You might wonder how one could write about such a subject.  As the opening lines of LOVE STORY asked years ago, "What Can You Say About A Twenty-Something Year Old Girl Who Died?"  Except this time it is a twenty-four year old young man.  What comes to mind  initially is that he had not really started to live.  He was still attempting to complete his formal education.  I don't know whether he had a steady girl friend or not.  I know that his short life had been marked by scrapes with deadly diseases, the last one of which claimed his life last week.  How can we say that his was a life well spent when he got to live so little of it by comparison?

I suppose the answer to that is that he spent several years as part of a lay renewal team here in Mississippi.  The lay renewal movement is just exactly what it says it is.   It is lay persons--no ordained types permitted--who go around to churches sharing what the Lord has done and is doingin their lives.  As an ordained person who has seen this movement up close and personal, I am all for it and support it completely.  This young man was the "youth coordinator" on one of the lay renewal teams here in Mississippi.  He and those working with him with the youth would spend weekends with teenagers struggling with parents, siblings, schools, and churches.  They would bring fresh testimonies of what God was doing in the lives of other young people in other places so that youth in the target church might become energized and focused for the Lord.

Is there any way that we can know what the results of his life and ministry in lay renewal might have been?  No.  We won't know that until we are all in Heaven some day.  I have a hunch, however, that this young man blessed more lives than even he might realize.  He blessed not only youngsters and teenagers like himself.  He also blessed older folk.  We heard that in his last days at the hospital near his home he did his best with the limited ability he had due to the cancerous tumors in his brain to communicate to the staff that he appreciated all of their efforts on his behalf.  I think that shows a sensitivity and maturity far beyond twenty-four years. 

The sanctuary at this young man's home church was packed with people and had standing room only for the funeral.  I guess that crowd would be one way that we might begin to gauge his impact and his influence.  He was quiet, soft spoken, kind.  Not the big super athlete type who is usually so popular with other young people.  This young man allowed the Lord to use his gentleness to touch other young lives and to inspire other young people to make something positive of their lives.  He had fantastic support from his father and mother, both people of strong faith.  I can't see that there was anything wasted by him.  We will never know what he might have become.  That is irrelevant now.  We know and celebrate what he was, and that was a dedicated young Christian man whose short life was exceedingly well spent.