden and dramatic, the way it happened to Paul on the road to Damascus, or Peter Marshall with his experience on the Scottish moors.
There have been no visions, no voices, no letters written in fire upon a wall saying: "Do this." "Do that." "This is your reason for being."
No my search for you and for the meaning you had for my life has been uncertain, groping, erratic, filled with accidents, false goals. Sometimes I seemed to sense that purpose, clearly see it; but it vanished like a mirage in the harried, often cruel business of everyday.
Yet somehow you keep track of your floundering creatures. Maybe because life is so filled with defeat and heartbreak, we find ourselves turning to you, yielding ourselves to your will, fighting less furiously for selfish, often empty goals. And when this happens we find that you have turned our sufferings and our failures into little stepping - stones.
Looking back, we see them. These rocks which gradually, all unknown to us, you have been shaping to lead us toward our purpose . . . And we have been following! However blindly, however zigzag the course, yet we have been moving toward it.
And looking about, we see that there are results. There are signals, heartening little affirmations, unexpected proofs. However humble our circumstances or undramatic our talents, our true purpose has been revealed. We were meant to be this person at this time and place. Not only for ourselves, but for you and other people - we were meant to make this particular contribution to the world.
And so we must do it well. Do it with faith and patience, with all our strength and passion. And in so doing discover who we really are.
- Marjorie Holmes
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
- John 15:13
