As I celebrated my 41st birthday yesterday, I considered it a privilege to pray with the Porter family just shortly before my friend Jeff Porter’s passing. I had known Jeff for a long time, but we were never close friends. As I prayed with Karen and Jeff’s parents yesterday, I realized I was praying in the very same room(#8) as my friend, Todd Satterfield, passed away in.
This hit me in so many ways because in just over one year two fathers from Cooper’s ABA basketball team are no longer with us. It reminds me that these years we call life have a number, and we just never know when it is our time. No one in the last few years told Jeff Porter or Todd Satterfield they were old, but they actually were if we measure “old” by the amount of years we have until we die.
All I know is that I have learned from both of these “young” men. They both died with faith, courage, humility, fight, and concern for others. I had “real” conversations with both of them about death and those they were leaving behind in their last days here on earth, and for those discussions I am forever grateful. You see when I went to Jeff and Karen’s home a few weeks ago, my main concern was Jeff and his relationship with Christ. When we discussed this he told me, “I know Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the LIfe and no man comes to the Father but by Him.”(John 14:6). Jeff went on to say He often felt Jesus’s presence and could see Him waiting on Him to take him home. I reminded Jeff that the Lord wasn’t just waiting for him in heaven or “out there” somewhere, but it is my belief as followers of Christ that Jesus’ was with us right then and there. His smirk after that comment brought me comfort and I believe with all my heart it brought him comfort as well.
Our discussion in their home wasn’t easy because Jeff made heartfelt statements about Karen, Henry, and Jack. He ask me questions I could not answer and will never be able to answer, but what he did was make me wonder. He made me wonder, “what would the world look like if we all had a sense of urgency and were vulnerable enough to discuss and ask questions about EVERYTHING we wondered about in life without fear of being judged?”
The answer to that question won’t be answered here, but my prayer is to embrace the life I have been given, love people when they least expect it, give more than others think is possible, ask questions, go deeper in my faith through prayer and reading the Bible, and when my time is come to know that I chose to Live ON Purpose! +1