Ten years
There is much more I want to write about the pregnancy, and I will get back to it soon, but something else is weighing on my heart today.
I'll warn you that this blog may be heavy. And long. I guarantee it will be difficult to write, but I feel I owe it to my friend, Cristin.
Cristin was my first roommate at Roanoke College, in the fall of 1999. If you knew me at the time (and not too much has changed), I was quite the homebody, shy, scared to death of being on my own.
The idea of a roommate was really unnerving - as high school ended and my world began to expand, I started to discover that (gasp!) not everyone was a true Christian. What is that about?? And you know what else? Teenagers drank. Actually, you were in the minority if you didn't.
Now, I don't want to touch the alcohol issue here except to say, I didn't (and still don't) want any part of it, even to be under the same roof as it. And with all I had seen, the odds of finding a roommate that felt the same seemed too slim.
Besides prayer, my only hope seemed to be begging. On my interview form for matching me with a roommate, I wrote these words as big and bold as they could be:
PLEASE PUT ME WITH A CHRISTIAN
They did. They gave me Cristin. After we had been assigned to each other, she called me and asked me about myself. The first words out of my mouth were, "I'm a Christian." I'll never forget the gasp on the other end of the phone, and a high-pitched, "Me too!!! I'm so glad!!"
And from there, it was almost too easy. We called and wrote to each other through the rest of the summer. The day we moved in to the dorm, I was in a long line for something and felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and there she was. Taller than me, of course, she wrapped me in a hug and said with her trademark Southern drawl, "I'm glad to meet you."
It took a few weeks for us to really warm up to each other. After all, I am me. But everything about her intrigued me. For one thing, she was absolutely beautiful. Long, curly blonde hair. Gorgeous smile.
And her voice. One day I came back early from class, and in the hallway, I heard her singing. It was a Jaci Velasquez song, "Speak For Me". I waited until she was finished to walk into the room, told her that her voice was amazing, and from then on she would sing all the time.
She was sweet, outgoing, made friends so easily. But above everything else, she just loved the Lord. She would talk about prayers He had answered, all the ways He had blessed her. When she was meeting someone new, the girl would actually introduce herself as a Christian.
Even though I had been a Christian most of my life, this was brand new to me. My experience to that point had been that Christians were viewed as people who got in the way. But Cristin's faith was endearing, and even non-believers liked her despite her verbal stance.
She taught me so much about what a relationship with the Lord was supposed to look like in everyday life. It was different, deeper than anything I had ever seen in someone my own age. There was not a shred of insecurity in her faith, only joy.
We got past midterms and, because we were majoring/minoring in the same areas, started trying to figure out how to get several classes together in the spring. We threw around the idea of her coming home with me for a few days after exams. Around mid-November, we bunked our beds and moved some things around so we could get a Christmas tree after Thanksgiving break.
The day we left for Thanksgiving break, I helped her pack some things in her car. At one point when we were almost finished, I was in the room and she was down at the car. I glanced out the window and saw her getting into the driver's seat. My heart jumped up into my throat as I thought, "We didn't say goodbye!" Then I hightailed it down 3 flights of stairs to catch her before she left.
Turns out she was just moving the car before coming back up to say goodbye, but still. God gave me that moment. November 23, 1999.
A few days later, after Thanksgiving, while home with my family and working on a paper, the phone rang. She was gone. Killed in a car accident.
This was the first time I had lost someone very close to me, and was old enough to really comprehend it. It was difficult to deal with, obviously. I went through all the stages of grief, and finally settled on anger. "God, there are so many bad people in the world. Why did you have to take a good one?"
The angry sadness lasted until my family and I drove to Tennessee for her funeral. It was truly a celebration of her life, attended by more people than anyone could imagine. Turns out she was vibrant and intriguing everywhere she went. Her poems were read. Her many, many accomplishments were listed. And her favorite songs were sung.
It was during one of these songs, "I'll Fly Away", that the anger subsided. We were sitting in full view of Cristin's parents, brother, and sister, and every single one of them had their arms raised to heaven, singing. The tears were falling hard, but they were praising the Lord.
"How?" I prayed to God. "Because I am real," He answered.
Life has never been the same since then. I am in no way perfect, but my post-Cristin faith is a far cry from what it was before. She made me a better person because she made me want the Lord. Not just some of Him, but all the joy and peace and security He had to offer.
There is rarely a day when I don't think about her. Her family has allowed me to stay in touch with them all this time, and my only regret is not writing more often. What a blessing it has been to share my life with them, and to witness firsthand in them the bittersweet healing that comes from God alone.
And so with this piecemeal collection of memories, I honor my friend Cristin, and her ten years in heaven. Whenever my time comes, I want to just sit for awhile and listen to her sing again, this time in the presence of our Lord.
I'll warn you that this blog may be heavy. And long. I guarantee it will be difficult to write, but I feel I owe it to my friend, Cristin.
Cristin was my first roommate at Roanoke College, in the fall of 1999. If you knew me at the time (and not too much has changed), I was quite the homebody, shy, scared to death of being on my own.
The idea of a roommate was really unnerving - as high school ended and my world began to expand, I started to discover that (gasp!) not everyone was a true Christian. What is that about?? And you know what else? Teenagers drank. Actually, you were in the minority if you didn't.
Now, I don't want to touch the alcohol issue here except to say, I didn't (and still don't) want any part of it, even to be under the same roof as it. And with all I had seen, the odds of finding a roommate that felt the same seemed too slim.
Besides prayer, my only hope seemed to be begging. On my interview form for matching me with a roommate, I wrote these words as big and bold as they could be:
PLEASE PUT ME WITH A CHRISTIAN
They did. They gave me Cristin. After we had been assigned to each other, she called me and asked me about myself. The first words out of my mouth were, "I'm a Christian." I'll never forget the gasp on the other end of the phone, and a high-pitched, "Me too!!! I'm so glad!!"
And from there, it was almost too easy. We called and wrote to each other through the rest of the summer. The day we moved in to the dorm, I was in a long line for something and felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and there she was. Taller than me, of course, she wrapped me in a hug and said with her trademark Southern drawl, "I'm glad to meet you."
It took a few weeks for us to really warm up to each other. After all, I am me. But everything about her intrigued me. For one thing, she was absolutely beautiful. Long, curly blonde hair. Gorgeous smile.
And her voice. One day I came back early from class, and in the hallway, I heard her singing. It was a Jaci Velasquez song, "Speak For Me". I waited until she was finished to walk into the room, told her that her voice was amazing, and from then on she would sing all the time.
She was sweet, outgoing, made friends so easily. But above everything else, she just loved the Lord. She would talk about prayers He had answered, all the ways He had blessed her. When she was meeting someone new, the girl would actually introduce herself as a Christian.
Even though I had been a Christian most of my life, this was brand new to me. My experience to that point had been that Christians were viewed as people who got in the way. But Cristin's faith was endearing, and even non-believers liked her despite her verbal stance.
She taught me so much about what a relationship with the Lord was supposed to look like in everyday life. It was different, deeper than anything I had ever seen in someone my own age. There was not a shred of insecurity in her faith, only joy.
We got past midterms and, because we were majoring/minoring in the same areas, started trying to figure out how to get several classes together in the spring. We threw around the idea of her coming home with me for a few days after exams. Around mid-November, we bunked our beds and moved some things around so we could get a Christmas tree after Thanksgiving break.
The day we left for Thanksgiving break, I helped her pack some things in her car. At one point when we were almost finished, I was in the room and she was down at the car. I glanced out the window and saw her getting into the driver's seat. My heart jumped up into my throat as I thought, "We didn't say goodbye!" Then I hightailed it down 3 flights of stairs to catch her before she left.
Turns out she was just moving the car before coming back up to say goodbye, but still. God gave me that moment. November 23, 1999.
A few days later, after Thanksgiving, while home with my family and working on a paper, the phone rang. She was gone. Killed in a car accident.
This was the first time I had lost someone very close to me, and was old enough to really comprehend it. It was difficult to deal with, obviously. I went through all the stages of grief, and finally settled on anger. "God, there are so many bad people in the world. Why did you have to take a good one?"
The angry sadness lasted until my family and I drove to Tennessee for her funeral. It was truly a celebration of her life, attended by more people than anyone could imagine. Turns out she was vibrant and intriguing everywhere she went. Her poems were read. Her many, many accomplishments were listed. And her favorite songs were sung.
It was during one of these songs, "I'll Fly Away", that the anger subsided. We were sitting in full view of Cristin's parents, brother, and sister, and every single one of them had their arms raised to heaven, singing. The tears were falling hard, but they were praising the Lord.
"How?" I prayed to God. "Because I am real," He answered.
Life has never been the same since then. I am in no way perfect, but my post-Cristin faith is a far cry from what it was before. She made me a better person because she made me want the Lord. Not just some of Him, but all the joy and peace and security He had to offer.
There is rarely a day when I don't think about her. Her family has allowed me to stay in touch with them all this time, and my only regret is not writing more often. What a blessing it has been to share my life with them, and to witness firsthand in them the bittersweet healing that comes from God alone.
And so with this piecemeal collection of memories, I honor my friend Cristin, and her ten years in heaven. Whenever my time comes, I want to just sit for awhile and listen to her sing again, this time in the presence of our Lord.
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