Monday January 11, 2021
Jaxon
I started a
letter to you on Saturday but to be honest it was depressing. I was a mess Friday and Saturday. My friend Rebecca Hirschi died last Sunday,
the day you flew back to Georgia. I had
so much going on I didn’t really process it.
When Friday came I had to decide if I was going to the public viewing on
Friday, watch the live funeral on Saturday or go to the public gravesite
service on Saturday, in short I was a mess.
I couldn’t stop crying for my friend and her children. This hit really close to home since I was 27
when my mom passed away from the same cancer.
Enough about me being a mess and crying, it wasn’t a pretty site. Looked like a leaky faucet all the time. Let’s move on to what I have learned this
week and what is going on in the world because I am guessing you might not
know.
Funeral
First – I love Rebecca, she was one of the most Christlike people I know, maybe
the most Christlike. Her 4 girls and her
son all spoke at the funeral and did an awesome job. One of her girls read a scripture from John
11:35 Jesus wept. Short scripture, huh.
But very powerful. Jesus does
weep with us, he walks with us. We do
not have heartache or weep alone. Jaxon
NO matter how bad it gets in training or life you are never alone. You NEVER walk alone and if you don’t or
can’t weep, Jesus will weep for you. He
loves you. He walks with you Jaxon
2nd
thing from the Funeral – I love the song they sang and have included it. Master, The Tempest is Raging. It says over and over in the chorus “Peace,
be still. Whether the wrath of the
storm-tossed sea Or demons or men or whatever it be, No waters can swallow the
ship where lies The Master of ocean and earth and skies.” No matter what situation life throws at us we
can find peace. Rebecca found out she
had cancer when she was 40 in 2011, she even ran the Boston Marathon in 2012
after completing Chemo and took a day off from Radiation to run the
Marathon. She thought she had conquered
the cancer, but in 2017 while training for another Marathon she found out the
cancer had back with a vengeance. Further testing revealed that the cancerous
lesions weren’t limited to her hips. It had spread like oil over the surface of
water, metastasizing to her ribs, spine, lymph nodes and a lung. She was able to take chemo pill medication
every day from 2017 to the end of 2020 suppressing the growth of the cancer
until the medication didn’t work anymore.
But through it all she felt her trial was small compared to other’s
trials and found peace by being an Execeptional Responder. Exceptional Responders in the cancer world
are: patients who met the following criteria: Received a treatment in which
fewer than 10% of patients had a complete response or a durable (lasting at
least 6 months) partial response based on clinical trial data or extensive
historical experience in the context of the patient's tumor type. Rebecca wasn’t an Exceptional Responder
because she responded to a treatment that cured her cancer or had a durable
response to a treatment but because she persevered and never let the cancer
beat her mental strength or shake her testimony. She was an Exceptional Responder because
she LIVED her life and made the most of it with the strength of a warrior and
didn’t let this horrible experience turn her bitter.
3rd
thing from the Funeral – This quote: “The
only way to take pain out of death is to take love out of life” It goes along with a quote I saw recently
that says: “Grief never ends…but it changes.
It’s a passage, not a place to stay.
Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith…it is the price of
Love.” I was feeling grief for my friend
and her family this weekend and still do.
I will always feel grief for my own mom’s death. But it is the price of Love and I do love
them so much Jaxon. Jaxon – you, me and
our whole family are going to feel grief being apart and it’s okay. It’s healthy, it’s because we all love each
other so much. But we also support each
other and it’s okay for us to be apart for us to do what we need to do in this
world.
Attack on
Capital Hill – On Wednesday January 6th there was a riot on Capital
Hill. I have included a letter from your
dad that will explain what happened. In
Case your stop reading my letter now make sure you come back and read the rest,
please! Major General Donahue
put up a response today about what happened on Capital Hill. He said: I have wrestled to contextualize the
past few days. I’ve wondered how to lead
given the divisions in our nation. I’ve
struggled with how to help our organization through this turbulence. And then a high school classmate of mine made
a FB post that really helped. Here it
is: Yesterday, it was both difficult and heartbreaking to watch the images
of the United States Capital – which dates back to 1800 and is a place that I
have frequented for our advocacy efforts for many years – descending into
chaos, weapons drawn, lives lost, our members of Congress forced into hiding,
and a truly sacred space defaced and desecrated. While there are so many things going on
within Centura this week, there is nothing more important for me to talk with
you about today.
While we all might not
agree on politics, policies, parties and positions, we can and should respect
one another’s opinions and ideas, and encourage healthy debate and
uncomfortable conversations, and do always through the lends of our distinctive
Mission, Vision, and core Values. This
requires an assumption of good intentions for our fellow team members, a
sacred, implicit agreement to always speak the truth, to be compassionately
transparent, not intentionally do harm, not being thrown by disagreement,
taking a big risk by sharing, and never losing the super power of both humor
and fun.
In the ever-so-timely
words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Hate begets hate; violence begets
violence; toughness begets a great toughness.
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love…Our aim must
never be to defeat or humiliate... but to win… friendship and
understanding.” We should never resort
to violence and we have seen far too much of this over this past year. None of this is truly representative of who we
are (as a country and a healing ministry) nor should it ever be condoned for
any individual or any group in any way.
Major General Donahue went
on to post: On our worst day, America is still a nation of laws – and we are
watching that play out around country as those criminals that rioted,
vandalized and murdered while attempting to interrupt the sanctity of our
democratic process are rounded up by law enforcement. I trust in our system to bring them to justice.
Thoughts – There is such a division in our country right
now. It is HUGE and everyone is up in
arms and fighting and there is violence.
It shouldn’t be condoned for any individual, or group (not the
conservatives, liberals, republicans, democrats, or any race, or religion) Then I think about you and your platoon
and what you guys are experiencing from the little you have told me. This sticks out to me: Hate begets
hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a great toughness I
don’t know if you agree but those around you, that will remain unnamed beget
hate, they beget violence, and they beget a toughness out of you and those
around you that is greater than their own toughness. Somehow you and your group need to find a
way to meet the forces of hate with the power of Christlike Love. I know that mind sound completely CRAZY
because of your situation but BE THE LEADERS that you know your men need, that
your friends need. Be like Senior
and Lieutenant. Find a way that is better
than the hate, violence and toughness. Infantry
trains you to kill but the infantry creed also says: For I am mentally
tough, physically strong, and morally straight. All of you are mentally
tough, physically strong but are you being taught to be morally straight? Are you as leaders teaching that to your men?
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