I Will Never Lose...

I have a thing about handwriting. It's not quite to the level of obsession, but if handwriting was a person, I would probably Facebook stalk it. I feel like I don't truly know someone fully, nor can we fully be invested in our friendship, if I haven't seen what their handwriting looks like. When I get a handwritten note from someone, opposed to a Facebook wall post or a text or email, OH BABY! I will keep that paper for life. FOR LIFE,  I SAY!!!!! (I hope that had the dramatic effect to anyone reading this that I had in my own head. Cuz it was awesome).

Over this last month, I have been looking over different notes that people have written me that I've kept. More specifically, I have been looking over cards from Sherri, my "second mom", who passed away back on December 18th. For me, she was the first person close to me that I've lost. I mean close, close. One of my favorite parts to date, and something I will always remember, was when we were all meeting to plan her funeral and I was able to thumb through the pages of her Bible and see her handwritten notes in the margins and blank pages of her Bible. Like candy to my eyes.

Today, I was met with yet another surreal feeling when I went to her house for the first time since she passed. Her handwriting was all over the place...on her calendar, on slips of paper, on reminders for doctor's appointments and recipes and much more. I noticed a journal on the nightstand by her bed. I didn't want to snoop, but my curiosity wanted to see how much she wrote. The journal ended up being a make-do guest book for the last time she had heart surgery back in 2004. Notes were written to her by many of her close friends as she laid in the ICU and we weren't sure if she would pull through back then.

On a single sheet of paper separate from the bound pages, small snippets were written in her handwriting. Things like "I need to settle down" and "do you have any gum?" and "aren't you surprised that they let reconciliation get so far behind?!" These were words she wrote, things she wanted to communicate while the tube in her throat prevented her sweet speech from being heard. But there was one word written, followed by a boxy exclamation point done only in Sherri-form, that caught my attention the most.

The word: UNDEFEATED!

Now, I have no idea what conversation took place (if any) that led her to write that word. My guess was that it very easily could have been about one of her grandchildren that she was so proud of, and their athletic success of being undefeated. But to me, I read it differently, almost as a message that I was supposed to receive (and needed to read. I read that word and it hit me. Undefeated....some of the definitions that relate to the word are "to overcome in a battle" or "to eliminate or deprive of something expected" or "not having been beaten or overcome".

Reading this word, I was reminded that God promises us that the seeming finality of death does not hold the final victory. Death never has the final word. EVER. Which means we are promised to always be champions and overcomers. Undefeated, always. I wonder what life would look like for Christians if we actually chose to live in this confidence. It actually reminded me also of these verses:

2 Corinthians 4:8-12

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you."

Today, I choose to live in the confidence of knowing that nothing, not even death, will have victory over me. In life, I have the opportunity to live FOR Christ. In death, I have the privilege to live WITH Christ. There truly is no way to lose.