I'll never forget all the family get-togethers. You know, the ones where all the aunts, uncles and cousins meet at Grandma's home. For us it happened at Thanksgiving or at a family reunion where everyone would meet after months of not seeing one another.

When we arrived, my brother and I and our three cousins, all within a couple of years of each other in age, would size each other up, literally. We were quick to see who had grown the most, who was strongest and who was fastest. Before long the fun and games would begin, and even though I was six months older and a full inch taller, I could not match up to my cousin Mitch.

From my earliest memories there was something that made him stand out. Mitch was always first. He was the first to learn to ride a bike, the first to sink a free throw and always the first to get a laugh. Even as a teenager he exuded confidence in himself and his abilities and, like the rest of us, his parents raised him to have a value system that included a belief in God, a love for his country and a respect for authority. They taught him to honor them as his parents; they taught him to care for his fellow man.

By the time high school came around, Mitch had set himself apart as a highly talented athlete. He set records in the small country school district where they lived, but that didn't change him much. He was popular, but he tried hard to hold on to the values of his parents even though the societal pressures of the late 60s pulled him the other direction.

A few more years passed and the college recruiters began to take notice. Setting one record after another for his school set Mitch apart from the rest of the field and eventually led to a full scholarship to play football for a prestigious major university.

This single experience in the early 70s challenged Mitch in many ways. Going from a small town to the big city is a jolt in itself, but from a small high school to a big university where small-town values are shunned and ridiculed is entirely something else.

The first year was tough for him. Mitch had to find his place in this new environment. He had to prove his talent on the field and maintain his grades to play football, and Mitch was up to that task. But then there were the parties, nothing like he had ever seen or been to before—wild parties that always included plenty of drinking, illicit sex and, yes, drugs as well.

Big man on campus

By the second year of college, Mitch was a star wide receiver and a "big man on campus." The life he had lived before was becoming a distant memory.

Mitch changed; he was not the same at all. The moral parameters set for him as a teen didn't match with the desires and freedoms he now experienced.

He tried to hide his new lifestyle, but this became increasingly difficult. When his parents asked about it, his reply was simply, "It's my life, and it isn't hurting anyone."

Like all loving parents, they knew that if he played with fire long enough, he was sure to get burned. They tried to talk to him about right and wrong, and tried to remind him of the commitments they thought he had made to his faith in God, but all their efforts were in vain.

Mitch was soon caught up in a very promiscuous lifestyle, and he drifted a long way from the values taught to him as a child.

There were dozens of new girlfriends and shorter-term relationships, all with one thing in common. Drinking and sex seemed to be as common as eating and sleeping during this point in his life when he was supposedly at the top of his game. There was no intent to form even a real friendship, much less a lasting relationship. Again, his excuse for living the way he wanted was simply, "It's my life, and it isn't hurting anyone."

I don't really know what caused him to rethink his lifestyle, but near the end of college he grew tired of it all.

He wanted more from life. As we all do, he wanted a real life that would surely include a job and family. Mitch realized he had spent several years in a dead-end lifestyle filled with many troubles. I think this is what caused him to totally reevaluate the decisions and the choices he had been making for the previous several years.

Mitch turned his life around, returned to the values instilled when he was young and began to try to understand the will of God for his life. He told God he was sorry and asked God to forgive him. He let his parents know he was sorry too, and that the old Mitch was back.

Soon he would find and later marry a woman who also shared those same values. He got the perfect job and progressed rapidly to the top as a vice president of a large bank. They lived in a beautiful house, and they had what many might see as the perfect life. Three beautiful children soon followed. First were two precious girls and then the apple of his eye, little Mitch Jr.

The indiscretions of his youth were now just a faded memory. No one seemed hurt, and Mitch was the wiser for it. God and his parents had forgiven him. He was loved and admired by his wife and children.

He had a beautiful home. He was successful, and the future was anything he wanted to make from it. He had everything he had ever wanted and all he could ever need. Was Mitch right all those years earlier when he had repeatedly said, "It's my life, and it isn't hurting anyone"?

Consequences catch up

No one really noticed how much weight Mitch was losing at first because it came off so slowly. Then he developed a persistent cough and began feeling tired all the time. Typical of most men, he shrugged it off as a flu virus that wouldn't let go. But after a few months and a lot of urging by his wife and family, Mitch went in for a checkup.

He did have a virus, but it was not the flu. Mitch was informed that he had contracted HIV many years earlier, and it had now moved into full-blown AIDS for which there was no known cure. Mitch died a few months later at the age of 37, leaving behind a wife and three young children.

When Mitch said, "It's my life, and it's not hurting anyone," I am certain that at the end of that thought were the words "but me." Mitch meant, It only hurts me, so it is okay to live the way I want; I can decide for myself what's good for me; I can choose to live my life contrary to what I have been taught, contrary to the laws of a loving God that were intended to keep me happy and safe; I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, and the only one impacted by it is me.

That's what Mitch thought once upon a time.

Isn't that how most fairy tales begin, "once upon a time"? To really believe that the way we live affects no one around us is to live in a fairy tale, totally unaware of the lives around us that are touched by what we do.

What Mitch once espoused as his justification for living a life he knew was wrong came back full circle. Yes, he would pay the dear price of his life, but it was his life. No one else is hurt—unless you count his family, who would have to watch him die and suffer the loss. No one else was hurt—unless you watched his children so tearfully tell him good-bye.

They now go on without a dad. Who would now teach them to stand on their heads or help them learn to ride a bike? They suffer daily for the lie that Mitch bought as a teen: "It's my life, and it's not hurting anyone."

Yes, it's a lie. And who would foster such a deception on young people? The devil himself is the author. As Jesus said of him, "When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it" (John 8:44).

Satan is alive and holds sway over this world. We must understand that he is not a myth. The life you now live is not part of a "once upon a time" fairy tale. Satan's desire is to destroy mankind, whether wholesale or one little piece at a time.

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Satan would love nothing more than to convince you of the same lie.

Don't buy it. Please, for the sake of others as well as yourself, don't buy it.

The pain goes on

Mitch has been gone now for almost a decade, but the pain of his loss goes on. His children, his wife and his parents all miss him terribly, but that's not the end of the story.

Satan never ceases from spreading destruction and misery as far as he can. The lie Mitch bought had greater effects on others than what you have read so far. Who knows the countless others whom Mitch slept with who also have died? How about the countless others whom they slept with? How many of them are dead or dying?

We may never know how far the pain and loss goes. We may never know of the hundreds who mourn the loss of their fathers or mothers, brothers or sisters, sons or daughters.

But there is one more of which we do know. Mitch's wife tested HIV-positive after his death. She, too, is infected. The day will come when the medications are no longer effective, and the lie once bought will leave Mitch's children as orphans.

It's also important to understand that even if Mitch hadn't contracted AIDS, it was still wrong and harmful for him to have engaged in premarital sex. God tells us that wrong sexual relations are a sin against our own bodies (1 Corinthians 6:18). When we sin, we also commit an offense against God for which His Son, Jesus Christ, had to die.

Furthermore, illicit sex with someone else damages that person too—and further spreads dangerous corruption through society. Someone is always hurt when there is sin!

Please don't buy the lie. If you have bought it, then back away and change. "It's my life, and it only affects me" is a horrendous lie! Find the truth. Search for the real answers and enjoy the life that God wants for each of us. VT