A week ago, I cleaned house for a woman who sponsors our club. She has cancer, and so people in Pi Theta Phi trade off weeks cleaning house for her. The experience was really a blessing for me. Anytime I am able to draw from MY life experience in a way that allows me to relate with and/or bless someone else, I feel truly thankful. I guess because it takes a long time to start seeing the good that God can bring from hard things that happen in your life.
I remember in highschool I was working at the Belgian Waffle and Pancake House and my manager, Scott, somehow found out my mom had died. He began pumping me with questions about how I could still have a faith after that, and how I could honestly believe that good can come from something so awful. He asked me what good had come from it, and at the time I was so caught off guard (and still very immature in my faith) that I didn't have many examples to give him. I remember him responding by asking me, "But wouldn't you give all that little stuff up if you could have your mom back?"
Here's what I see now... years later. I will have my mom back. It sucks not to have a mom to talk to. It will suck to think of her on the day I get married or when I get pregnant for the first time. Sure. I'm sure I'll cry... I wish VERY often that she had survived the cancer. But I DO see the good God can bring us through those things. Like I said, I see it everytime he allows my experience to be a comfort or blessing to someone else. Freshman year when I was able to talk with Amanda Moore as she went through this with her mom is one example. And cleaning Lisa's house a week ago was another. I was bent over vacuuming behind her couch and thinking, "This is exactly how God's people were Jesus to us when my mom was sick." I remembered how thankful we were for their willingness to bring us food, pick us up from school, drive us to piano practice, clean our house, rub my mom's feet, babysit for free... they did so much. Because they loved the Lord and they were showing it through loving us, with ACTIONS. Praise God... because he showed me at a VERY young age what it LOOKS LIKE to be Jesus to someone else. Praise God because I never could have understood that gift so powerfully if not for that experience.
I praise God for the (temporary) loss of my mom because it brought our family to our knees together, bound us together, and bound us to Him. We will see her again... that pain of missing her will be so short-lived! A vapor, literally. But our lives are committed to Him because of it. We have seen his faithfulness, and I believe that once people truly see that, once they truly feel the security of residing in HIS shadow, they never want to leave it.
Anyway, the COOL thing! After meeting Lisa just that ONE time... she called me yesterday and invited me to go to the Women of Faith Conference in Little Rock this weekend! Someone gave her tickets, and she invited me to go with her and Betsy. I'm very excited. And I will let you know how it goes.