If I Die, Will You Write Something About Me?

Seven years ago today, my best friend, Caroline Hartrampf, took her last breaths and stepped into eternity.  I never thought I would experience the death of my best friend so early in life, but when I look back on our times together, I'm not so sure Caroline was as unprepared for the end of her life as I was.  It's strange because Caroline was not suffering from an illness or a disease.  She didn't even have the slightest trace of a cold or allergy problem when she left this earth.  But still, somehow, Caroline seemed to know her time was limited, and she lived the limited time with an unparalleled passion for her Heavenly Father.

Caroline once asked me, "If I die, will you write something about me?"  I always thought that was a weird question coming from a perfectly healthy eighteen-year-old, but now, I see the greater purpose in it.  Caroline's story is not just Caroline's story.  Her request for me to write about her has been so much more than me simply putting words down onto paper because the words I have written are not really about her, and they're not really about me.  They're about God.  They show how mighty and perfectly orchestrated His plans are.  Let me explain.

Earlier in the year of Caroline's death, I had considered moving home from the University of Alabama.  My older brother was struggling through some life choices, and I wanted to be there for my family.  Caroline begged me not to leave her.  Her parents were going through a divorce, and she felt that similar desire to return home and be there for her family, but she felt like God had a bigger plan for her than simply returning home.  Caroline felt that way about me too.  She didn't want me to run away from the place where God had placed me, looking for some other purpose than the one He had right before me.  It only took one serious conversation with Caroline for me to agree with her.  I knew she was right.  God had me where He wanted me so I stayed at UA.  In my mind, that meant Caroline and I would have three and a half more years in Tuscaloosa, AL to glorify God and do His kingdom work together.  I was ecstatic.

Naturally, Caroline and I, being the best friends that we were, decided to sign up for all of the same classes.  At that point in time, I was pursuing dentistry.  I wanted to be like my retired granddad and my aunt.  I'm not really sure what Caroline wanted to be.  She wasn't really sure either.  Well, I take that back.  Caroline wanted be married more than anything.  But in the waiting process, she didn't so much care what classes she took or what major she settled on.  Caroline knew that she had a bigger purpose than that.  She was sold out to God.  She cared about one thing and one thing alone: glorifying God with her whole life in each and every moment.

I remember sitting by Caroline during a sermon one time.  The sermon discussed the present.  The speaker talked about how we so desperately yearn for the future when God has given us the present to live out His love, to be His hands and feet and to do His kingdom work.  He went on to tell a story about a lady in a restaurant.  A waitress.  This waitress was absolutely miserable.  She seemed to hate her job and everything about it, including the people who sat at her table.  Well, this speaker decided that this waitress was just as important in the Kingdom of God as he was.  She wasn't just a waitress with a bad attitude.  She was a woman who was broken, just like the rest of us.  So the speaker waited in a long line every single day of his vacation to sit at this woman's table so that he could shine a little light in her life.  By the end of the speaker's vacation, the woman's spirits had lifted, and she was a new woman entirely.  Had the speaker been too focused on his future, he would have missed the opportunity in each day of his vacation to see that woman for something more than a waitress with a bad attitude.  Sadly then, that woman would have never been able to separate her identity from what it was as a waitress with a bad attitude.

In closing, the speaker asked us to pray for an opportunity to live out our faith in the present.  He encouraged us to not get caught up in what our futures would hold because in all honesty none of us our guaranteed that future.  We only have that present moment.  We only have the present day.  Sure, it's important to work towards future goals, but when those future goals consume all that we are and cause us to miss the moment that we're in, that's when we have a problem.  That's when we miss the doors that are open right in front of us.  I prayed that I would not miss that opportunity, and in that moment, a face came to my mind.  It was clearer than any face I've ever seen.  There was no denying to whom that face belonged.

When the prayer was over, I turned to Caroline, and I said, "We have to make the Smoothie Lady smile."  Caroline looked at me.  As a great big smile crept across her face, she said, "I was thinking the same thing."  You may be wondering who this Smoothie Lady was, so let me fill you in.  At UA, there is a place called the Ferguson Center (UA students refer to it as "the Ferg") where you can eat at a variety of restaurants and socialize with your friends.  It's like a college version of a mall food court.  Well, at the Ferg, there was a Smoothie King, and there was a lady, the Smoothie Lady, who worked at Smoothie King.  The Smoothie Lady was the saddest, gloomiest, most depressing looking lady I have ever seen in my entire life.  I used to order smoothies just to tell her that I hoped she had a good day, and her response time and time again was a simple nod with the same sad, gloomy, depressing expression that she'd worn every other day.

Caroline and I knew that we were up for a challenge.  I mean, how do you make someone smile when you're nice to them every single day, and they don't respond at all?  There's not bitterness or hatred there.  There's apathy, and that's something so much harder to overcome than the worst bitterness or hatred.

If you must know, Caroline and I were a duo of weirdos so our plan to make the Smoothie Lady smile came a little more quickly than we had intended.  We were eating lunch, and it hit us.  We'd sing and dance for her.  In the middle of the campus food court, two girls who knew nothing about singing or dancing planned to sing and dance for the purpose of a smile.  The funny thing was Caroline and I never doubted our ideas once we'd come up with them.  We simply knew what we were supposed to do, and no matter how weird or uncomfortable it seemed, we were confident that God had a purpose for us that far surpassed that momentary awkwardness.  So we carried out our plans.  We lived in the moment.

Already laughing, we walked up to the Smoothie Lady.  We asked for her name, which just so happened to be Natasha, and we asked her what her favorite song was.  Natasha didn't know what song was her favorite, but we had her attention right there.  The sad, gloomy, depressing expression faded away the moment we stepped past the surface level attempt to brighten her day and actually tried to get to know her.  She wasn't just the Smoothie Lady.  She had a name.  She was Natasha.  Her life wasn't about serving us smoothies.  It had a purpose just like ours.  The moment we saw that, we burst into song.  Caroline and I sang Chris Brown's "With You," complete with our own made up hand motions.  The entire Ferg watched as we made fools of ourselves, but we didn't care.  We didn't care because Natasha didn't smile.  She laughed.  And I'm not talking a simple sympathetic chuckle.  I'm talking a full body laugh.

From that day on, Natasha remembered us.  Every time we walked into the Ferg, she smiled.  Caroline and I were never so excited about another single moment of our friendship.  We knew with all of our hearts that God had a plan for us in that present moment, and it went beyond making a lady smile or laugh.  We were sharing God's love with someone who could've been a perfect stranger our whole lives.  The gospel was our heart's cry, and we didn't need a fancy degree or a life planned out on paper to share that story.  We shared it as we were - two imperfect friends with no idea what the future was going to bring.

I think it was about a week before Caroline's death when we decided to give Natasha the copy of The Purpose Driven Life that I'd just finished reading.  That was the last time either of us ever saw Natasha, and that was one of the last few times I ever saw Caroline.  You see, Caroline's story is the greatest story of friendship that I know.  It's not because she was perfect.  It's not because her life was void of mistakes.  It's not even because she had it all together.  Caroline's story is the greatest story of friendship that I know because Caroline lived out the gospel with every breath of her life while she still had the opportunity to do so.  She knew she wasn't strong enough or good enough on her own, and she was okay with that.  She let God shine through her in such a way that people are still touched by her life seven years after her death.  You see, living in the present moment for Caroline was not just the present moment.  It was her whole future, too.  

Caroline was more than a best friend to me; she was my sister-in-Christ.  A real sister, too.  One with whom I could be vulnerable and honest.  One who loved me despite my failures and mistakes.  One who taught me to love God more than anything that this world has to offer.  One who taught me that the present is the greatest moment that we have because it may be all that we have.  Caroline's friendship forever changed me.  It made me see God in a whole new way.  It made me see people in a whole new way.  I am forever grateful that God allowed for our paths to cross in the short time that they did.

A Perfectly Imperfect Fairy Tale

A fairy tale is not a fairy tale because it is perfect.  A fairy tale is a fairy tale because it transforms imperfections into the kind of magic we call love.  And there's only one way that can happen - with God.  So, here's my fairy tale, imperfections and all.  To God be all the glory.

Once in a lifetime, you meet someone who changes your life in a single glance.  That someone for me was Joel, and that glance happened on New Year's Eve, 2013.  I liked Joel the moment I first saw him - the moment he lit my sparkler.  I would have never admitted it at the time, always having been my own personal love story's greatest critic.  But it's true.  There was something about Joel that I liked right away.  Something that made my heart smile before I even really knew him.

I remember standing around the fire with friends, freezing cold and wondering if Joel had a girlfriend.  My heart actually skipped a beat when he said something about an ex-girlfriend of his.  If he was bringing up an ex-girlfriend, he had to be single, right?

New Year's Day I added Joel on Facebook.  Of course, I added his sister and his sister's boyfriend (among other people) to be a little more conspicuous.  I can remember how excited I was when he accepted my friend request.  A real middle school-like emotional high.  But, that high only got higher when he started liking my Facebook statuses.  I even went so far as to show my mom his profile picture, telling her about the "cool, funny, nice, good looking, perfect" guy I had just met.

Joel and I started talking through Facebook messages, and then one day, he asked for my phone number.  Not long after that, we went on our first unofficial date.  Hiking.  I think I knew Joel was a keeper when he asked me if I wanted some trail mix.  I said no, and he said, "I think you would really like this kind."  I agreed to try the trail mix, and he pulled a baggy out of his backpack with a mixture of Froot Loops and Goldfish.  For those of you who don't know, that is my absolute favorite snack (and I'd only ever mentioned it in passing)!

As the weeks went by, I would take coffee to Joel and sit with him in between his college engineering classes.  Joel sent flowers to me, and he wrote me one of the most beautiful poems I have ever read to this very day.  Everything seemed to be going so perfectly.  I mean, how often in real life does the man of your dreams walk out of your dreams and into your life?

Around that time, I stopped talking to Joel.  I'm talking absolute silence - no responses to his texts and no answers for his phone calls.  I ignored him 100%.  Crazy. right?  And the reason for that?  Well, I couldn't tell him.  After all, how do you tell your perfect person that you're not perfect?  How do you tell him that you have a past that is currently invading your present?  That you have made mistakes, and they have come back to haunt you?

Joel refused to let me have the easy way out with my silence.  He showed up at my house and waited across the street in his car until I finished my run.  At the time, I didn't realize that he'd already talked to my parents and that they had told him I was outside running.  In my mind, all I could think was that I'd come across a real life stalker.  (I probably watch too many scary movies.)  That night, Joel asked me if I wanted to go on a real date with him, and I said no.  After all, at this point, I was fully convinced that my stalker theory was correct.  Mainly that theory was a cover up for the fact that I was deathly afraid that Joel would turn out to be a jerk hiding behind a nice guy mask, and if he really was the nice guy, I was deathly afraid that I wasn't worthy of his love.

Time passed, and I realized that Joel wasn't really a stalker.  He really was the nice guy I had met on New Year's Eve.  I also realized that I owed him a big apology and not just the kind of apology that says, "I'm sorry I thought you were a stalker."  I'm talking the kind of apology that says there's a lot more to my story than what I've let on, and you need to know my full story, as uncomfortable as it is for me to share, to understand why I gave you the cold shoulder.  I think it took me at least four months to muster up the courage to give a real apology with full details.  I'll never forget Joel's response: "I've really missed you.  No hard feelings."

Joel and I dated for several months.  He ended up taking a job that caused him to work every weekend, and I ended up having ankle surgery on my right ankle (meaning I couldn't drive at all for six weeks).  Being a quality time kind of person, I quickly grew frustrated with our relationship.  It felt worse than a long distance relationship because we never got to see each other, and we lived in the same town.  I hit breaking point and broke up with Joel.  Of course, I regretted that decision the moment I carried it out.  I didn't want Joel out of my life.  I wanted him in my life more.

Apologizing a second time isn't so easy as apologizing a first time.  After all, it's hard for someone to fight for you when you're always running from them.  Apathy begins to take root.  And that's what happened to Joel.  I had pushed him out one too many times, and he wasn't eager to jump back into working things out.  In retrospect, I'm quite thankful Joel didn't accept me so readily because God used that time to grow my heart for Him.  I gained a burning desire for missions, and I signed up for a mission trip out of the country - a mission trip to Costa Rica.

Despite the apathy in our relationship (or whatever it was that we were), Joel and I still hung out 24/7.  I prayed for weeks that God would reveal to me whether or not Joel was the one for me.  It wasn't that I was desperate to have Joel in my life.  I just didn't want to be consumed by something that was not in God's will for my life.  New Year's Eve 2014 (the one year anniversary of the day Joel and I first met) was coming around, and I prayed that God would use that day to give me my answer.  I asked God to make it simple so that I couldn't manipulate circumstances or meanings to my own liking.  I prayed that Joel would spend New Year's Eve with me (without me manipulating circumstances) if God wanted me to be patient and wait on Joel to get over his apathy.  If I didn't spend New Year's Eve with Joel, I would know that we didn't have a future together, and it was time for me to move on.

New Year's Eve rolled around.  Joel had plans with his friend, and I had plans with my friend.  I assumed that I had my answer.  It was time I closed that door and trust that God had another someone out there for me.  But, around 8:30, Joel sent me a snapchat saying that he was bored.  I asked why he wasn't at his friend's party, and he said that the party hadn't started yet.  I told Joel that my friend and I were going to grab some coffee before our party, and Joel decided to join us.  While we were having coffee, my friend invited Joel to the New Year's party we were going to, and Joel decided to come with us (despite the fact that he already had other New Year's plans).  And I knew that was my answer.  I was to be patient and wait.

The being patient and waiting process was incredibly hard for me.  But God used it for His glory.  One day after church, God placed on my heart a strong desire to tell Joel in person just how much he meant to me.  That was a really bold move for me because I really struggled sharing my true feelings, being so afraid of rejection.  My words weren't the magical fix I'd hoped for.  Joel appreciated what I had said, but he didn't want to pursue a relationship.  I remember getting in my car and saying, "God, why would you want me to say that if I was just going to get rejected?"  I remember even more what God said back to me, "Do you really love him?"  I thought for a moment.  "Of course I love him."  That's when it hit me.  I loved Joel because I wanted Joel to love me.  I didn't love Joel because I wanted him to grow and develop in his relationship with Christ.  I loved Joel selfishly, not sacrificially.  It wasn't love at all.  Not real love.

I made the decision at that moment to be Joel's friend.  I wanted to really love him.  Not for what I could take from the relationship.  Not even for what I could offer to the relationship.  I wanted to love him because I wanted to be a vessel of God's love in his life.  Believe me when I say all of that was a lot easier said than done.  My patience ran thin more times than I'd like to admit.  But in my heart, I knew Joel was the one for me.  Deep down, I felt a peace about it, and the more I prayed, the more at peace I felt.

I don't remember the exact moment when our friendship transformed back into a relationship.  It just kind of happened one day, but once our relationship was restored, I knew that my love for Joel was no longer about me.

Just when we were getting our relationship back on track, I left the country for Costa Rica.  In Costa Rica, I met a girl who was on staff with YWAM at the Guatemalan base.  She asked me how I'd heard about YWAM, and I told her that I had heard of it through my best friend who was on staff at the base in Costa Rica (this just so happens to be the same friend who invited Joel to the New Year's Eve party) and through my boyfriend who had done a DTS with YWAM in Belize with his outreach in Guatemala.  The girl asked me what my boyfriend's name was, and when I told her she couldn't believe she was meeting me.

Apparently Joel and this girl were friends when Joel was on his outreach, and they'd had a conversation about future relationships.  Joel had told the girl that he wanted to be devoted to God and not worry about dating, and the girl's response had been, "Whatever girl you end up with is going to be one lucky girl."

My time in Costa Rica made me realize two things: one, I wanted to follow God with my whole heart for my whole life, and two, I wanted my adventures with God to include Joel.  I was not at all ready to leave Costa Rica when the end of the month came, but Joel helped me to adjust back to Alabama life.  He encouraged me to see the mission field in the here and now - the mission field that I'm a part of every day of my life.  That is when I started praying every day that God would show us how we could do His kingdom work hand-in-hand.

That prayer was answered when my former students started coming to church.  With Joel's help, it was easier for me to get my male students plugged in; whereas, my focus on my own had been on getting my female students plugged in (simply because males need male leadership and females need female leadership to grow).  Seeing Joel with my students made me love him all the more.  There's just something so special about seeing the man you love surrounded by the kids you love.

At the beginning of this month (October), Joel took me to his home state (Oregon).  I was so excited to meet all of his old friends.  Not to mention, we had plans to stay a couple of nights with a best friend of mine from my time in Costa Rica, who just so happens to be from Oregon and just so happens to have a brother-in-law who does worship with one of Joel's friends from college.  Crazy, I know.

Well, on this trip, Joel and I went backpacking with his cousin and her husband.  Underneath a waterfall (he chose the location because I like fantasy novels and have a very vivid imagination), Joel got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.  Of course, I said yes.

I could not be more excited for the lifetime of adventures to come for Joel and me.  I know that God has amazing things in store for the two of us, and even if the road isn't always easy, I know it will end with a beautiful story - a fairy tale that glorifies God and reveals His perfect orchestration in the midst of our insanely imperfect lives.