She Ran The Race Well
She Ran The Race Well
As a child she learned to love Jesus
Through playfully singing Bible songs,
Through dutifully learning the catechism,
Through memorizing Scripture,
Through being captivated with Bible stories.
Lindsey learned to wait on the LORD and rest in Him,
She ran the race well.
As a pre-teen she learned to love Jesus
Through learning hymns in church,
Through the liturgy of worship,
Through seeing Him in the community of faith,
Through prayer time with her family.
Lindsey learned to wait on the LORD and rest in Him,
She ran the race well.
As a teen she learned to love Jesus
Through playing her guitar and singing,
Through youth group meetings and trips,
Through godly friends in high school,
Through nightly prayer and discussion with her sister.
Lindsey learned to wait on the LORD and rest in Him,
She ran the race well.
As a young adult she learned to love Jesus
Through joining other musicians to lead worship,
Through always pursuing a church body to join in worship,
Through regular Bible reading and prayer,
Through small group and discipleship relationships.
Lindsey learned to wait on the LORD and rest in Him,
She ran the race well.
As a young married woman she learned to love Jesus
Through loving a flawed man well,
Through committing to church community,
Through crying out to Him over years of infertility and heartache,
Through giving herself to a few key friendships,
Lindsey learned to wait on the LORD and rest in Him,
She ran the race well.
As a mom she learned to love Jesus
Through giving herself for her children,
Through serving and valuing home life,
Through praying regularly and desperately for the boys,
Through seeking to always shepherd their hearts and show them Jesus.
Lindsey learned to wait on the LORD and rest in Him,
She ran the race well.
As a cancer patient she learned to love Jesus
Through accepting His visitation,
Through embracing His goodness and joy,
Through seeing His kingdom and the eternal glory to come,
Through putting on his warm shawl of comfort and future wholeness.
Lindsey waited on the LORD and found final rest in Him!
She ran the race well!
Written December 2 (day 354). We’re in the tender part of the year since Lindsey passed. This time a year ago was a confusing and vexing period for all of us close to Lindsey. It was characterized by a helplessness of standing by her side as she began to suffer to breathe, as she spent the majority of this week and a half in and out of a hospital only to return home weak, chair-bound, and on oxygen perpetually. A year ago today, she laid in a hospital bed confounded by her failing body hoping, like all of us, that some sort of other, fixable cause could be at work for her deterioration. She treasured her visits from family, friends, and her pastors. She especially treasured the music and Scripture that pointed her to Jesus.
This week, I’ve set apart time to reflect on the year, her life, the future, loss, life, beauty, pain, etc. As I muse, I have found great comfort in her memory and the memory of her life. Lindsey lived her life well and found great strength and joy in Jesus. I’ve thought on that a lot this week and am grateful for the legacy she’s left all of us, the example she left of someone that found joy and solace in Jesus not only when life was easy but especially when life was hard. I find comfort in her resurrection and final resting place and am thankful for the gift she was to me and to us all as she lived here on earth. She had a cultivated faith that permeated all aspects of her life. And, even when it got hard, she never lost the object of her faith no matter how feeble her faith or strength may have been at the lowest points. Her faith was a product of parents, family, and a church community that treasured Jesus by living lives marked by repentance and faith. I marvel at the seriousness, commitment, and joy she had following Jesus. He was her treasure.
Jerry Sittser’s A Grace Disguised has been a helpful book for me on how the soul grows through loss. In the 14th chapter of the book as he commends the voices, (writings, poems, songs) and art of the cloud of witnesses around us as useful tools for processing grief, he shares an excerpt from Thomas Sheperd, a 17th century Puritan pastor that wrote cathartically and reflectively upon the death of his wife. In his pain and remembrance, Shepherd wrote glowingly of his wife’s faith and relationship with Jesus by claiming that “She was fit to die long before she did die.” This line struck me and is also so fitting of Lindsey and the life she lived. She ran the race well, and she learned how to find joy in communing with Jesus. She waited on Him, found rest in Him, and learned the secret of being content with Him, developed eyes to see His kingdom and eternity. Though it’s such a morbid construct of language and not a sentence we often utter, I could not agree more with Sheperd with this description fitting of Lindsey: she was fit to die long before she did die. May we all learn to develop such a fitness, for our joy, comfort, and peace as we continue to live here on earth awaiting eternal life to come.
