Day 33

 

The Source of Beauty

 

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.

 

1 Peter 3:3-4

 

I first met Cathy while I was on a date with another girl. I can't say it was love at first sight because I was, after all, on a date with someone else and not paying much attention to her. Our meeting was not a big occasion for either of us.

 

I had met a girl at a Christian book store and had asked her out on a date. We had a hard time with our schedules finding a time that we were both free. We had finally decided to  meet at the church where I was a youth minister. I was preaching the evening service that night and my date was to meet me there and after church we would go on our date. She told me she had a friend that lived in that area that was looking for a church home and asked if it was okay to invite her to the service.

The friend was Cathy and she came to the service. She sat in the back and made fun of me to my date. I was introduced to her and barely noticed her and after the service was over I went on my date with the other girl. We had a pleasant enough time together but there was nothing there.

 

The next Sunday morning Cathy was in church and filled out a visitor's card. I don't recall talking to her at the service but I called all the visitors that came to the morning service in the afternoon and I had a nice talk with her on the phone. The next Sunday morning I was looking for her. We talked at the end of the service and I asked her out to lunch (not all the visitors got that treatment) and during lunch we set a date for the next weekend.

 

She stood me up on our first date. She called late in the week and said she had to go home to Missouri for some family deal. Usually if a girl canceled a date on me I understood it to mean don't bother to call again. When she got back I thought it was worth the risk to call her again and it was.

 

Three months later I accidentally proposed to her. I had thought about it but I intended to wait a while longer to see if things

continued to go well. We were having this conversation about some distant future plans when I jokingly said, "Oh, that will

happen after we get married and have our 2.3 kids."

 

She looked at me serious and asked, "When will that be?"

 

And suddenly I was engaged. I was 33 years old. I had always been adept at getting girlfriends and even more adept at losing them. Now, I was getting married.

 

 

         Cathy had come to Houston, Texas from Missouri when she was 19. It wasn't a move of choice; she came to go to the hospital. She had cancer. She had come to M. D. Anderson hospital for chemo therapy and surgery. The kind of cancer she had most people did not survive. She had chemo therapy, limb salvage surgery where the tumor was removed along with her knee joint and an artificial knee put in its place. Then she had more chemo. During that time she enrolled in nursing school and eventually got her nursing degree. The surgery and chemo saved her life but left her with a inability to retain electrolytes and with a damaged heart.                 

 

She was a beautiful girl with blond hair and blue eyes. That was not what made her special though. She had an inner strength and determination to make the most of life. She was the most courageous person I had ever met, facing death on numerous occasions. It was that inner strength that made her so beautiful.

 

We got married about a year after we met. Her strength and mine would be tested in ways I could never have imagined.

The Photos: Cathy May Sumrall 1986 and Cathy (with the scarf on due to loss of hair during treatment) with John Denver.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read 1 Peter 3:1-7

• Does Peter say that there is anything wrong with outward beauty?
• Where is the most important source of beauty to come from?
• If someone is physically weaker does that make them less valuable?