I volunteered to join Nadine Brandes‘ blog hop for her new book A Time to Die, which releases on September 23. In this dystopian novel, the main character is faced with the question of what she will do with her last year to live.

In this blog hog, I’ve been challenged to answer the question for myself. What would I do if I knew I had one year left to live?

A week ago, I would have given a very different answer. I had been planning to write something about my bucket list and the things I would like to accomplish. I’ll admit, it was shallow. An exercise in the hypothetical.

That all changed this past Thursday when a young man from my church was killed in a motorcycle accident. I didn’t know him personally. In fact, I don’t think I had ever talked to him even though he had attended my church for a few years. But I have friends who knew him well. It shocked my entire church to realize that a young man had been taken so quickly.

On Sunday, my minister preached from Psalm 90 about numbering our days. This doesn’t mean we count our days in the way we say we are so many years old. It means we realize how short our lives are. We count up our fleeting time and realize that we need to use that time to God’s glory. All of our time, whether we have a year or seventy years left to live, should be focused on serving God and His people.

While listening to this sermon, my answer to this blog question changed. If I had one year to live I would…

Change nothing.

At least, that is what I should be able to say. I should already be living with the awareness that life is short. Each day should be lived with no regrets so that it wouldn’t matter if God took me tomorrow or in seventy years. My heart and soul should be poured into every second.

Right now, I can’t say this is true for me all the time. I waste time on frivolous activities. I walk away when I should be helping others. I draw back and hide when I should be touching others’ hearts. But I am learning. Perhaps by the time it is my time to die, I will have begun to live this way.

Now it is your turn. What would you do if you had one year to live?

 

How would you live if you knew the day you’d die?

Parvin Blackwater believes she has wasted her life. At only seventeen, she has one year left according to the Clock by her bedside. In a last-ditch effort to make a difference, she tries to rescue Radicals from the government’s crooked justice system.

But when the authorities find out about her illegal activity, they cast her through the Wall — her people’s death sentence. What she finds on the other side about the world, about eternity, and about herself changes Parvin forever and might just save her people. But her Clock is running out.

This is the first book in the Out of Time Series. Releases September 23rd from Enclave Publishing.

 

Learn more about Nadine Brandes at her website, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Goodreads.