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Monday 30 April 2012

My friend Nettie...

In this post I would like to tell you about my friend Nettie. We became friends at school when we were in grade 8.  After finishing grade six at Graysville, I had now moved on to a bigger school in the next town. My friend Kathy stopped coming to our school after grade 7 so the Lord knew what he was doing when He sent Nettie into my life as a school friend. We shared a locker, and were together all the time at school. Together we endured the teasing/bullying of the older boys. I suppose we were teased because of us being Christians -it was then just as it is in today's world Christians are often not popular. Nettie came from a large family with many struggles. So when I got to know her she was living with her foster family. Praise God for all the Christian foster parents out there that open up their homes to children in need.  She would tell me of her time spent on weekends with her Dad and siblings. She knew even as a young teenager how to make homemade bread from scratch which she did whenever she would go home to her Dad and brothers and sisters. She had done it for them so often she didn't even need a recipe anymore. She loved going to church with her foster family. They went to the Pentecostal church. Her faith was real and it challenged me to become real with the Lord in my own faith. She would often talk about how she so was longing to be raptured and to go and be with Jesus. She was a dear friend indeed. As school was drawing to a close for us and we knew we would be parting ways, we made a promise to each other - a very girl-type promise. She promised me that no matter where life would have taken us in our different paths we would remember each other. She promised to invite me to her wedding if she ever got married and I promised her that I would invite her to my wedding if I ever got married. Neither of us were in a relationship with any guy at the time.
As time passed, she moved to the city and I stayed closer to home and got a job at the local nursing home. This was well before the time of texting, or emails so we did not stay in touch. Then one day ( we were in our twenties then) I got a terrible phone call from one of Nettie's sisters. She had been murdered by an x-boyfriend in the city and so Nettie's sister was inviting me to her funeral. That was very shocking. We had promised to invite each other for weddings but now she was gone and I was being invited to her funeral. I honestly cannot remember much beyond that. I know my parents came to the funeral too as they had got to know her as well.
In high school already,  Nettie was waiting for Jesus, but now she was taken way too soon in such a senseless and cruel way. Someday in Heaven, I'll see Nettie again. We'll sit down and talk "friend to friend".

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