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The Watermelon Game (Posted Sep 01 2005) Haesue Jo - Friend, Student, Sister JULIE CHEN was absolutely AMAZING. When I got the phone call informing me of what happened, I went through a couple of feelings... shock, surprise, speechlessness, sadness, and then anger and frustration. It's weird because I had just gotten home from a retreat where I tried really hard to accept that God is perfectly just. I couldn't help but keep thinking, "What the heck? How is this perfectly just?" I couldn't understand at the moment why Julie had to go. Why now? Why her? Why why why? I had so many why's, so I suggested some of the sisters from my church get together and talk about our feelings and reactions and what-not. I'm really glad we did that, because it gave me a sense of closure. I'll miss Julie, that's for sure. But I know she's in a better place now. So, the watermelon game... I first met Julie in 1998. She became my class's 4th grade Bible study teacher, and we all fell in love with her from day 1! We played some bizaare game where you pass along an imaginary watermelon seed. It took both concentration and patience... two things that Julie was gifted with among other things. She went off to college, and she and I kept a snail-mail correspondence all four years... it's weird, because I recently moved, and I had all those letters saved up. While packing up my room at the old house, I came across this fat stack of letters from Julie, and I remembered that God said not to store treasures on earth. I took that into consideration and parted with my letters one last time. For some reason, I couldn't remember that when I found out about Julie... so I searched for hours for those letters. I remembered later what I had done with them. God's mysterious in that way... sometimes I wish I still had those letters so I could go back and read them now, but I suppose this is God's way of telling me, "What good will that do? Don't mourn over her death, rather, be the light for those that are still alive but spiritually dead." -1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Julie was the first teacher I had that really made us THINK about God and WONDER and QUESTION. Now I'm more intuitive than ever, thanks to her. OH YES, how could I forget? One fond memory I have of Julie is when a bunch of us slept over at her house.. and we had 2 contests. Contest 1 was sticking our lips in ice cream and seeing who could keep them there the longest. I think she dropped out first teehee. Contest 2, four of us crammed into the back seat of her tiny sedan and we rolled up the windows and turned off the ignition. It was a HOT day, and we were to see who could last the longest in that oven of a car. Julie was quite the funny! When she left for PI, she told a certain liaison to tell me she said hi. I guess what she really meant to say was, "bye for now!" I love you, Julie. Until we meet again! Haesue Jo
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