Count It a Privilege
This week marks the birthday of someone I’ve loved for what feels like my whole life and lost to cancer over a year ago. I met her in 2nd grade, and we quickly became kindred spirits in a multitude of ways. With a big bow in her long, fine hair, she welcomed me to her table and made this new girl feel loved from day one. From that day forward, we shared every single season of our roller-coaster life together. When my family moved beyond state borders during elementary school, her family drove to Colorado to visit. Those were also the days we wrote to each other, pen to paper, and I now treasure that folder filled with faded notes. Eventually, when we joyfully returned back to Texas, we spent our remaining school days together in middle and high school, sharing secrets and the love of baseball (and baseball players). I am grateful that in every season thereafter we were together in some way though we lived thousands of miles apart. In college, working in our 20’s, getting married then having babies in our 30’s, she was a constant, steadfast and loyal friend, and I miss her beyond words.
I keep pictures of she and I on my desk in the bedroom representing a few of those seasons together. I wasn’t ready to let her go, and I felt having this daily reminder of her would help my grieving process in some way. I look at her and can hear the words she voiced when calling to say hello on numerous occasions, or I think back to that road trip we took around Texas, roaming on country roads while jamming to Pat Green and Robert Earl Keen. The picture of us in Luckenbach, TX with a Shiner in our hand is forever etched in my memory and heart, but as the days and years presently pass, I look at pictures of us and gain motivation for the life I get to live now in her absence.
As God would design, she was not able to enter her 40’s, but she stays with me every day of mine.
On the days that are trying, discouraging and difficult, I see her expressions as she says, “Shawna, be thankful that you get to live them. This won’t last forever.”
As the noise builds, Legos sprawl, and chaos builds from kids and schedules alike, I hear her voice even louder saying, “Consider it a gift!”
When the days come that don’t seem worth living to the end or the mundane freezes the joy, I hear her say, “Press on, for me.”
Peloton instructors and personal trainers are cognizant to remind us that it is a privilege to sweat. In the middle of some HIIT rides or cardio burn classes, that feels impossible to believe, but even still, I know it to be true. Don’t you?
It is a gift to be able to work hard. It is a privilege to sweat. For those who are not able to move freely or for those who are no longer with us, let’s consider the sweat, the perseverance, the work worth it.
Let us be grateful for the hard in our lives, because it is a privilege. It is producing something in you that is good and necessary, despite the pain.
“Consider it all joy, my brothers [and sisters], when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let the steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1 : 2-4
My last visit to my friend’s house, before she passed away, I sat in the adjoining armchair facing her, crying tears and pleading with God for answers and healing. It was one of the first times she allowed herself to truly break down with me and express the real fears and reality of what lay ahead. Her children ran through briefly, and we had to abruptly push the tears away and smile. I held her hands as we prayed, trusting God either way, knowing with confidence that the only other place she would rather be was with Him. She ran the race of this life well all the way to the end. Though I miss her terribly, I’m comforted that she is there with Him: whole, healed and complete, and I’m equally grateful that my life will never be the same.
