Live Joyfully

Holding her cell phone limply, Elaine sat at her kitchen table numb, in unbelief. She stared absently at the screen. “Sara Davis,” the name of her best friend, displayed across the top, and the advancing stopwatch indicated their conversation had just begun.

“It can’t be true,” Elaine mumbled. Her mind raced over the past several months to when she and Sara had first met Krista. Last summer, Krista, an expectant mother, had started working at the local supermarket in the mornings. Whenever Elaine and her best friend Sara went grocery shopping together, they made a point of going through Krista’s lane. The first time through, Elaine left a tract which Krista promised to read.

Elaine recalled her second visit through Krista’s lane. Elaine had repeatedly felt the prompting, “Ask her if she read the tract,” but she had fought it. “What if she hasn’t read it yet? What if she was offended by it? What if she gets upset? (That wouldn’t be good for the baby.) What if..?” The “what ifs” crowded her mind, and before she knew it, she had left the store without mentioning the tract. She consoled her nagging conscience by promising, “I’ll do it sometime.”

Every Monday morning, while standing in Krista’s line, Elaine had been prompted to witness to her briefly, yet she always justified her refusal piously. “After all,” she rationalized, “I wouldn’t want to take her from her work when she’s on the clock. Surely, that wouldn’t be a good testimony. But sometime when she’s not so busy, I’ll say something.”

Over the following months, Elaine became better acquainted with Krista. She rejoiced with Krista over her husband’s job promotion, listened to her latest nursery plans, and laughed at her two-year-old’s escapades. She learned the vegetables Krista liked and didn’t like, the brand of ketchup her family preferred, and the cereals she usually bought. They discussed the best methods of cooking whatever meats were on sale that week and shared their favorite quick and easy recipes.

As the holidays approached, Elaine was determined to invite Krista to church. A few weeks before Christmas, while loading her groceries on the belt, she summoned the courage to ask Krista if she attended church. “Uh—no, not really,” Krista replied uncomfortably. Elaine invited her to the Christmas cantata.

Seeing Krista’s hesitation, Elaine added, “If you can’t make it then, maybe you could come some other time.”

“Sure, I’ll come sometime.”

That afternoon, Elaine called Sara to make their holiday baking plans. “By the way,” she added, “How would you like to take a plate of cookies over to Krista sometime this Christmas?”

“Oh, let’s!” Sara agreed. “Ya know, I really want to talk to her more. She’s just so busy with work and the baby coming, and I’m so busy with my family and all my ministry obligations–and now the holidays…”

“I know what you mean,” Elaine interrupted. “I plan to invite her to lunch sometime so I can find out where she stands spiritually. I know she doesn’t go to church. I plan to get with her after Christmas and before the baby’s born. You know she’s not due until the end of February.”

After that week, both Elaine’s and Sara’s schedules were rearranged as programs, rehearsals, ladies’ activities, Christmas parties, shopping, and family plans took precedence over normal routine. Elaine did not enter the supermarket again during Krista’s hours until mid-January. And when she did, she was surprised to see a different cashier in Krista’s lane. Where was Krista?

The cashier at Krista’s register explained that right before Christmas, Krista began having complications with her pregnancy. The doctors’ diagnosis: cancer. For the sake of mother and baby, they had to take the baby a couple of months early. “They’re both doing great, though,” the cashier smiled. “The doctors said they caught the cancer at the earliest stages, and they expect her to respond well to the treatment.” At Elaine’s request, the cashier gave her Krista’s phone number. Elaine promised to call—sometime.

Oh, that uncertain, yet convenient sometime!

As the weeks passed quickly, the white world was transformed into the fresh colors of spring. “Call Krista” had been forwarded on Elaine’s task list from one day to the next. She really needed to call Krista sometime to see how she and the baby were doing and to invite her to the Easter service. But family, housework, errands, and ministry demanded so much of her time. And the phone—would it never stop ringing? But sometime, sometime soon, she would call Krista.

Elaine stared at her cell phone. Sara’s voice on the other end brought her back to the present. “Elaine, are you there? Elaine?” Yes, it was true. Sara had just seen the obituary in the paper. If Elaine had called Krista a couple of weeks earlier, she would have learned that the treatments weren’t going as well as the doctors had predicted, and perhaps she would have learned Krista’s spiritual state as well.

The tears slid down Elaine’s cheeks as she thought of Krista’s husband left alone to care for his two motherless children and of the little ones who would have no memories of their mother. But her deepest regrets, surpassing even her sorrow for Krista’s family, were for the sometime that would never come.