I Will Miss You

A friend of mine died a couple of weeks ago. She was only 21 years old. Jenny was killed by a drunk driver. We were really good friends when we were in middle school. We kind of grew apart after that, but I still loved her. I will always love her. I hadn't talked to her in six years. It is so unfair. Why did she have to die? I know that she accepted Christ in high school. I can hold on to the fact that Jesus took her home.

Jenny and I had a lot of fun together when we were kids. Jenny was fun and beautiful. We used to laugh a lot. I spent a lot of time at her house and we would watch movies and bake cookies. We loved to jump on the trampoline. We went to the fair together one year. That was a fun night. I remember that we loved to watch Grease. She had the cd and we would sing the songs a lot. She was a great friend, not just to me, but to many others.

All week I struggled with going to her funeral. I didn't want to deal with the pain. I knew it would mean a lot to her mom if I went. I had made the decision that I wasn't going to go. About an hour before the funeral a friend of mine called and asked if I was going. When she called I knew that the Lord wanted me to go. It was hard, but I'm glad that I went. The pain of her death was more real than anything I have ever experienced. Seeing her body was kind of horrific for me. She wasn't just gone, she was lying right in front of me. At first, I didn't know how to deal with the pain. I just tried to shove it down and avoid it. That didn't last for long because the pain was really intense. She was on my mind constantly. There was a heaviness in my chest, like I couldn't breathe. The heaviness in my gut almost made me sick.

I finally just let the pain come. The weight that I was feeling has lifted a bit. Each day it gets a little better but I still think about her a lot. Pain like that brings you to a place where there is nothing left but the arms of Jesus holding you. Jesus is the only thing that keeps you afloat. This kind of pain is only a fraction of the pain that people with disabilities experience. This pain that God has allowed me to experience wasn't just for me. I think that God is allowing me an inside view in the life of people with disabilities so that I can relate to and understand them better. People with disabilities have become my world. I think God wants me to get a glimpse of the suffering that they face. And I think like anything else, you just don't get it until you experience it.