439: If a 12-Year-Old Can Leave Behind This Kind of Impact… What Are You Doing With Your Life?

Kevin Lowe: With her family.

Kevin Lowe: And yet there's a story behind all of it that I'll get to as we dive into today's episode.

Kevin Lowe: But what I want you to come away with is the takeaways that I had.

Kevin Lowe: Because, of course, while I was there, Of course, I was overcome with just sadness.

Kevin Lowe: Even though the people who spoke were amazing, Even though it was wonderful finally getting to meet Jenna's mom for the first time.

Kevin Lowe: But leaving that memorial service is when it all kind of hit me.

Kevin Lowe: If a 12-year-old little girl can have this kind of an impact.

Kevin Lowe: What am I doing with my life?

Kevin Lowe: My friend, this is episode 439 of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: up, my friend. This is your host, Kevin Lowe. And man, I am so glad to have you here today.

Kevin Lowe: My hope is that you stick with me all.

Kevin Lowe: The way through To the very end of today's episode.

Kevin Lowe: Because, well, at the very end, I have a really special surprise for you. But more importantly, I have to believe that what I have to share, the takeaways that I had after attending the memorial service for this little girl named Jenna, I have to believe that they just might mean everything to you.

Kevin Lowe: So I want to give you a little bit of context before we get started.

Kevin Lowe: How does this story begin?

Kevin Lowe: Where did this story begin for me?

Kevin Lowe: And it happened to start on Christmas night.

Kevin Lowe: Now, typically I split Christmas between two sides of the family.

Kevin Lowe: My mom's side, my dad's side.

Kevin Lowe: Yes, my friends, don't we all just love the juggling act of the holidays?

Kevin Lowe: But this year happened to be a little bit different in the fact that I didn't go to my dad's side of the family for Christmas.

Kevin Lowe: So instead, here it is Christmas night.

Kevin Lowe: The day was winding down and I get a call from my dad. He was on his way home.

Kevin Lowe: And our phone Call started off just as I would expect. Me finding out about what kind of food they had.

Kevin Lowe: What did he Win at the crazy gift exchange?

Kevin Lowe: But then the conversation shifted because he told me that at the start of dinner.

Kevin Lowe: His brother, my uncle, had made an announcement. Letting the family know that one of his employees, That he just found out that her daughter passed away the.

Kevin Lowe: Day before on Christmas Eve.

Kevin Lowe: That little girl was Jenna.

Kevin Lowe: Now, the story of how this little girl got to this point is insane.

Kevin Lowe: It's how one little thing can lead to another. And before you know it, The dominoes just keep falling. For her, Jenna was a huge fan of horseback riding.

Kevin Lowe: And she was doing, Indeed, what she loved to do the most.

Kevin Lowe: Was out riding her horse. Now, I'm not going to pretend that I know all the details, But the gist of the story, from what I understand...

Kevin Lowe: is that Jenna was riding her horse and she happened to fall off her horse and I believe broke her arm or.

Kevin Lowe: At least hurt Her arm enough so that she had to be taken to the hospital for just a normal x-ray to check on things, to be sure that her arm was okay.

Kevin Lowe: That would be the First domino to fall because what no one expected was that they would end up.

Kevin Lowe: Finding that there was way more wrong than just what happened on that fall.

Kevin Lowe: This little girl, She had cancer.

Kevin Lowe: And she would begin a fight for her life.

Kevin Lowe: Now, this wasn't a long drawn out process.

Kevin Lowe: I think it all happened pretty quick. She started going for treatment.

Kevin Lowe: She started traveling around the country.

Kevin Lowe: Meeting with different doctors, All trying to help this little girl.

Kevin Lowe: And all of this Would come up.

Kevin Lowe: To about the time of Christmas.

Kevin Lowe: She had recently traveled across the country for kind of a last-ditch effort.

Kevin Lowe: One more possibility, one more treatment to save her life.

Kevin Lowe: And yet it was while she was gone, undergoing this treatment, far from home.

Kevin Lowe: That her body had enough. And this little girl, as brave as she was, She would make the decision to go home. Now, as I said, this was the first time that I'd ever heard about this story.

Kevin Lowe: First time that I'd ever heard the name Jenna here on Christmas night as my dad's telling me about her passing.

Kevin Lowe: And of course I was captivated.

Kevin Lowe: I was sad.

Kevin Lowe: I was in shock.

Kevin Lowe: And I did what all of us tend to do, Go on Facebook, you start looking it up.

Kevin Lowe: Wanting to learn more, to find out more. And that led me Down a rabbit hole of finding a Facebook page for Jenna's mom.

Kevin Lowe: And I started reading all the posts that her mom had been making over, I don't know, about the past year.

Kevin Lowe: Documenting this journey of her daughter.

Kevin Lowe: This fight for her life.

Kevin Lowe: And ultimately, I became friends with her mom on Facebook, Started following her as she continued to document her grieving process.

Kevin Lowe: And one day, She would end up posting.

Kevin Lowe: Just a short poem that she had written about her daughter, About her daughter's love for riding horses.

Kevin Lowe: And I took that as an opportunity.

Kevin Lowe: I took that poem.

Kevin Lowe: Expanded on it a little, And through one of my pure loves is I turned it into a song.

Kevin Lowe: Now, I'm no musician.

Kevin Lowe: I've shared here on the podcast before that I create music with a combination of a love for creative writing paired with today's modern technology.

Kevin Lowe: And that's what I did with this poem is.

Kevin Lowe: I turned it Into a song. The song is titled.

Kevin Lowe: She Rides with Horses. As a matter of fact, If you listen all the way through to.

Kevin Lowe: The very end Of today's episode.

Kevin Lowe: I'm going to be sure to play that full song for you so that you can hear the full story of this little girl named Jenna.

Kevin Lowe: But what happened is, is I created the song and I reached out to her mom with hesitation because honestly, I wasn't sure if it would be a help or if it would be upsetting.

Kevin Lowe: But I sent it to her anyways, Just in a simple Facebook message.

Kevin Lowe: Her response was beyond humbling.

Kevin Lowe: She loved it.

Kevin Lowe: She wanted me to Publish it on my artist channel.

Kevin Lowe: She wanted to be Able to share it with her friends and her family.

Kevin Lowe: And my goodness, the song, it went viral in my little world. All of her friends, Her family loved the song. They're still listening to it today.

Kevin Lowe: But it was because of that song, Because of that outreach to this mother who was grieving, that put me in the position of being at Jenna's memorial service.

Kevin Lowe: And that is what brings me back to today's episode and how this episode relates to you.

Kevin Lowe: Because when I left Jenna's memorial service, I couldn't help but think about three simple truths.

Kevin Lowe: Three truths that keep us from making an impact as big as this little girl.

Kevin Lowe: Three truths that if we adopt.

Kevin Lowe: If we take to heart, I believe we all stand a chance at living as big and as rich as this girl did, as Jenna did.

Kevin Lowe: The first truth is simple.

Kevin Lowe: Life is not measured in time.

Kevin Lowe: It's measured in impact.

Kevin Lowe: You can live a long life and leave very little impact, or you can live 12 short years and, and have your impact felt in the most magnificent way.

Kevin Lowe: That room, it was full.

Kevin Lowe: I don't know The exact number of people that were at her service.

Kevin Lowe: But I'm going to say it was Anywhere between 100 to.

Kevin Lowe: 200 people.

Kevin Lowe: There were people that she went to school with.

Kevin Lowe: Children who were so brave and so amazing, who got up and spoke, who read poems They had written about their friend.

Kevin Lowe: There were members of our community, Our county sheriff.

Kevin Lowe: He got up and spoke. He had been Involved in Jenna's story and had helped the family with fundraiser events.

Kevin Lowe: And he was there.

Kevin Lowe: That room was full of people because of the impact that this child made in just 12 short years.

Kevin Lowe: Again, the truth, it's not the time, it's the impact. So if you're stuck measuring your life's worth by the time.

Kevin Lowe: By the achievements, maybe it's time to reconsider what's really important, Because I have to believe what's important is the impact that we're making on those around us.

Kevin Lowe: The second truth that hit me was this idea that we're not lacking love, the ability to love.

Kevin Lowe: What we're lacking is giving it, is showing it, of telling the people in our lives that, how much they mean to us, how much we love them.

Kevin Lowe: We all get in a trap of thinking that there's time.

Kevin Lowe: That we all have time, That we'll call that friend tomorrow.

Kevin Lowe: That we'll say, I love you the next time I see him.

Kevin Lowe: We'll send a card that we'll do something special for them next week.

Kevin Lowe: But my friend.

Kevin Lowe: What I came away with was the truth that time is not guaranteed.

Kevin Lowe: Tomorrow is not for certain.

Kevin Lowe: All we have is right now. So what I want you to understand Is that if there's somebody.

Kevin Lowe: That you've had on your mind, I want you to Pick up the phone and I want you to call them. Text them if you want to text them. Reach out to them and just say hello.

Kevin Lowe: If you or me keep waiting for the right moment, the right time, then we're waiting too long. and we are way Messed up with our priorities in life because letting somebody know how much you love them.

Kevin Lowe: How much they mean to you, that needs to happen right now.

Kevin Lowe: The third truth is kind of an extension, a simple understanding that we keep living like we have time.

Kevin Lowe: I said it earlier. We think that tomorrow is guaranteed, but it's not.

Kevin Lowe: We keep putting off dreams, putting off ideas till the time is right.

Kevin Lowe: Now, I get it. Even though it sounds good in theory, we all just can't run out and start doing everything we ever dreamed of.

Kevin Lowe: That's just not realistic.

Kevin Lowe: But we can start because If we are.

Kevin Lowe: Constantly waiting And thinking that tomorrow.

Kevin Lowe: Is when we'll do it, that you'll travel when you retire, that you'll propose to the person you love when the time is right, When everything is perfect, that you'll start a family when finances are better.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, as I said.

Kevin Lowe: This is the reminder, the biggest reminder. Time is not guaranteed.

Kevin Lowe: Right now is the only guarantee that Any of us have. So if there's something that you have on your heart.

Kevin Lowe: Let this be your reminder to do it right now, To do it today, to stop putting it off any further.

Kevin Lowe: Because we never Know when that first domino is going to fall. So what I want you to understand is.

Kevin Lowe: I don't want you To come away thinking that I'm trying to scare you into action.

Kevin Lowe: I don't want you to let this just go.

Kevin Lowe: Instead, I want You to ask yourself three simple questions.

Kevin Lowe: The three questions that I asked myself after attending Jenna's service.

Kevin Lowe: Who have you said I love you to today?

Kevin Lowe: What have you thanked God for today? Who needs to hear from you? Who have you Been wanting to call but haven't?

Kevin Lowe: Who in your life needs a little extra encouragement, a reminder of just how much you believe in them?

Kevin Lowe: My friend, pick up the phone, open your mouth, speak the words.

Kevin Lowe: If there's people in your life that you love.

Kevin Lowe: That you no need love, my friend, by golly, Show it to them. Tell them how much you love them.

Kevin Lowe: Let them be reminded that you love them.

Kevin Lowe: The truth is, life isn't measured in time. It's measured in love.

Kevin Lowe: And if a 12-year-old little girl can have shared That much love.

Kevin Lowe: In just 12 years, then what are me or you waiting on?

Kevin Lowe: So again, what I want you to leave today is with one simple understanding.

Kevin Lowe: The time is not on our side, but the ability to leave an impact to make a difference, that is, that is what we control.

Kevin Lowe: So I encourage you to make an impact.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, my hope is right now, there's somebody in your life who you're thinking of that you need to reach out to, that there's a dream that you've been having.

Kevin Lowe: That you've not been chasing, That you start to pursue it. I want you to take action right now.

Kevin Lowe: Let this be your wake-up call to start living the life that you're supposed to live.

Kevin Lowe: And as promised, to end today's episode, I'm.

Kevin Lowe: Gonna play for You the song that I made about Jenna. She runs with horses. Music begins to play...