In my last post, I started off talking about a friend who didn't feel called to live an ordinary life and through those words challenged me to live each moment in an extraordinary way.
That was my best friend Kandice, and she did that with her life, right up to the very end. What an end!! She spent her whole life, and more especially her 15 month battle with aggressive cancer, sharing God's glory and living intentionally. Hear from her own lips during her last week on earth how she did this by watching an interview with here here.
Kandice and I became friends through our small group Bible study at College Park, and her passion, intensity, and clear expression of what God was doing in her life hit home with me. We became good friends, then best friends.
One of the things I loved and will deeply miss is the unapologetic way Kandice let me into her life (as she did all her friends). Our first serious friend time we spent together we went dress shopping for her...unapologetically on her part, and it was so much fun! I'll never forget one Friday night she had to run her weekly errands to WalMart, and I wanted to hang out, so we went together, and oh was it fun, because Kandice made ordinary things fun. Even when she was battling cancer she would invite me in to personal moments for her...like having me accompany her to her first Young Survivor Coalition meeting, coming to hang out with her at chemo just before Christmas, asking me to go on a spiritual retreat with her last Labor Day that was super meaningful to both of us. Kandice let me in deeply into her life, and it was such a gift because it let me see the way she really lived her life and brought me to a deep level of friendship with her.
Celebration was another way Kandice lived her life intentionally. Sometimes she would create an Event out of something small and turn it into a big celebration. Like our Oscar party. Kandice loved the Oscars, and together one year we threw this big Oscar party, fancy dress and everything, just for the fun of it. Like the last time we hung out before life changed for both of us, going to a fun restaurant in Broad Ripple dressed up to celebrate. Like Kandice downloading a cowbell on her Ipod Touch and ringing it during the Olympics. How carefully she decorated her apartment at Christmas time.
Kandice had a great way with words and commitment to truth. She had this unique gift of being able to listen to a situation, assess it, and sum it up in a few words that got to the heart and really made it clear. We never could figure out just the right name for it, but it was definitely from the Holy Spirit and Kandice used it well. Countless times in the Bible studies we were in together she would summarize in this way what she was going through, and it would be the same thing I was going through and her words would give me the spiritual clarity I needed to work on that issue. Other times she would listen to me talk about my life, and then sum it up for me in words that made me laugh and convicted me all at the same time. How I have come to rely on her wisdom, and how I will miss her voice in my life.
There is so much more I will miss by not having her around until I go to be with the Lord as well. I know she is healed and rejoicing with the Lord, and I wouldn't wish her back for anything. But I miss her so intensely. For all of the above reasons, plus the fact that now so many of my best and most beautiful memories from these last seven years aren't shared by anyone on earth anymore.
I pray that this grief will push me straight into the Savior's arms (as it has been doing for the last 15 months that I've been grieving Kandice because of cancer) and I pray that I can use all I learned from her to live a purposeful, intentional life that brings awesome glory to our God.
