A Lesson in Love

Kelly taught me something today.

Kelly and her fiance, Towns-- really bright, young graduate students at the University of Florida-- joined our church a few months ago, were baptized together in July, and are scheduled to be married in our sanctuary in May next year. I was supposed to begin premarital counseling with them today; instead, I was visiting them in the hospital. It's something I get to do a lot with my job. Some days I'm better at it than others. Today I have to admit I was a little shaky.

Towns and Kelly were heading out for a weekend celebration for her birthday when an elderly driver became disoriented, entered the interstate heading in the wrong direction, and met their car head-on...at a combined impact speed of 140 mph.

The other driver died. Towns received a fractured spine, two broken ankles, and multiple contusions all over his body. Kelly cracked several ribs, broke her arm, and thought the whole episode was a dream (she had fallen asleep in the car while they were traveling.) Needless to say, they are fortunate to be alive...and they know it.

As Kelly recounted the events of the past 48 hours, she talked about how she had become so focused on her priority list of things she needed to do to get ready for her wedding, moving out of her current apartment, managing her part-time job and full-time graduate studies. Then, she said, she was in a wreck...a wreck where she should have died.

She stopped talking for a moment-- looked straight at me-- and said, "Boy, was I focused on the wrong things. None of that stuff really matters. People matter."

For a man who makes his living with words, I couldn't really find any. I just nodded my head while my mind tried to absorb the enormity and the truthfulness of what she was saying. Thankfully, her phone rang and, while she chatted with a friend, I had a minute to recover.

As she prepared to hang up, she said to her friend, "Thanks for calling, and I love you!" And then, with a little bit of a sheepish grin on her face, she said, "I also figured out it's a good thing to tell people that you love them."

Lesson learned Kelly. Thank you.

I love you, too.