in a typical tattoo green….

One of my friends is a freak.

Actually, most of them are, but one in particular more than others.

Yes, she runs marathons and Death Races and is the motivation behind every insane fitness activity I have ever taken part in.  She is crazy, but not just crazy.  She really is a freak.

8 years ago, when I met this friend, she was much quieter. 
I didn’t know at the time, but when I met her she had only months earlier had her 2nd child, a little boy.

I have never met my friend’s 2nd born.

One minute, she was happy and pregnant and expecting what by all accounts should have been a happy and healthy baby boy just like her first.  The next, she was in premature labour at 29 weeks, having an emergency c-section and just like that, Baby Matthew came into this world for a moment looking perfect but inside, having no kidneys and no ability to survive.  And just as fast as he arrived, he was gone.  Leaving a mother and father and older brother to wonder what his Maker was thinking.

And the most wonderfully amazing thing about my freak friend – she never forgot that question. 

What was Matthew’s Creator thinking?  Why did he bring a little boy into this world only to take him back so soon?  What did he want her to learn?

And I believe it is in the answer to that question that my freaky friend found who she was created to be.

I have never in my life met someone who has seen a loss like hers and not just overcome but allowed it to re frame her entire purpose.  In her loss she found her mission, she found what God purposed her life for, and she embraced it.

My friend is a Jesus Freak.  She is like the one crying out in the desert, telling the world to make straight the way for the Lord.  She is living for eternity, for the promise of seeing her baby in heaven with her Creator one day, and she is making every moment before she gets there an opportunity to tell others about that promise.   She is passionate and honest and most of all, she loves deeply.  She wants nothing more than to bring God’s love into a hurting world.  Not with hypocrisy, judgement or pretense but with love. Plain and simple. 

She may joke that she has to keep it simple because she’s simple.  But the truth is it only seems simple because the rest of us aren’t looking at things simply enough.
 
She even wrote a story about her son that I helped put to a video so she could share it with everyone and use Matthew’s legacy the way God intended.  I hope one day I can share that here.

My friend’s been there for me for years now.  She’s the quiet, reflective, prayerful mirror to my loud impulsiveness.

This week my freaky friend will celebrate, like she has every year for the past 9 years, both her birthday and baby Matthews.  And since I can’t think of a thing I could give her to say happy birthday, I wrote this blog.  I hope she likes it.  Though it is really going to make it hard to think of what to do next year…

Happy Birthday Freak! 

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