Another Death and a Tribute

I'm not quite ready to talk about my new decision.  That will come in the next day or so.  In the meantime, Heiress' blog brought up some thoughts I've struggled with since the loss of a friend this spring.  A college friend.  As a sort of catharsis, I wrote a tribute for her.  At the time, A. and I had been talking about the importance of writing down your testimony and being proud of it (Jomama, I believe, gave us the Hebrew word for such a thing, but it slips my mind).
 
Anyhoo, here's the tribute I wrote.  It raises tough issues on the fairness (or unfairness) of life, and has given me a whole bunch of stuff to grapple with.  Maybe one or all of you have some comments that could help with  wisdom and perspective.
 
 
 

Thea's Story 

 

 

I've been mulling over the thought that we should  write down our testimony and be proud of it.  A friend suggested it.  I think it's  a wonderful idea and I'm going to do it.  In the meantime, I'm pretty sure Thea's story isn't written down anywhere, as she was notoriously self-deprecating.  She wouldn't be proud of her story, or anything about herself, but I'm pretty sure she was proud of the part God had in her life.  So I'm writing as much of her story as I know, which isn't much. We walked side by side for a time, and both moved on.  That's the way it is with college friends.  Some you stay in touch with.  Some you don't.  Some you forget, and some you remember quite well.  Some feel like friends, even after you lose touch, and some just feel like memories.

 

Thea always felt like a friend.  As if, had I ever seen her again, we would have taken up where we left off, talking about things, about God, and laughing.  A lot.  Thea loved to joke about things.  She wasn't pretty, which probably contributed to her self-image problems.  She would joke about herself, about her looks, in such a way that you couldn't help but laugh.  She wanted you to laugh.  The hurt would have been if you didn't laugh.   But there was something about the way her friends laughed.  You laughed and cared at the same time.  And I think that's why she joked so much about herself.  She didn't so much want to hear you laugh. She wanted to hear you care. 

 

Thea, I guess, had an exceptionally rotten childhood.  Not that she talked about it. She didn't have to.  You just knew.  Last week when my friend called, she alluded to the fact that Thea had finally revealed some things to her, and it was no surprise to me.   Thea never married, although she had been proposed to at some point.  She  said no and broke a man's heart.  I don't think she would have been capable of receiving love from a husband.  Her "emotional ears" just didn't work that way.   

 

At Bible college, we were required to work in some area of Christian  service.  My favorite was choir.  I would have stayed in choir the whole time, but you could only get "Christian Service credit" one semester, then you had to do something else.  So I moved on to nursing home, which I loved, and did various other things.  The one service I hated, but got roped into, was "street ministry."  We were supposed to go out there and talk to the teens who congregated and bought drugs downtown.  Can you imagine?   I remember complaining to Thea about it one time.  My contention was that people just don't come to Christ because one person meets them on the street and presents Him.  You have to establish a relationship.  I made it sound really good, and I thought I was being spiritual and caring.  My real problem, though, was fear.  It smacked of salesmanship, which was the last thing I wanted to do with God or anything else.  My presentation, I thought, made good sense, and I was so self-absorbed that it took a moment notice the hurt, slightly angry look on Thea's face.

 

 "I did."

 

 "You did what?" I asked.  

 

 "I came to Christ the first time  somebody told me--on the street."  She told me she had been on the street, and somebody told her, and that was all she needed to hear.  She told me she KNEW she needed God.  She didn't need to  be told twice.  Thea eagerly fulfilled her Christian service credit in street ministry, and then after she had to move on to something else, she would still go do street ministry.  Even after she graduated from college, she would be out there on Friday nights, a Bible under one arm, telling teens and roughnecks about God.  I don't know if she ever led anybody to Him that way.  Maybe she did.  But she sure was giving back to God for what He did for her.

 

 Thea always had close friends.  She attracted people with her sense of humor, and kept them--somehow.  Her friends were always intensely loyal.  I've heard somewhere that you can always tell the quality of a person by the people who love them.  Well, Thea was intensely loved, and always seemed a bit confused by it.  Those "emotional ears" again.  

 

There's a story in the book of Mark about a man who was  deaf and had a speech impediment.  Someone brought this man to Jesus, and there's a story there which is really neat, and easy to miss.  The story reeks of Jesus' compassion, but you have to read it with your imagination wide open.  He had a crowd with Him, but He took this man aside, away from the crowd.  This was a miracle, but perhaps not a sign.  This one was not for the crowd.  It was just for the man.  Anyhow, He put His fingers in his ears, then did something--odd.  He spat, and touched the man's tongue.  But it's what He said that always gets to me.  He sighed (why?) and He said, "Ephphatha."  It's an Aramaic word.  It means "Be opened."  And his ears were opened.   

 

The story always stikes me.  Why did they include the Aramaic word?  They never did that anywhere else.  Was it because that's an important word, and I need to have my attention flagged to it?  Sometimes, people have a spiritual "speech impediment."  You know--maybe they say the wrong thing, maybe they're caustic, maybe they're contentious, or whatever.  But God gets to the heart of the matter.  It's about what they're not able to hear.  "God loves you."  "God has a> purpose for you."  "Your life matters."  Some people cannot hear that.  Perhaps they need their own miracle, away from the crowd, away from the limelight.  They need God to touch their spiritual ears, say "Be opened."  Maybe they're stuffed so full of the earwax from their horrible childhoods or bad experiences that they couldn't hear a thing if God stood next to them and yelled His love to them. Maybe we all need to have God sigh and say, "Ephphatha."  "Be opened." 

 

As far as I know, Thea never received that miracle.  She never understood the fact that people cared about her, in spite of the fact that she always had loyal friends around her.  So it's only natural that she did not stay in touch with her old friends.  She would have been surprised to find that anyone wanted to be in contact.  Friends would find her, and lose her again, as she would move somewhere else.  

 

Thea had a walking stick and a little 110 camera, with which she would take the most amazing photographs.  Her work could have won awards, and she took her pictures with that 110 camera that most serious photographers would never have used.  One day a few years ago she was out hiking and got herself injured and stranded in a remote location.  I don't have more details than that.  I just know her injuries immobilized her.  When she was rescued, she had extreme frostbite.  Between her frostbite and her injuries, she was disabled and unable to work.  She was indigent in her last few years.  Her friends were helpless to help her.  My friend expressed to me that she would have had her come live with her, but she had kids and Thea couldn't stand even a minimal noise level.   At least she was unable to move to another location.   You could keep in touch with her.   Then she disconnected her phone.  You couldn't even email her anymore. 

 

Then last week I learned she had died in November.  None of us even knew until last week, graduation week at my old college.  She died alone, and was found a couple of days later.    I'm still stunned by the way she died and the last few years of misery.   But from what I hear, she found solace in the Lord, although she said she was mystified by the fact that He kept her around when she couldn't do a thing for Him.   I like to think about Thea running around heaven with her sparkling clean ears, following Jesus around, listening to everything He has to say.   Really listening. 

 

  (The story of Ephphatha is from Mark 7:31-35.)