To Live Like you are Dying

It has been a very long time since I have posted on this blog, not for a lack of what to say but no doubt out of pure laziness and an inability to sit down and write what has been on my heart and mind of late. Much has happened in the last 6 months but it is the latest string of events that has caused me to think again about what truly does matter in this short time here on earth.
In my profession (Firefighter/Paramedic) rarely am I moved by many of the things I see, but occasionally someone, or something crosses my path and I am reminded of the frailty of life and the simple promise that once alive, we all will someday die. I met a 35 year old lady with all over body aches and rib pain severe enough to affect her breathing. She had bone cancer that had moved to her lungs, then to her brain and was beginning to affect other organs. She was dying. As we moved into help, her sister, her mother and her two young children stepped aside unable to grasp the ever present question... Why? Diagnosed barely 6 months prior, their sister, daughter and mother was being dragged away from them by this disease called cancer and there was nothing they could do to stop it. They watched with blank faces as we gently helped her to the gurney, then into the ambulance and to the hospital. Their ability to hang on to the one they loved was like trying to grab smoke from a flame and hold onto it, nothing more. I could not help but think what goes on in her mind? What does she think about as she rapidly approaches her maker? Is there regret? Sadness? Anticipation? And then I hear my pastor talk about how would you live your life if you had only 30 days to live? What would become important and what would get left on the curb. This lady, our patient, was at that crossroads. She was facing the ultimate questions of life. When you are staring death in the face, where do your affections lay? What becomes important? I met this lady and outside of the miraculous grace of God, she will die, yet I am profoundly affected by her. How would I live if I truly was staring death in the face. Would I live it with regret, wasting the short time I have. Would I share with others God's love and grace as they slowly walk the path that I find myself running down. Would I love as much as I could those who are close to me. I don't know. I do know that my 35 year old patient faces these questions that I can only wonder about. My desire is to learn to live as if I had only a short time, showing the love of Christ that was shown to me.
I do not know what was the outcome of my 35 year old patient. I do know that she sees the end of her life and because of that she has had a profound affect on me.