WHILE YOU ARE STILL ALIVE, LIVE

It is 1am.

My eyes are dry from crying and yet sleep feels far away from me. Tonight, I am sitting with grief. Heavy, sobering grief. In the space of two days, I have received the news of the passing of two remarkable people — two completely different lives connected by one final reality: they died.

And somehow, in the middle of the pain, one truth keeps echoing loudly in my spirit: While you are still alive, LIVE.

Tonight, I am thinking about two people who may never have met each other but unknowingly preached the same sermon with their lives.

One was a woman I knew personally through the sickle cell advocacy space — Ms. Toyin. Frail, physically challenged, constantly battling complications, often hospitalized, and yet relentlessly alive. I first met her around 2018 at a sickle cell conference. By then, she was already using a wheelchair due to severe complications from sickle cell disease. I had never known her to walk with her feet. Yet, she moved nations with her voice.

What many people would call “double disability” — sickle cell disease and paralysis — did not stop her from showing up on global stages, advocating passionately for better lives for sickle cell warriors. She would sometimes joke about spending most of the month under medical care, but even then, she radiated gratitude simply because she still had breath and purpose.

She lived.

Not theoretically. Not someday. Not “when things get better.”

She lived from the middle of pain.

The second was Alex Ekubo.

One of Nollywood’s finest. Charming. Talented. Full of presence and charisma. The kind of person who looked untouchable by weakness. Recently, my brother and I were watching one of his movies and asking ourselves where he had disappeared to. People mentioned scandals and social media pressure, but something about the silence felt deeper than internet withdrawal.

Then came the shocking news: cancer.

Cancer?

How does someone who looked so full of life quietly battle cancer for two years and then suddenly be gone?

I could not process it.

And perhaps that is what death does sometimes — it interrupts our assumptions. It reminds us how little we truly know about the battles people are carrying behind their smiles, beauty, talent, influence, or silence.

But as I sat with both stories tonight, another realization emerged powerfully.

It does not matter whether you live sick or healthy.

It does not matter whether you live wealthy or struggling.

It does not matter whether you live married or single.

It does not matter whether you live applauded or misunderstood.

At the end of the day, people will not primarily remember the conditions under which you lived.

They will remember how you lived.

They will remember:

• - the hope you gave,

• - the lives you touched,

• - the courage you carried,

• - the light you spread,

• - the burdens you helped lift,

• - the purpose you pursued,

• - the love you poured out.

Because none of us is getting out of this life alive anyway.

So why do we spend so much of our lives tiptoeing through it?

Why do we postpone joy, obedience, courage, purpose, creativity, service, healing, rest, and authenticity waiting for the perfect conditions that may never come?

Why do we preserve ourselves so carefully that we never truly pour ourselves out?

Tonight, I am realizing something deeply uncomfortable: Many people exist, but not everyone truly lives.

Some people spend their entire lives chasing appearances. Chasing trends. Chasing validation. Chasing survival. Chasing money without meaning. Chasing applause without alignment. Chasing other people’s definitions of success while slowly abandoning the very thing God placed them on earth to do.

And then suddenly, life is over.

No rewind.

No extension.

No extra chapter.

Just silence.

And in that silence, the only thing left behind is the evidence of how we lived.

Not how perfect we were.

Not how rich we became.

Not how aesthetically pleasing our lives looked online.

But whether our existence carried weight.

Whether we obeyed purpose.

Whether we spent our lives well.

As I reflected tonight, I realized something else: there is a profound difference between being busy and being aligned.

A profound difference between being useful and being assigned.

A profound difference between success and obedience.

You can spend your whole life tending another person’s garden while neglecting the field God actually asked you to cultivate.

You can become excellent at surviving and still never truly live.

And I think that is one of my deepest fears.

I do not want to exit this life having chased shadows.

I do not want to merely exist efficiently.

I do not want to become so consumed by responsibilities, expectations, noise, pressure, trends, and endless motion that I miss the very heartbeat of why God created me.

I want to live right at the center of God’s will for my life.

Not adjacent to it.

Not a watered-down version of it.

Not a socially acceptable version of it.

Exactly it.

I want to do exactly what Heaven intended for me to do while I still have breath in my lungs.

Because watching these lives has reminded me that purpose is not measured by comfort.

Ms. Toyin fulfilled purpose from a wheelchair.

Alex fulfilled purpose while privately battling a deadly illness.

Both lives preach loudly to me tonight:

You do not have to wait for ideal conditions to live meaningfully.

You simply have to decide that your life will not be wasted.

And perhaps this is the true tragedy — not death itself, because death will come to us all eventually — but reaching the end of life without ever truly showing up for it.

Without ever truly loving.

Without ever truly obeying.

Without ever truly creating.

Without ever truly giving.

Without ever truly becoming.

Without ever truly living.

I think society has sold many of us a dangerous illusion that living begins after:

• - healing,

• - marriage,

• - money,

• - fame,

• - relocation,

• - success,

• - validation,

• - stability.

But what if life is happening now?

In this imperfect body.

In this uncertain season.

In this painful chapter.

In this unfinished process.

What if purpose is not waiting at the end of suffering but can exist right in the middle of it?

Because that is exactly what these two lives demonstrated to me.

One body was visibly broken.

The other looked perfectly fine.

Yet both lives still carried impact.

Both lives still mattered.

Both lives still reached people.

Both lives still left evidence that they were here.

And maybe that is the assignment: to leave evidence that we were truly here.

Not merely through noise or popularity, but through impact.

Through love.

Through obedience.

Through courage.

Through service.

Through truth.

Through light.

Through surrender to God’s purpose.

Tonight, my heart is heavy, but strangely awakened.

Awakened to the urgency of alignment.

Awakened to the brevity of life.

Awakened to the foolishness of postponing purpose.

Awakened to the realization that none of us knows how long we have.

And so, if you are reading this, this is your reminder:

While you are still alive, LIVE.

Whatever living means in relation to God’s assignment for your life — LIVE.

If God called you to heal, heal.

If He called you to create, create.

If He called you to speak, speak.

If He called you to build, build.

If He called you to nurture, nurture.

If He called you to serve, serve.

If He called you to lead, lead.

If He called you to write, write.

If He called you to love people, love them deeply.

Do not wait for perfection before obedience.

Do not wait for certainty before purpose.

Do not wait for applause before impact.

Because one day, all of us will leave this earth.

And when we do, may it never be said that we merely occupied space.

May it be said that we lived.

Fully.

Intentionally.

Courageously.

And right at the center of God’s will.