Cliff Anderson

I have never attended a funeral via live video stream... until today. He was my friend, my boss and my mentor for just over a year and I will never forget him. He taught me how to talk to people, how to rally others to a cause, and how to be all about the kingdom of God and those who are part of it and not yet part of it. It was his life.
I cried last night while singing the old song "When The Music Fades". The words say "I'll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you have required... though I'm weak and poor, all I have is yours, every single breath." That was his life. Every single breath.
How will I be remembered? Sometimes I wonder if the time I spend with others is just in the ranks of the average - if our hours could have just as well been spent talking about the weather or why we disagree with a certain government official. Not that these are bad things to talk about, they just aren't eternal. When I come to die, will people remember me as someone who gave all I have, every single breath to the cause of Christ? It's people like Cliff who show us what that looks like. Jesus is a perfect picture of God and people like Cliff are a broken picture of Jesus, beautiful in their imperfection.
To give every single breath means that your heart hurts for those who don't know that there is a God who loves them so much that he would voluntarily suffer not only the pain of losing a child, but the actual pain of death, just so that he could talk to me, know me, and be with me. The crazy part about this is that it's not just some flawed God like you read about in mythology, but the actual God that made the universe, the oceans, and my toes.
I haven't written in a while - and I think when that happens, it is because I am getting really caught up in myself, my business and my narrow little world. The only thing that is eternally significant is that others know about the truth that the Gospel of Christ provides, and yet when my truck breaks down, it seems like a little death has just happened. It is then when I know just how messed up my heart is, and how badly I need a savior.