Well Done Alan

Alan goes to church with me. The more I get to know him, the more I like him. This fact alone makes him unique.

A few years ago was my first interaction with him...we didn't know each other, even what the other looked like. I was coaching girls basketball 11 year olds and we were playing a team that had a very sick girl on the team. She was bald, I assumed it was cancer, and would come out to shoot foul shots for her team. We were playing against her, and it made things...well, different. She had some kind of cancer, and eventually would die within a year of that game. I never saw her again after that game. Alan is her dad.

Now that I've been going to church with Alan for about 6 months, and our daughters (he has more children) are friends, I'm getting to know him better. I never made the connection between father of the foul shooter and Alan from church until a recent article in the paper. Here's a paraphrase of a quote from the article:

"One day I was feeling sad, so I took God's Word where it says that one day on earth is like 1000 days in Heaven, and I extrapolated that I'm only missing about 42 minutes with my daughter."

That's how Alan sees everything...through those kind of lenses. I can't imagine losing my 11 year old to a year long battle with Cancer. I can't imagine anything nearly that bad happening to me. Crazy thing is...something will. I just pray I can have the kind of strength and impact that Alan has for the Kingdom.

Well done Alan.