I'm in the U.S. till January. It's good to rest, but also to deal with some grief that God has brought my way recently. Here's a special post about a very special friend of mine:
I'm a very cautious person. Very careful and reserved and non-adventurous. Some of you who know that I'm a missionary in Africa may doubt that, but believe me, I am. I go a little overboard in my reserved ways sometimes. But I've always asked the Lord to make me into the person He wants me to be. Which, I've discovered, is sometimes to chip away at that old, stubborn, overly cautious nature of mine. That can be painful to someone who really likes her little comfort zone. Thankfully, He's used a very wonderful friend as part of this process.
Back in my junior year of college, we welcomed in a new group of freshman girls on our floor and a spunky, outgoing girl named Kandice was among them. Although she and I were very different, we had common interests and soon Kandice, my roommate Amanda, and I were inseparable. She spent so much time in our room, people thought she was our third roommate. I remember those two years of my life as the time I probably laughed the most. We stayed up till the wee hours of the morning gleefully ignoring homework and laughing our heads off at anything and everything. We schemed and pranked and dreamed. We got mad at each other sometimes and had bad days. Sometimes we'd just all sit and cry. I'd never had friends like this before and I loved every moment of it.
Kandice was the prank queen on our floor. I don't think I was ever the target of one of her big pranks (although she loved to tease me at every turn). In fact, she and I would stay up late thinking up the next greatest prank. I remember one Saturday getting up early with Kandice and posting “out of order” signs on the elevators of our 10-story dorm. All day, girls were trouping up and down the 10 flights while Kandice and I took the elevator. Another time, on the eve of April Fool's day, Kandice came knocking on our door with the advice that we should take our showers that evening. “The shower curtains will be gone by morning,” she cryptically informed us. “Oh, and lock your door tonight.” The advice came in handy, especially the locking the doors bit. Morning came and infuriated girls who had quickly realized the handy work of Kandice (and who knew that I frequently helped her with her pranks) came pounding on our door, demanding the shower curtains. Believe me, there were a lot of grouchy girls that day! But I think they can all laugh about it now... I think.
Sometimes on a Saturday, I'd find Kandice in the kitchen making a pie (she could make great pies) and we'd sit and just talk about life. I always found her advice both comforting and upfront. She told me what I needed to hear, black and white, and although it hurt, I realized the value in having a friend who would do that for me. There are days in which I wish I had sought her advice more often. She had a lot of wise words for me.
My senior year, Kandice and I worked as receptionists together on campus, and I enjoyed the time with her besides just at our dorm. We went on a triple date that year and I remember the three of us walking through a grocery store, singing our hearts out to the Backstreet Boys song that played while our dates waited for us. Seriously, those boys didn't know what they had gotten themselves into with the three of us! Over a long, snowy weekend, the three of us went to Kandice's house and had a friend take pictures of us out on the frozen lake. I remember the three of us in our room late one night talking about our futures, talking about how we were all going into missions. We decided that we'd conquer the world, the three of us. I'd go to Africa, Amanda to Europe, and Kandice to Asia. Something like that. We left it rather ambiguous. I had to laugh later in life when that actually came true.
After I graduated, we went our separate ways, made new friends, had different lives. But this spunky character that had been such a part of my life for two years was still very important to me. I think once I left college, I realized how much the Lord had and still was using her in my life. She inspired me to get out of my comfort zone, to laugh loud, to have fun, to make mistakes and not fret about it, to never just sit down and quit. She ran after life, ran after every opportunity to live and to serve the Lord. My reserved nature was challenged by that.
“I have decided that I'm coming to see you,” was a phone call that I got from her one summer six years after we graduated. It had been almost that long since I'd seen her, though we'd stayed in good contact. I was just a few months away from returning to the mission field in Africa, where I'd already served for two years. Amanda was in Europe. Kandice, though she didn't know it yet, was soon to start preparing to go to Asia, where she'd already served on a short term mission. Kandice got on a plane and flew out west to see me, where we spent the week talking and laughing and exploring. We were walking by an old church one day that had beautiful stained glass windows and Kandice quickly pulled me up the steps to go in and explore. It was just like Kandice to spontaneously explore. And it was just like me to freeze on the steps and say “I don't know if we're allowed in there.” She gave me the “c'mon, be adventurous for once” look, but I chickened out once we'd been inside for a few moments, imagining some stern-faced church secretary reprimanding us for bursting into a quiet church to explore. For some reason, that memory really sticks out in my mind as a moment when I suddenly thought, I wish I was more like Kandice, free and not inhibited by an overly cautious spirit. Later on, whenever I was in a situation where I could either be adventurous or chicken out, I'd remember Kandice and I knew that the Lord was using her to chip away at my timidity. For such a simple incident, it convicted me that I was living a life that was so withheld that I was withholding an important part of myself from other people.
The spring of 2009, when I was in Africa, I got a message saying that Kandice, two months away from going to Asia, had breast cancer. It broke me apart to hear that. I felt crushed that whole summer, but she stayed positive and ready for what the Lord had for her. She spoke about cancer and about missions. She encouraged others. She worked at her mission headquarters while getting chemo and radiation. Meanwhile. I was struggling with grieving the death of two relatives (I couldn't return to the states for their funerals), as well as a couple of robberies in my home in Africa and many other hardships of being a missionary. I felt pummeled into the ground by the difficult things happening around and in me. I was grieved and wearied by life. Some days, I'd get on to Kandice's blog and think, Kandice is more alive today than I am. For being sick, she wasn't. She seemed to go after every opportunity to minister. Cancer was only a detour, not a stop to life. She had sent me a video of herself talking to me, telling me the latest news in her fast-paced, animated, rabbit-trail style of talking, giving the camera a laugh-inducing grin every once and while, and I watched that video over and over, always struck by the abundance of life she seemed to possess. Sometimes I could hear her chiding me, starting with “Now, Miss Mary,” and telling me to get up and do what needed to be done instead of sulking.
I came home the spring of 2010, eager to see her. I started to be convinced that it would be the last time. Her cancer was spreading. I wrote and told her that I'd come and see her. Naw, that wasn't Kandice's style. An adventure was called for. She'd never seen the Oregon coast, and got a plan together that she and I would meet up in Portland and drive down the coast, exploring. She was convinced she'd be up to it, and started planning. I, like always, was cautious. But I knew her and I knew that God was changing me, making me into a person who would grab a hold of life instead of shying away from it. And for once, I'd finally be able to say a proper goodbye to someone who was dying. I'd missed so many funerals in my life, missed that closure that I wanted, and I was determined to get that with Kandice.
In July, Kandice went on a youth retreat to speak. I was amazed that she had the energy to do that. It was inspiring to me. When she came home from it, I wrote on her facebook wall, “Do you know that I love you?” She wrote back, “I love you, too.” A week later, a little less than a month before our Oregon trip, in spontaneous fashion, Kandice took another trip home to Heaven. That was my last goodbye to her. And now she's free of her cancer, having the greatest adventure of all with the Lord Jesus.
It's within my nature to be angry that I had no closure, that I missed yet another goodbye. Yet, the painful grief that we experience in our lives, when used by God, is a way for Him to chip away at us, to make us better, to make us long for heaven and cling to a joy that cannot be found in earthly things. Sure, I am in deep grief, probably more than I ever have been before, over the loss of this friend. I wish with all my heart that I had gotten to see her one last time. I wanted that more than anything. I wish I could get that back. But I know that this was God's perfect time, that in the big picture, I really didn't need to see her one last time, that God in His goodness will bring me through this grief a better person. So I'm not angry. I'm sad for myself and for Kandice's family and friends. I'm rejoicing for her. And I guess I'm rejoicing for myself, too. Rejoicing in the fact that I had such a friend as her. Rejoicing that she called me friend. And rejoicing that God used her in my life to make me hungry to live life with vigor, not holding back, never shying away from the opportunities He's given me today, to not stop, to laugh loud and live adventurously.
