I met my friend Marti 14 years ago. She was a mentor when I switched careers from emergency medicine to working in doctors offices. She taught me so many things. Working in an ambulance and out of emergency rooms and working in a doctors office are nothing alike. Even the medicine is different. Marti showed me how to do a good job. She taught me the value of protocol. She wouldn’t let me rest at being mediocre. When I left that job, I hadn’t spoken with her since, until she found me on Facebook three years ago. In the middle of the strife and craziness that I was living through. Loss, near homelessness, loneliness, and great fear. She always cheered me on. She would send me little Facebook messages from time to time just to say how happy she was for me that I was so blessed or to ask for prayer for her daughters basketball team (she’s a college women’s basketball coach). About a month or so ago, Marti asked me to start texting her. So I did. We would text back and forth every day. She loved to get pictures of the boys and talk about coffee. I would pray for her when she would tell me she didn’t feel well. She thanked me over and over for being in her life and that it was definitely a gift from God. I told her how precious she was to me and that I loved her (which is true). The last messages she sent me a week ago were about how happy she was that Lyle spoils me and that I deserve it. I hadn’t heard from her since then and was so worried. I knew she had been sick but she didn’t really tell me about her health. When her daughter called me today, I just knew, but was still shocked. Her daughter thanked me over and over for being kind and loving her mother in the last weeks of her life. She said Marti talked about me and my family every day and showed her pictures of my kids like they were her own family. I know God used me here and I am SO grateful to have had the privilege to love Marti, especially when she needed it the most. But man, many times when God uses you, it really, really hurts. I’m so thankful for the love she had for me. It was a blessing.
The moral of the story… Don’t fool yourself. Life is 100% about relationships and the bittersweet beauty of loving the people around us. When someone is reaching out to you, it’s probably not a coincidence or accident. They probably really need you and God wants to use you. Even with the people who are the hardest to love. It’s not our jobs to fix them. It’s our jobs to LOVE them. God is Love and the way that we show people who God is, is to paint a picture of that Love for them. That’s the entire message of the Christmas season. Jesus was born into this sin filled earth only because God loved us SO much that He wanted us back!
Smile. Hug. Say, “I love you.” Buy them a cup of coffee. Buy them lunch. Mow their yard. Give them a card. Knit them a scarf. Give them a ride to Wal-Mart. Just DO something. Because as I sit in shock and awe at the loss of my beautiful friend, all I can keep thinking is, “Thank you, Jesus, for letting me love her.” I keep thinking, “what should I do now?” But, I know what Marti would tell me to do. She’d tell me to hug my boys for her and have a cup of coffee. I think I’ll do just that. Until we meet again, Marti, over a peppermint mocha with Jesus. ❤
The Struggling Woman's Guide to the Universe 