My Friend Is Gone

Sarah was my friend. Although I'd known who she was for several years from times spent at First Baptist of Pasadena, it wasn't until just before Christmas 2008 that I went with a mutual friend to visit Sarah, and our friendship was born.

At that point in her life, Sarah had been living for many months in a "convalescent care" facility. Because she was born with spinabifida, Sarah had never been able to walk and had a variety of challenges with which to deal. Those challenges, which included frequent and hard-to-heal infections, led to a long stay in a facility that in reality caters to people with emotional and mental disabilities--not an easy, peaceful place to live!

Visiting Sarah frequently, we'd become good friends. We had many friends in common, most of them part of the group of people that I affectionately think of as "our kids"--students who were at Fuller when we were there mentoring & encouraging seminarians, many of whom were or are still active at FBC Pasadena.

That group has been Sarah's core support group over the past several years. What she would have done without the love, friendship, and concern of these and other members of FBCP, I do not know. They were Sarah's life-line, she who had no immediate family in the greater Los Angeles area.

From our perspective, Sarah led a very limited life, but she was incredibly intelligent, a grad of UCLA, and fiercely independent to the greatest extent she could be. Life, because of her physical limitations, provided great challenges for her, but Sarah persevered.

Sarah, who had a deep love for God and a passion for missions, spent hours on her computer while she was sitting in bed day after day, month after month when available activities were almost non-existent.

I learned a lot from Sarah -- about patience, perseverance, loving God, and coping in the midst of great difficulties. Did she get impatient, angry, and frustrated at times? Of course! But she was a rock, a vibrant, independent woman of God who told many caregivers, many medical care transport drivers, many friends and family members about Jesus.

Sarah also had cancer, and these last few months had been spent mostly in the hospital trying to deal with that . . . and infections.

In the early hours of a recent Saturday morning, God reached down and released Sarah from her earthly body, took her in His arms, and welcomed her Home, where for the first time ever, Sarah was able to walk.

My friend is gone . . . my heart hurts . . . I miss her!! And yet none of us would wish Sarah back in a body so beset with challenges, so easily overcome by infection, and recently so riddled with cancer and the pain that brought. We know that she is healthy and whole, dancing on the streets of heaven with a freedom she's never experienced before.

Thank you, Sarah, for all you taught me, for your friendship, for your strength in the midst of difficulty, for your love of God and for your passion in sharing Him with others!

Morning Run

Some of you know our son, David, very well, and others not at all. Let me tell you a story from when he was a wee lad.

Thirty-four years ago this month, when we were on the way to report into our first duty station at Ft. Campbell, KY, Christy was 14 months old and David had just turned 2. (They're both 35 right now, although David has a birthday this week.)

Although not the most direct route from SoCal to Kentucky, we drove to South Dakota to visit my cousin, Peggy, and her family out on the farm. The four adults had been standing in the kitchen talking, and when we turned around discovered that David had climbed to the top of the refrigerator. There was not a chair, a toe, hand or foot hold in sight, and not one of us could believe or figure out how he'd done it -- and done it with all of us standing right there!!

A couple of years later, when we lived at Ft. Campbell and had a play set out in the backyard, the two neighbor boys came running in yelling, "Mrs. Frey, Mrs. Frey, come quick! David's in trouble!!"

So I ran outside to see what was happening and there stood David, balanced on two narrow bars on top of the swing set, taking bows as if performing for an audience. To the neighbor boys' dismay, I turned to go back inside. When they frantically said, "Mrs. Frey, what are you doing? Go help him down!!" I responded, "I will as soon as I get a picture!" (Actually, he didn't need help down at all.)

This afternoon, my sister sent this video clip to me of the morning run of two young men, one with light hair (my nephew, Aaron) and one with dark (David), and it brought back WAY too many memories of the antics of our sons!!

Google "My Morning Run" and enjoy!

Patty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOOlUR9Cg1Q