So This is Goodbye

Today I became shockingly aware of how uncertain life really is. This afternoon while doing my CLBI homework, waiting for another class to start, the pastor of the church I was at came in; he told me that one of my students had died on Sunday. I didn't know what to say; she wasn't even 40 yet. She went to sleep Saturday night and just like that, this world had seen the last of her.
It's weird to think that just a week ago she was sitting in my class, struggling with my other students to understand why English is the way it is, and now she's just a pile of ashes in a clay jar, waiting to be put in a grave.
It made me wonder if I had done all that I could for her, or given her all that she needed to take. I wonder if I had smiled at her enough and brought her enough of God's joy. I wonder if there was more that I could've done for her and if I had been as loving towards her as I could've been. I had no idea that last Tuesday would be the last time I would smile at her and ask her how her day was.
But now she's having the best unending day of her life as, thankfully, she knows God. That at last leaves peace as an aftertaste, instead of the raw bitterness of death.
But it makes you wonder. You never really know when the last time you're going to see somebody on this earth is going to be. You don't know if, when you leave your house you'll ever come back, when you say goodbye you'll ever say hello again, or in this case, when you go to sleep if you'll wake up in the morning.
Did you leave a good impression with every last person you talked to? Did you act in God's love to everyone you made eye contact with? Did you sacrificially give the time to someone you knew needed it, right when they needed it?
I can only pray that I do this to each of my students, no matter how frustrating it is to try to communicate with them, and each of the people I see when I'm out going places every day. What kind of impression am I leaving? Do I let them hear heaven every time I laugh, leave behind a fingerprint of God every time I smile, and give them a heartful of peace and joy every time I talk to them?
Peoples' eternity weighs on the way we, as Christians, treat those around us. We are God's billboards...but what kind of message are we leaving?
So this is goodbye to a student, and a fellow sister in Christ, who knew God's love and pursued knowing Him despite everything she was faced with. May the memory of her in people's minds be another billboard shouting God's grace.