letlovebesincere: Make the phone call.

Monday, February 9, 2015

Make the phone call.

Just do it. Don’t put it off, pick up the phone and send a text, or call the person you need to call.

Today would have been Paul’s 35th birthday. Many of you know Paul, many of you have come to

know him through weeks of social media updates. You have prayed for a man you never met, but have shared you feel deeply connected to. The suffering, death and celebration of life over the last few weeks has been a stunning show of the power of social media, the reality of the Body of Christ, and the profound ability we have to hold each other up, especially when one of us has fallen. I have been moved to my core at the completely unexpected death of my dear friend.

Almost two months ago I wrote a blog asking you for prayers and financial support for someone who meant so much to me and my family, fully expecting that his fight would be hard, but that cancer was about to get it’s butt kicked. He suffered well, like a champion actually, but in the end- Paul got to enter into the Heavenly Kingdom. It might have been before so many of us would have chosen, but it is reality nonetheless.

So today is Paul’s birthday, and I want to be really honest with you about something. Had history been different, and my friend today was alive and healthy down in Tennessee with his children and his wife, my dear friend Ann….I probably wouldn’t have even called him. If I happened to get a moment of free time- I might have sent him a quick text, ‘Miss your face, happy birthday Paulie’… but, to tell you the truth, even that hasn’t happened the last couple years. You know how it is, all through the day, I’d think, ‘gotta text Paul’ (that is, if I noticed the date at all), but more than likely I would have forgot.

We have spent countless birthdays celebrating each other’s birthdays when we lived in the same state, but as the years have gone by and life has changed with our zip codes, sending each other ‘Happy Birthday’ messages didn’t seem to be a priority. But now, now I can’t. Even if I wanted to. Had these last two months been different, I probably wouldn’t have even thought of today being Paul’s birthday- but now, after all that has transpired…it is, of course, the only thing I can think of.

Because I’d give anything to call my friend right now, hear his voice, wish him a ‘Happy 35th’ and see what he had planned for the day. But I’ll never be able to do that again, at least not on this side of heaven.

So, I just wanted to tell you pick up the phone. Right now. Don’t wait. Call the person you haven’t talked to in a few years that you loved from college.

Text the roommate you haven’t spoken to in a few weeks.

Shoot an email to the sibling who has been kind of annoying you the last couple months/weeks- the one who you can’t imagine your life without.

Send a letter to that person in your life who means so much and tell them how important they are to you.

Because, the truth is, I have learned a lot in the last two months, but one of the hardest lessons is just how precious this time we have here on earth together is. I always knew it to a certain degree, but I profoundly feel it now. And it’s just really important that we make those phone calls, send those texts and letters. So go ahead and do it. You won’t regret it.