He also had an intense passion for life. You sensed this if you ever talked to him about music or the outdoors. It was part of his soul and he enjoyed conveying the most recent band he had just heard or the newest trick he had just mastered on his snowboard. You sensed this when he talked about his family whose well being was always on his heart. You sensed this when he talked about his wife whom of all the women in the world he singlely adored. You saw this passion when he and Leah decided to move to someplace west of Alabama, defying all career counseling, just to enjoy themselves and the mountains before they began shouldering the responsibilities of a family and a career.

But if you really knew Mitch you would know that these things though true were not what defined him. For if you spent anytime with Mitch, especially after his junior year at Auburn you know that the one thing he was all about was Jesus. Mitch knew about Jesus all through high school but it was not until his final years in college that the gospel melted his heart. Mitch saw that a God who needed nothing had sacrificed everything in the untimely and tragic death of His Son Jesus in order to make Mitch His son. This grace and mercy changed Mitch forever.

As a result, Mitch’s passion for life only increased because now it burned not only for that which God had made but also for any soul that had not experienced the only Passion that really mattered. This was never made more real to me when a member of our community group conveyed a conversation he had with Mitch about how work was going. Mitch without hesitation said, “Well I had an hour and half conversation with a co-worker about the gospel.” To which our group member paternally replied, ‘Mitch aren’t you supposed to be working at work?” Of course as soon as he asked the question he immediately knew Mitch’s non verbal answer, “But that is my work.”

His transparency and winsomeness now became the means of forging relationships based on our shared brokenness and blood forgiveness in Jesus. Into our community group Mitch not only opened our eyes to the love that should exist between us but he also connected us to a whole new group of brothers and sisters that were in his wake. Without any prompting from me Mitch became my son’s self proclaimed, “Christ brother”. And to an eleven year old boy who does not have an older brother this enabled him to taste Christian community for the first time. Unbeknownst to my son at the time it was also going to create the first longings in his heart for heaven. I know many people, some of whom are here became “Christ brothers and sisters” because of Mitch and I also know because of how Jesus touched you through Mitch there will be many more.

There will never be another Mitch Drew but if you believe the gospel, regardless of how untimely or unexpected Mitch’s death seems, God looks on Mitch’s life and says, “It was good.”

Mitch you are no longer here but the part of Jesus that you deposited in our hearts will live on until that day when death brings us into the arms the Savior that ravished your soul and holds you even now.