We’d been besties since college. Now she needed me more than ever
![The Key](https://magarticles.magzter.com/articles/4085/252240/5a46152c605bd/the-key.jpg)
I wanted to scream. right there in the middle of the mail store. I’d been guaranteed nextday delivery of my package. By 10:30 a.m. even. But here I was, 24 hours later, and the package I’d expressed was undelivered and unaccounted for. Unbelievable.
I tapped my foot and glared at the long line of people in front of me, many holding Christmas presents. I wasn’t much in the spirit of the season.
The package—a key to the vacation house my parents owned in Houston— had been meant for my friend Jen, who lived in Dallas. I lived in San Antonio. Jen and I had been besties ever since our freshman year at Texas A&M, some 20 years earlier. Tall, blonde and striking, Jen was amazing—a force of nature. Back then, she’d talked me into going to Bible study, where I met my husband. I’d never known any person who had a faith as strong as hers.
That’s why when, just shy of 40, she’d told me she had breast cancer, I was certain she’d beat it. Only months earlier, she’d given birth to her first child, a son. She’d been nursing him when she felt the lump. She’d done the treatments exactly as her doctors advised: lumpectomy, chemo, radiation. We’d all prayed for her. Almost a year from the date of her diagnosis, in August 2014, she’d gotten the all-clear. A miracle. Or so we believed.
Four months later, the first week of December, I was Christmas shopping when I got a text in the gift wrap aisle of Target. Jen’s cancer was back. The news took the breath right out of me.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 2017-Ausgabe von Guideposts.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 2017-Ausgabe von Guideposts.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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In the Everyday
Cooking, cleaning, breaking up the kids’ fights... If only I had a few minutes for myself!
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Worst-Case Scenario?
I’d had nagging injuries before and always recovered. Why wasn’t I confident that I would get better this time?
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Honor Thy Son
I was a Marine officer, a lifer—or so I thought. Then came Patrick
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Keeping It Real
In an age of social media, we're experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. Two friends who met online tell you how to grow an authentic connection
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What You Wish For
She never wanted to see her abusive father again
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God's Pillow
In 2016, the Soberanes Fire in Northern California was the costliest ever in the United States. It almost cost me my life, despite the promise I made to my wife
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"I Heard You Praying"
As a hospital chaplain, I had seen hopeless cases. But never one more seemingly hopeless than this
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"I Love You, Dad!"
Some of your favorite GUIDEPOSTS writers share what they learned from their fathers
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Harold and Me
They’re nearly all gone now, the generation we call The Greatest.” This woman’s mission was to honor one of them
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The Race Before Her
For this Olympic champion, success bred her greatest fear. How five verses set her free