Making an Impact...Part II?

This topic has been on my mind a lot quite recently. It came up when I was listening to Casey and DJ back in Redding, Pastor Aaron spoke to T4 about how we ignore people not in our cliques in high school, and I've had this desire to watch "To Save a Life" recently. What helped me decide to actually write a post about this topic was the fact I realized I haven't posted much this summer and because Ian Charbonnet has a recent blog post about this subject.

It's funny...lots of people have made an impact on me, yet I never thought about talking too much about the subject. I realized while I was still at UCSB, I made a short blog post about it. That isn't much and it was mostly asking myself whether I have made an impact. Whether I do or don't, I do not know. If I do, I should definitely be giving God credit for moving me to do so in the first place.

Anyways, Pastor Aaron basically spoke about how in high school, we usually talk to people in our own little group of friends yet ignore the ones who don't really have any. While he was talking about that, it made me think back to high school. It reminded me about how I didn't really have a specific group of friends. I liked to talk to everyone, but I don't think I really hung out with anyone too much outside of school or youth group. As a result, sometimes I felt I didn't have any real friends when I probably did. The only people I really talked to were people from youth group, and I still didn't reveal too much about myself. At the same time, going to youth group really opened the shell I put myself in when I was in junior high. With that said, I ask myself whether I had been ignoring people who might not have many friends. It's definitely something I should work on even more.

As I have said earlier, recently I have had the desire to watch a movie called "To Save a Life". It's basically a Christian movie about a popular guy who witnesses his friend commit suicide with a gun at school. Then he decides to change himself and make an impact on other people to prevent it from happening again in the future. I can't say I'm entirely accurate on that since I still haven't watched it, but the subject is something that really touches my heart. Even in the past I have tried to tell complete strangers online not to commit suicide when they cry out for help on yahoo answers or mystery google (not mystery missions).

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that in 6th grade I wanted to be part of the popular crowd only to be put down by them and be in denial about that. Maybe it's from possibly considering suicide at that age where I wasn't thinking too clearly. Yes, you must be thinking "6th graders should be playing and having fun instead of worrying about that stuff and thinking about suicide". The truth is I was naive (still am in a certain way), and I thought I wanted to commit suicide because of the hurt I went through from the way people treated me. Honestly, I think lots of people will think I'm a loser for being that way. My thoughts can be completely wrong, but it doesn't matter that much anymore. I've realized God is more important than the people I hang out with, and if they don't accept me for who I am, they aren't my friends.

Even with that conclusion, I still feel like I want to reach out to those who ever thought about suicide. It's sad to hear about it happening. A way to prevent suicide is to reach out to people (even those who aren't even considering suicide). However, as much as I would like to try reaching out to everyone I see, I know it's not possible and there will be times where I'm reluctant to try for whatever reason I have in my head.

There are a couple recent examples where I tried making an impact to complete strangers. I'm not trying to glorify myself in any way, but I want to provide examples to share some things people go through. Last night, I decided to go on mystery missions because I wanted to look for something completely random to do out of boredom. Unfortunately, most missions are from pervy people asking others to send picture texts or other random texts out of boredom. However, I decided to accept missions where people asked to be cheered up.

One person (who later introduced herself as "Natasha") asked to make her smile. I wrote something along the lines of "General squirrel is attempting to take over the world by making people sad, so the brave little platypus is trying to stop him from taking over the world". Natasha then asked how the platypus plans on saving her. I replied that I would listen to whatever she has to say about what was making her sad if she wanted to talk about it. She then talked about how she moved out of her boyfriend of two year's house, then his mom told her that he invited another girl the next night. Basically she's feeling lonely and brokenhearted, and now she's living alone in her dad's apartment while he was out of town. She doesn't have anyone else she could turn to. The best thing I could do was show I was listening by responding. After she said how she was trying to learn to love again, I responded that I believed she will. I also tried to encourage her by saying that she is "loved by someone out there" and that although it might be hard to imagine it, it is true. She then thanked me and told me that I made her feel better.

The second person asked for a funny picture to make her smile, so I texted a picture of "soundboard bear" from the house of prayer in Dublin. On a sticky note in the picture, it said "Beware of soundboard bear...grrrrr". She thanked me for it since it made her feel better, then we've had a conversation for the last 2 days about what she had been going through. Her best friend died in December from cancer, her 15 year old sister is pregnant and says hurtful things to her, her mom is always working, and she has to take some junior classes in her senior year of high school because she was unable to complete some courses due to having to take care of her grandmother all by herself and all the other emotional things she had been going through. What I find encouraging is that she continues to take care of her grandmother even though her grandmother says bad things about her. With all the hardships she goes through, she can still smile while working at Jack-in-the-Box. She also talked about how she used to go to youth group and church until she no longer had a strong faith in church. She said she went to a bunch of churches, but they all turned her off. However, she still believes in Jesus.

I'm hoping I made an impact in these two strangers. I'll continue to pray for them.

It's also interesting to see how Daisy Love is making an impact in many people. As a six year old with cancer, she continues to display an incredible love for God. It's encouraging me, and I start to pray when I think about her situation.

I would definitely like to continue on the topic of making an impact, but it's late and I should get some sleep. I'll end this with a quote from Ian's blog post.

"You leave imprints on those around you, please strive to leave those marks in love." -Ian Charbonnet

Until next time!
Kenneth