The day that changed my life forever

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10 years ago today, my life changed forever, because 10 years ago today, during the 4th quarter of a local high school football game, my mother looked at my father and told him she was sorry just moments before a brain aneurism left her speechless and hospitalized. 3 days later, she was dead.

That one moment set in motion a chain of events that are still hard to wrap my mind around, which is one reason why the year from hell that followed isn’t in book form…yet.  Suffice it here to say that 20 days after my mom passed, my brother had, as well, and my world was upside-down.

And that was only the beginning.

This was a moment that impacted every moment I have lived since.  It changed how I see people, how I teach people, how I love and lead people.  It changed the filter of my worldview from “Christian” and “Non-Christian” to “hurting” and “not hurting yet.”  It changed how I prioritize, it changed how I pastor, it changed how I preach.

That day changed everything in ways that I still do not even comprehend one decade later.

I’m not looking to write something brilliant in one post about something that was so life-altering, but I wouldn’t mind leaving you with this one thought, which could quite possibly become the opening paragraph in the book that will be written about the time that I met Jesus on the worst day of my life.  I’d love your reactions to it.

There are moments that change us.  They change us because they stop us, even if it is only long enough for us to think, to hurt, to cry.  They can’t be stopped, or in most cases, even controlled.  They come and go as they please, and leave us stuck in places we would have never believed…wondering if we will ever move, laugh, or dance again?  They seem like periods, but they are more like commas, something that my 8th-grade English teacher said I didn’t understand.  But I understand them better now, because one day I stared into the eyes of my brother as he died.

From time to time over the next month or so, I’ll post more thoughts, memories, and ramblings that have come over the years.  For now, let me simply tell you one of the important things that I learned in the middle of that time: Jesus doesn’t run from pain, or from those who are in it.

He runs to the pain and carries us through it.

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Written by Paul Jenkins
Paul Jenkins is lead pastor of The Gathering, a community church located in beautiful downtown Albemarle, North Carolina. He's the author of God is My Air Traffic Controller and My Name's Not Lou. Paul is passionate about his wife, his 3 children, running, reading, coaching, leading people who are following Jesus, Swedish Fish and the Carolina Panthers.