No Longer Waiting

Sometimes I think that I spend my whole life preparing for something in the future...thinking "when I finally get through with _____ my life will finally start for real". Sometimes it seems like this part of my life is really insignificant...that I spend it just waiting and preparing for something and not actually doing anything in the meantime. Like this part of my life is almost a waste. Like I won't make a difference until I at least graduate from college and likely get a master's degree and get a job. That's when my life will begin. Until then, I'm just biding my time. And that makes me think "What a waste! What a bore these years are! I can't wait until my life begins!" Then I think about people like my cousin Marie. Marie was killed in a car accident when she was just eleven years old. Some people may look back on her life and think she never got to do anything or make a difference or truly "begin her life". I'm tempted to think that about myself at that age. But I know that can't be right. Deep down, I know that God gives us each day as a gift to use to His glory, not to just try to make pass by as quickly as possible so that we can finally get to that "important" event in the future. That makes me realize that I need to spend less time focusing on future plans and what I will get to do then and focus on now, today. What can I do today that can make a difference? What can I do today to change someone's life...or maybe change mine? I don't want to look back twenty years from now and be forced to realize that I wasted all these years just waiting for something else. I know that if I'm not careful I could spend my whole life waiting. And what if my cousin had done that? What if Marie had just passed each day, waiting for the future...a future she, tragically, never got? But she didn't! She was a blessing to her family, her friends, her church everyday of her life. People still remember her and still talk about what an influence and inspiration she was to them. And she was only eleven years old! If she can do that at eleven years old, surely I can do that at eighteen. I don't want to wait anymore. I want to take each day and do something with it. I want to serve God now! I want to help people now! I want to love others now! I don't have to wait until I graduate from college to make a difference, and frankly, I don't want to. If these years were really as insignificant as most people (including myself) believe them to be, I think God would've just skipped over them and started us out at 21 or maybe 25. But He didn't! He creates each one of us as an infant, then a toddler, than a little girl or boy, than a teenager, and then an adult. I can't believe these years are just a waste of time. These years are meant for something! Who says we can't do something incredible or serve God with everything just because we're young? We can and I hope that I will! Marie figured that out much earlier in life, and I am so glad that she did. God used her in so many lives and I just pray that He will use me in as many or more. Alex and Brett Harris are exactly right in their book "Do Hard Things". As teenagers, we don't have to be kicked to the curb or hid away in the house with our iPods and phones until we're old enough to be mature and act responsibly. We are more than capable of working now. I just hope that I can follow through. We have been so brainwashed by this culture and our own laziness that it has become second-nature to think that we shouldn't step out until a certain age. It's time to break free of those boundaries and make a difference now!