Sometimes days can pass and life turns timeless
the ebb and flow
the coming and going
it all blends together, seamless.
The tides rise and fall
the sun rises and sets
and we forget that the stars shine above us
and that looking at them is like looking into the past
because they burn out and their light still shines.
There are some moments that are simply forgotten
and others that are etched into our hearts forever.
That is what Sandra is to us.
Etched into our hearts forever.
Five months ago we met Sandra.
She was numb the night we met her,
intoxicated because sober was too much, to many memories,
too much hurt.
Our team was there in the alley where she lived.
We served her the first meal that she had eaten all day and
sat around and talked with her at midnight.
The beginning of friendship. A moment in time.
Sandra told us that she had AIDS
and she talked about a past riddled with pain and abuse.
So much that she only felt peace when her bottle of liquor was empty
and she could forget about it all for a few hours before she woke up in the damp, dirty place where she was sleeping.
Something incredible happened the night that we met Sandra.
She saw love for the first time in her life and she listened to us
as we told her about the One who created love. Love himself.
We told her how Jesus died for her and that He loved her desperately and incredibly.
Her heart responded to His love and she asked Jesus into her heart, into her life.
She asked Him to save her.
For the next 5 months our team spent time with Sandra.
They held her hand as she took her first steps into a church
and they sat with her on the front row.
They became her brothers and sisters,
the first experience that she ever had with a real family who loved her.
Every Sunday morning we picked her up and spent the day with her.
We listened to her story.
We heard about a pain that few of us could even imagine.
Abuse that made us shudder.
And we saw her life change from ashes to beauty
as God restored her and showed her how beautiful she really was
inside and out.
Sandra became our friend, our sister.
Tears fell from her eyes and we held her hands, walking beside her through the healing process as she forgave her abusers, as she set her heart free from all of the hate and the guilt and the pain.
Last week, Sandra died.
Her body was riddled with Tuberculosis, a swift killer when combined with AIDS.
I woke up in my Mama’s house that morning.
She had made coffee for me and cooked scrambled eggs because she knows that they are my favorite.
I sat at her table, surrounded by people who love me
surrounded by the confidence that has been with me all of my life.
The fact that I am deeply loved, and I know it so truly in my heart.
That morning, we received the news that Sandra had died.
The sickness that had plagued her for so long had claimed her body.
We sat in stillness and I watched tears form in Chris’ eyes.
Words were few and the silence was long.
How do you deal with the death of a friend?
I fought within myself.
Why was I loved this much? And Sandra died of AIDS? How can that happen?
And then I realized, I have been loved well so that I can love well.
God knew the exact moment that Sandra would leave this earth.
And sometimes healing comes in the form of death
and we don’t always understand.
5 months ago we met Sandra. And today she is in heaven because of that moment. She is completely healed, her body is no longer filled with pain, her lungs no longer fight to take their next breath. She is completely healed, completely whole, completely beloved. She is with Jesus and she is alive. More alive than she has ever been.
Because the moments that make up our lives are important.
The ebb and flow is important.
Each day is so, so very important.
5 months ago on a Friday night, God led us to the street where Sandra lived. He ordered her steps to walk by us at the exact moment that we were there. He set that moment up in time, and he watched as we, His children, invited Sandra into our family, His family. And he was overjoyed. He knew what the past week would hold, that Sandra would spend her last moment on this earth and that she would open her eyes one second later and be in His arms, in Heaven. He knew.
And now I know more than ever.
I know how incredible important our moments are.
I know how incredibly miraculous it was that two crazy young Americans and a few crazy Peruvians were in the ghettos of Peru that Friday night 5 months ago and how special it was that we met Sandra, because now Sandra knows Jesus.
And so I will wake up tomorrow morning with new fervor.
I will walk through each moment of my life with new passion.
I will go back to Peru with a new sense of purpose and responsibility.
I will continue to spread love, to show love, to be love.
I will do it for every single person who has never known love.
I will do it for the ones who are crying out.
I will do it for the ones who are being abused.
I will do it for her,
For Sandra.
