When you're gone



When I took a phone call before class on Monday morning, I wasn’t ready for what I heard. I wasn’t expecting to hear that the community college instructor who had lectured my wellness class about America’s biggest killer—heart disease—had been its latest victim. That the middle-aged guy who pounded miles away on a YMCA elliptical machine faster and farther than I ever could every morning had suffered a fatal heart attack. That when I go home for spring break next week, he won’t be shooting me a grin and a “How’s college?” when I walk into the weight room. Apparently, death is inevitable and answers to no one. Not even those who do their best to escape it.


Mr. Bill McBride was one of the most inspiring people I ever met. I didn’t know him well, yet he infected me with positivity every time I saw him. As a junior in high school I started taking college classes. For a socially awkward, unathletic introvert, PE 1201 was one of the most terrifying highlights of my first year at ICC. (Dodge-ball, volleyball, or kickball every Thursday with overly competitive jocks? You’ll find me hiding under the bleachers.)  But he gave me the courage to put on my running shoes and face the flying balls. He was kind to everyone in our class, and I mean everyone—even that one kid who was a few fries short of a happy meal. Teachers and coaches get bashed more often than they’re praised; but my friends who had him as a softball coach never said anything negative about his methods. He was a friend to my family and respected in our community.


And now he’s gone. As Edgar Allen said, “Your life and mine shall be valued not by what we take…but by what we give.” It makes me think: when I’m gone, what will people remember about me? That I kept up a high GPA? That I spent hours practicing piano? That I was too consumed with my own problems to take time to help anyone else?


I know what I want people to remember. How disgusting if the only thing someone could remember was that I could play some mean Chopin or that I was a stellar opera accompanist. Yet how worthwhile if someone remembered that I pointed them to who Jesus is and showed them what real, unconditional love looks like. 


Life is too short for us to forget the real purpose in being here. God has created us with a need for a personal relationship with Him. Of course, this relationship cannot exist in our natural, deprived state. We are born separated from God who is absolute holiness—set apart by His perfect justice and righteousness. God cannot associate with sin because of His character. But instead of just condemning us to eternal separation from Himself in hell, the staggering love of God provided a mediator: Jesus Christ (John 3:16-18). God can now allow us to freely have access to Him because He satisfied justice and punished His own Son instead of us. If we would just take this by faith, God promises that He justifies (“declares righteous”) whoever believes (“trusts in, relies upon”) Christ’s work (Romans 4:5, Ephesians 2:8-9). Unless we forget, we did absolutely nothing to deserve this deal. Shouldn’t that love change how we view life? How we view the people around us?


If nothing else, this seemingly untimely death gave me a reality check. Real life is not found in maintaining perfect circumstances, in finding the right boyfriend or girlfriend, or making lots of money. Life is found in Jesus Christ and what matters in light of eternity. “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” (1 John 5:11, ESV) 



Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 9, 2014 at 12:13 PM

    I am not at all religious but I am a highly spiritual person, and I love that you are always sharing your love of God with others, as well as sharing uplifting scriptures and telling stories about how they fit in to your every day life. That is what I will remember about you... As well as how you could play "some mean Chopin". Haha.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Allison BessMarch 12, 2014 at 7:35 PM

      Thank you, Amber! I appreciate that. :) By the way, I enjoyed reading your story on Cre8 the other day. And I wouldn't mind hearing more about your spiritual beliefs sometime!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A sign from God

Image
“It was a sign from God.” A pair of coal-black eyes, embedded in a troubled expression, met mine from across the Seward Seaman’s Mission’s kitchen table. In one hand he clutched some freebies he had snagged from one of the mission’s tract shelves—a world map, a key ring of English Bible verses, a little post card. With the other he paged through an old mission photo album, looking for faces he might recognize. I sensed he was looking for something else, too. A full kitchen table at the mission. “I found a little—how do you say it—pamphlet in an elevator on the ship this morning, and I think it was a sign from God.” he continued. “It talked about a woman who died and stood before God. Your name had to be in this book, or you couldn’t go to heaven. And when God opened the book,” he leaned back in his chair, “God said ‘Your name isn’t there.’” He looked like he had just heard about an incoming comet or something. “Ah, I see. That is very interesting,” I nodded. It was clear G...
Read more

Not good enough

Image
As a new graduate student, I’ve spent a lot of my first semester hiding in the spacious Kathryn A. Martin library at UMD. It’s one of my favorite places to decode French art song texts and bleed out research papers (if you can have a favorite place for that sort of thing). They let you eat chips at this library, and headphones mean you can fine-tune the dull art of Googling Sergei Prokofiev while jamming out to…uh, well, probably more Prokofiev for that upcoming jury you should be practicing for.  Mercifully, people rarely look at you unless you talk to yourself or sneeze or break your 6-second limit for discreetly removing contact lenses. However, I people watch more than I’d like. I can’t help it—people are so fascinating. Everyone walks around with a life story zipped up in their backpack, and sadly, those stories often go untold. The other day, however, I heard a story that wasn’t meant for me. While standing at a printing station, my eyes took in an upperclassmen girl wrappe...
Read more

Hedgehog mode

Image
I remember my first experience with a baby hedgehog. My friend deposited a trembling, warm little creature into my hands, tiny feet pressing into my palms. I couldn’t stop smiling. I just stared down at the quivering mess of coffee-colored velcro—er, spiny fur—while the owner whispered to it and gently tried to smooth down its spines. Finally, a teeny pink nose peeked out. Hedgies had faces!? Sniffing out the excitement of this new skin-colored bean chair, it forgot itself and even let out a little grunt of happiness. And then I forgot myself and said something back; something generic like “It’s so cute,” which apparently sounded deadly enough to put up the sheath of terror. No more privileged glimpses of the real hedgehog tucked inside that prickly shell. All too often, I find myself in hedgehog mode. Not necessarily because of the way I waddle to class on a -25 F morning or because of the static electricity hitchhiking via my hair. Rather, it’s because I want to hide. Life is f...
Read more