Sharing My Faith

I think I'd like to write to the folks who publish Webster's dictionary and asked them to include "Satan's playground" as a new definition of the word "insomnia".

It seems that on nights (like tonight) when I can't sleep my mind races in a hundred different directions. I start a dozen devotions. I think of two dozen things I forgot to do that day. I wonder how I could have forgotten to return one phone call and make three more. I mentally make a grocery list and dictate a text message to my mother about something I need to ask her about in the morning. I wonder if my sister-in-law is at work in China and if not if she'd answer me if I got up and tried to get her on Skype.

When those things run out, Satan often takes over if I'm not very careful and very prayerful. But the things that he brings to my mind aren't nearly as cheerful as the thoughts of my new great niece and nephew that so far I've only seen pictures of. Instead of Mackenzie and Mason's sweet faces, I get a rehash of the fight I had with Mike that day. Every awful word and worse yet: the words I didn't say…but thought.

Instead of reminding me how sweet the hugs of my grandbabies are; I get a sick feeling in my stomach as I'm reminded of the phone call with my daughter when I was in too much of a hurry to talk to those precious children. A four year old who thinks his Poppy can do anything and a 6 year old who never gives the phone back to her mom without saying "I love you Nonnie and I miss you". I can still hear them crying as Tyra tells them "You can talk to Nonnie next time, she has to go right now."

The days I didn't bother to call my grandmother, the truths I've twisted to get what I wanted, friends I've betrayed, strangers that I've judged and people that I've hurt; are one by one thrown back in my face. And then I remember Kara.

Kara was one of my patients when I was working for the Bone Cancer Specialist at Arkansas Children's Hospital's Orthopedic Clinic. My job was to preauthorize surgeries and procedures. You wouldn't think that someone who dealt with insurance companies all day would get close to patients. But I did. Not many, but there were a few that came through my office time and time again and I couldn't help but learn to love them. Kara and her parents were one of those.

She was 13 the first time I met her. Long blonde hair to her waist and eyes as blue as the sky; she had a smile that was infectious and a laugh that would make anyone join in. She came be-bopping into my office one day and announced that I needed a nickname because Mrs. Paula sounded like an old woman. From that day on, I became Mrs. Curly Locks to Kara despite the fact that her mother tried like everything to get her to stop calling me that.

At 14, she underwent a massive chemotherapy treatment that made her beautiful blonde hair fall out. Not once did I hear her complain. She started wearing the silliest looking hats she could find and would pop her head in the door of my office with the hat pulled down over her face. "Betcha can't guess who I am!" She'd giggle. All I could do was shake my head. She'd come in and plop down in the chair next to me and sit there until it was her turn to see the dr. She loved all the Chicago sports teams. Being a Dallas fan, I was more than happy to debate the Bulls vs. Mavericks during basketball, the Rangers vs. White Sox during Baseball season and of course the Cowboys and the Bears when football rolled around.

At 15, Kara lost her leg to Cancer and had to have prosthesis. She decided that she and I were going to leave Arkansas and go on the road. She was going to become the world's first one legged Ballet dancer and I was going to handle her "affairs". I asked her what kind of affairs a 15 year old one legged Ballet dancer could possibly have. She just giggled. Our conversations turned that year from sports to boys. Her questions, often those that she said her mother refused to answer, were profound and broke my heart.

"Do you think a boy will ever like me when I have no hair and one leg?"

"The chemo dr. said I can't have kids because of the medicine. Will they let me adopt one now that I'm crippled?"

A month after Kara's 16^th birthday, the clinic staff learned that her latest round of chemo had been stopped. The cancer had moved from her bones into her brain and several other vital organs. Kara's parents had chosen to take their daughter home. Two weeks later I got a phone call from one of the nurse's that Kara was gone.

That Sunday, sitting in church, a thought hit me so hard I thought I was going to pass out. Not once in the three years that I had known Kara; in all the hours that we'd talked and laughed; had I once asked her about her spiritual condition. Kara had died without me knowing whether or not she knew Christ.

In the twelve years since Kara passed away, I've only shared her story with three people until now. Each time I do, I want to cry until I don't have any tears left. I've asked God to forgive me and I believe He has. But I also know that someday I may have to answer for my non-actions.

I read the results of a study tonight that was conducted by Campus Crusade for Christ. They posted that less than 2% of people professing to be Christians actually share their faith on a regular basis, but in a 24 hour period 150,000 people around the world will perish from this earth. If you do the math, that's 2 people for every second of every day. How many of them know Christ? How many of them have I come in contact with? How many of them do you know?

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? Romans 10:14