I have a friend who has been battling breast cancer for the past year. But before I get into that, let me explain what a wonderful person she is . . . creative, artistic, warm and loving. I met her through some classes she was teaching and she treated me as a friend from the moment we met. She included me in many of the things she was doing and made certain that she introduced me to everyone she knew and always made me feel welcome. Through her, I have gained many more friends and I had great admiration for her before cancer--I have even more now! When she was first diagnosed, I happened to be standing there with her when she hung up the phone after confirmation from her doctor. What an impact that news had on me. I saw the fear and trepidation in her eyes and she hugged me so tightly as if her embrace would help to take some of the burden off of her and somehow transfer it to me. How I wish that could have been true. To make matters worse, her husband is a civilian contractor stationed in Afghanistan so she was destined to make this journey alone. Fortunately, she is loved by so many and as women do, they circled the wagons around their dear friend to help her through the ordeal of biopsies, x-rays, scans and chemo. As her treatment progressed, I found myself busy with my own life and sometimes weeks would go by without my ever picking up the phone to see how she was doing. Some friend I was. It was very easy in the beginning to rally around to cheer or help her, but eventually people tend to forget about others and get caught up in their own universe. The more time I let slip by, the guiltier I felt about not calling to check on her and I would push the thoughts to the back of my mind until even more weeks and months went by.
I made up my mind this morning that my friend was too important to me and it didn't matter how much time had passed . . . I wanted to see her and do something nice for her. After all, what if I were alone and dealing with such a scary issue? Wouldn't I want others to reach out to me? Would I be mad or bothered if long periods of time went by without hearing from my friends? Of course not. I would be so grateful to hear from them and would probably long for their companionship.
So today, my act of random kindness was reaching out to a friend in need. It was so good to hear her voice and I could tell she was happy to hear from me. We caught up with each other on the phone and made a firm date to get together next week. Guess what? I think the call was more therapeutic for me than it was for her. A friend once told me that a truly kind person is one who not only thinks of something nice to do, but also takes the steps to act upon it.
Take a moment today and reach out to someone you haven't seen or talked to in a while. If God places them in your thoughts and in your heart like He did for me, maybe it is His way of telling you that you are needed to do His work.
And as for my friends' prognosis . . . she is finished chemotherapy and begins radiation soon. So far, all scans are clean and her doctors are hopeful that she will have a full recovery! God is good!
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