My Radio Friend

I often listen to a call in sports show in the afternoons when I’m in the car or fixing supper. I’m mainly interested in what they have to say about the football team I follow. My husband rolls his eyes and shakes his head when he walks through the room! It is classic South. Good ole boys call in to ask why the defensive line didn’t pressure the quarterback, why the backs didn’t run north/south, why the quarterback didn’t pick up Bubba who was wide open for crying out loud, ten yards from the end zone. You may laugh and roll your eyes. Won’t bother me a bit!

I lived outside the South long enough to relish profoundly southern accents much like you would relish that first bite of chocolate mousse after a six month bread and water diet. I just stand there stirring a pot and grin. I love it.

We were overseas for two years early in our marriage and I came back South after a year to visit. My sister and I went shopping and a sales clerk approached us and with the sweetest, most pronounced drawl I ever heard and said, “Hey, (spoken with at least three syllables ) can I hep you?” Oh man, I was so overcome, I hugged her and asked her to just say that again!

So with my sports show. I love football and I love southern accents.

I tuned in on Monday afternoon to a somber show. One of the announcers had died. He had just joined the crew a few months ago and I’d chosen this show over another one at the same time on another station because I loved not only the way he talked but his views. He just kind of drew you in with his warmth.

He had died over the weekend. A sudden thing. No illness. Just died. I felt like I’d lost a close friend. Isn’t that amazing? I never even met the guy. I know nothing about him beyond what he thinks about our offensive line, our receivers and our defense.

I read his obituary yesterday. No mention of faith which in the South is always the first thing listed especially if you just died. You may have attended only once a year but by gum, your name was on the roll and your church is at the top of the list, followed by Rotary, the Junior League and the PTA.

A graveside service. The end.

It would be like taking a good friend to the airport two hours away, dropping them off knowing you’d never see them again and not knowing where they were going. And you knew they had no plan either. They were just going to get out of your car, collect their bags and stand alone, looking at the doors. You drive away with this awful feeling.

God would not create heaven and earth with such precision and leave where we spend eternity to chance. He would not. He did not. We can know with absolute certainty.

We begin a relationship with him here on earth and when we step out of that car and go through the airport doors, and walk into eternity, we continue that incredible relationship, just in a different realm.

How do you leave that to chance when everything in your entire life from which school to go to, where to live, which house to buy, what job to take, how much money to spend, who to marry… is talked over, hashed over, agonized over and then decided on? You have a plan…we always have a plan. How do you not plan for eternity?

My radio friend stepped into eternity this week and it lasts forever.