A Gift from God

If you’ve been reading my Monday Messages for a while, then you know that the worst day of my life happened six years ago.  It totally traumatized me, and yet it changed my life for the better…forever.

Her name was Pao Chi Chen and when I met her, she was different than anyone I had ever met. I discovered she was a scholar who speaks four languages and a brilliant artist who has exhibited her artwork in five different countries. She was born into poverty in a small province in China where many members of her family were attacked and killed by communists, but she escaped to France where she studied and learned to paint. She is a tiny woman, standing no more than 4’ tall, but she is very strong and loves to go for long walks every day around the lakes of Woodbridge in Irvine.

Six years ago, when I first met Pao Chi, she was 88 and hadn’t created a new painting in over 17 years. I was a novice writer who had started creating Monday Messages, but because I was “too busy” hadn’t written anything new in over a year. I am sure we looked very strange to people as we took long walks together around Woodbridge Lake, because there could not have been two people with less in common or more different backgrounds. But we did have one thing in common, we had both stopped doing something we loved. With encouragement from each other, Pao Chi started painting again and I started writing again. To date, Pao Chi has created over 50 new paintings, and I have written over 300 new Monday Messages.

I am not exactly sure why God brought us together, but I do know that it greatly renewed my faith in Him. I met Pao Chi on that fateful day six years ago when I accidentally ran her over with my truck and nearly killed her. She was hospitalized for months and nearly passed away, but through the grace of God, she survived, and we became best friends. She is 94 now and will turn 95 in June…maybe. I say maybe because last week she was diagnosed with cancer and is too old to be able to survive surgery. I visited her yesterday and despite being very sick and not being able to eat solid food for days, she greeted me with a huge smile and a warm hug. Plus, somehow, she even had a beautifully wrapped birthday present ready for me. My wish for Pao Chi is that I too will be able to present her with a gift on her birthday in June, for she truly has been a gift from God to me.

What Cancer Cannot Do…

It cannot cripple Love.

It cannot corrode Faith.

It cannot erase Memories.

It cannot silence Courage.

It cannot invade the Soul.

It cannot conquer the Spirit.

It cannot kill true Friendship.

And it cannot steal Eternal Life.

~ Anonymous