A friend of mine from Oral Roberts University passed away this week. I have to confess that I am strangely bereft even though we lost touch a bit these past few years. It is a reminder to me of so many things: how quickly life is passing, how important it is to live well and so on. But there is also a part of me that feels a bit “punched in the gut” over it all. And there is something here that just smacks of tragedy and unfairness, of the ongoing cry “Maranatha” – come, Lord Jesus! – and the truth of a life well lived.
Allyson Teter remains one of the brightest spots of my sophomore year of university. I was the RA on Lambda Phi even though I was just 19 (to most of the seniors on the floor, a baby and therefore, if not ignored, then fun to aggravate 
). Allyson was short, slight and vivacious. She was pale with close-cropped dark hair and she rarely wore much makeup which differentiated her from the vast hordes of long blonde manes and fake tans that populate much of Tulsa. She was brilliant and funny, never cruel or mean. She was a fierce little conservative at the time, often wearing suits to her internships with Republican senators and congressmen. She was polished without being stuffy. And smart! My goodness. But what I loved best about Allyson was her openness. She never held people at arms length but lived in an attitude of hospitality, always welcoming people to her life. I can rarely recall her talking about herself. She was a big favourite because she always asked questions of everyone else (and we all know how we all love to talk about ourselves!). She’d listen, sympathise and even laugh at us gently. I had a lot of fun with Allyson that year, talking life and politics, Jesus and friends. We had both grown up “Word of Faith” and so we had a lot of fun hammering that out together. She introduced me to old movies and the first time I watched “Pillow Talk” was in her homey dorm room. She graduated that spring, accolades and expectations of greatness surrounding her. She took some time to do mission work that was dear to her heart, working with teenagers and young people. She invited us over to her narrow townhouse near Riverside in Tulsa. (I was so awed by her place and started to dream of someday having my own little apartment with books and towels and kitchen tables. She seemed so “together” and like a grownup all of a sudden!) We stayed in touch when she moved out to CA in order to pursue her law degree. There was never any doubt in my mind that, if anyone could, Allyson would. I firmly expected to see her on the news someday, perhaps as a policy advisor or a press secretary, maybe a candidate herself. I think it was in 2000 that she emailed me about her MS diagnosis after months of doctors and tests and travel. She refused to step away from law school and was determined to fight. She sent updates and prayer requests, even photos of herself with neon pink hair. Throughout the next five years, it became apparent that she had a very aggressive form of MS that did not respond to the usual treatments. She pursued natural methods that prolonged her quality of life. It seems ”just-like-Allyson” to me that in the face of her deteriorating body, her mind and spirit grew stronger and stronger. She clung to Scripture, never wavering in her belief that healing would come. She became a strong prayer warrior. We lost touch as she became unable to email, eventually becoming confined to a wheelchair, losing her sight and speech. I heard updates about her condition over the past couple of years from mutual friends. It was hard for me to reconcile Allyson to her new life, knowing her vivacious potential. I was grieved and often prayed for her as she struggled, feeling helpless and almost trivial at times.
But last week, she received her healing. She went home, full of faith and hope, I hear. My friend, Brittaney, wrote this about it:
That’s the thing with God. Our minds are limited to the options that we can conceive and understand, but God’s ways are not our own, his plans for us are bigger than we can ask or think of. So to pray for healing and expect a specific result is somewhat small-minded. I know that some people wouldn’t consider Allyson stepping through the door to Heaven as a “legitimate” healing, but I bet from the other side of that door she would beg to differ. We all die. Our time on earth is so finite. To us, 80 years on earth might seem long in comparison to 30 years, but compared to eternity 30 years or 80 years isn’t that much of a difference. I like to think that dying is like being born. A baby in the womb may think that the womb is the whole world, because it is the only world he knows. He knows nothing of the world outside the womb. He does not know that the womb is an incubating place a place for him to grow and develop so that he can function in the world outside. And then the birth comes and in a way it is abrupt and somewhat violent like death seems to be. But just like birth, death propels us into our home. The place we were created for. Earth is just our incubating place. A place for us to grow and develop and a place where God molds us into what we will become in eternity. Allyson’s life on earth may seem short from our perspective, but the impact of that life was significant, at least for me. I can only speak for myself, but Ally made a difference in my life just by being herself. She made a difference by being my friend, by her prayers and by her attitude. And I am very sad to lose her to this life. But I am so happy to know that she is now home and fully and completely healed. I can’t wait for the time when I see her again. Knowing Allyson she will be the first one on the other side of the door to Heaven waiting to say hello.
