Korean Tea.

That title has absolutely nothing to do with the content of this blog post, but it is what I am consuming while writing it.

I've had this on my heart for at least a week now, but I haven't had a chance to actually sit down and collect my thoughts until just now. I was sitting in DeMoss reading The Ragamuffin Gospel while I was waiting for church to start, when I overheard a conversation going on right across the hall from me. Oh, yes, I am an eavesdropper...especially when people are talking about what is going on in their lives and how God is working.

There was a 30-something guy interviewing a girl my age...I could tell it was an interview because there was a recorder on the table and he was taking notes. I wasn't there when the conversation began, but the first part of the conversation that I caught was the girl talking about her CF (cystic fibrosis) and all of the different doctors and hospitals and treatments that she has tried throughout her life. This made my ear(s) perk up because at one time, I was being tested for CF because they just had no idea what was wrong with me...but it came back negative. She then began describing what a normal day entailed for her and what a sick day looked like. Oh my goodness...she has to take dozens of pills and do hours of treatments before she is even ready to get to class in the morning, and that's on a good day. How many times do we wake up an early before class and complain that we have to take a shower or pick out what to wear? How many times do we whine because we have to take one vitamin in the morning, when other people have to take dozens?

The next part was what got me. She said that people with her condition live on average to their late 20s or early 30s, but because of this experimental treatment she is on, she will probably live until she is about 35. This girl is 20 and she is going through school knowing that her life is more than halfway over. Then she just started pouring her heart out about why she is in school and what she wants to do with her Health Promotions degree. She wants to be a researcher for conditions like CF, so that she can improve the lives of the people that come after her.

She was talking about how most people say that they will serve the LORD once they get married, or after they graduate, but she says that she has to serve the LORD now and as diligently as she can, because she doesn't know how much time she has left. Most girls go through school focused on finding a husband so that they can start a family shortly after graduation, but she has already dealt with the fact that she will probably not get married, and if she does, she will not have children because she said it would be cruel to bring them into the world and then have to leave them a few short years later. Wow. I am not afraid of death whatsoever, but to hear her talk so openly about knowing she will not live much past college really struck me. I almost couldn't focus on church that night because I was thinking about her faith and the sovereignty of the LORD.

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." --Philippians 1:21.