The two of us sat together countless times over a biscuit, talking of life. A couple of moments are branded to my memory:
I'm sure you remember sitting on the front stoop of Chisca. It was my favorite old cabin at Frontier Ranch where I've slept many a night. That's the place where you gave your life to Christ, giving me the privilege of sitting with you under a matchless Colorado night sky. That was June of 1993.
But the next year was tough... for both of us. None of your buddys wanted to walk the same rocky path like you did. Each week we would meet at Hardee's on Campbell Station Road for that biscuit, hanging on to the Hope that was alive in both of us. And the business I owned was floundering. You didn't know it, but those mornings together were not just for you.
Our very last time together was May of your junior year. I decided to stop my years of being a Young Life leader so I could bring more focus to my business. And this morning I would tell you... you who "needed" me so much. But it was that day you walked in with a new friend, a guy on the football team I also knew, the FCA president, a believer! That day you and I saw so many said and unsaid prayers come to fruition. That day changed my life. Within a single moment God brought each of us to a new direction: You - the first real high school friend in Christ to walk with during your last year in high school. Me - a new career path at the age of 36.
And off we went.
I saw you a couple times during your Senior year, but Young Life staff had carried me to a different school in a different part of town. And then to Asheville. Maybe it was eight or ten years later that I heard of your overdose. For some bad reason I couldn't get back for your funeral and I still regret that. I was caught up in my own little world.
We will be together again.
No sitting this time.
And no biscuits. At least none from Hardee's.
In a Holy City.
Where God will live with us.
We will be His people.
He will be our God.
Every tear will be wiped away by His hand.
Death will be gone forever.
So will crying.
And, hard to imagine, but all pain too!
Everything will be made new.
Including what was made together between us.
Meanwhile, I'll hang onto the Hope.
You pull for me.
