Saturday 9 June 2012

Annal 165: Tale from my Role Model

There is a woman I know that I desperately want to be like when I grow up.  I got to know her during my year teaching as I coached her two daughters and taught her son.  She volunteered in my classroom, kept me well-stocked in Starbucks instant coffee, and was a source of constant encouragement to me.  After my mom lost her job at the school, this woman and her family offered me more support than I could ever begin to describe.  The thoughts and prayers they directed at me and my family, the gifts that would appear on my desk, the notes, the hugs... they got me through what was a very rough last few months of teaching.

Last week I found out that this woman has been diagnosed with breast cancer and she went in yesterday for surgery.

You know those moments where you know that God is good, you know that He loves you, but you just have a hard time believing it?  The last couple of weeks have been like that for me.  I know He loves her and her family.  I know this.  I know He is good.  But it is hard to explain the shock that overcame my system.

Near the end of Lewis' The Great Divorce, he describes a woman surrounded by a great procession of people.  A woman whose innermost spirit shines through, who is known as "one of the great ones."  Men and women surrounded her and are referred to as her sons and daughters.  When Lewis questions MacDonald about this he is told that, "Every young man or boy that met her became her son--even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door.  Every girl that met her was her daughter."

That is perhaps the most fitting description of this friend of mine.  All she comes into contact with are treated with such love and compassion.  In truth I don't think I have ever met a person who so emulated the heart of God as this woman does.

I have told her before that I want to be just like her when I grow up.

And it's the truth.

If I can show even half the love that she does, and glorify the Father even just a little like she does, I believe it will be an accomplishment.  If I can touch even a few the way she and her family have touched so many, I will be happy.

I do not say lightly that she is my role model, that I want to be just like her.

If any of you think about it, please pray for this woman and her family.  I'm positive that were you all to meet them you would feel the same way about them as I do.

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