My Beautiful Friend, Anne
Anne Jackson was a great friend, confidont, encourager, and an amazingly passionate woman of God. God’s light and love shined through her in EVERY way.
I could never thank her enough for all that she taught me and all of the love and support she poured out over me.
I have so many years of memories with her, from when she was a little girl at church, her musicals, her singing, the many youth group and holiday parties we had, rock climbing, sleepovers, youth events, mystery nights, and SO many more beautiful memories.
One of my favorite memories was hiking at Zoar Valley, she saved my life that day! We choose a path less taken and ended up sliding down the side of the gorge. We were praying the entire way and at the bottom we were cut up, bruised but alive. We spent some time washing in the water, taking pictures and talking about our adventure. Little did we know that wasn’t our only adventure that day. We started going back up the gorge a way that we thought looked easy…. It wasn’t. We literally scaled the forest floor going almost straight up, with no ropes, no one around to help, nothing. I wanted to give up and go back down but looking behind us we realized it was up or we would fall all the way down- knowing that would mean broken bones at the least. She kept a smile on her face and kept encourgering me to keep going. There were points where my foot would slip or there would be no foot hold and I knew that God and His angels were the only thing keeping me alive. Praise God we reached the top and entered the study straight forest floor. We were praising God for His protection! Then we got lost for 4 hours…. We were dehydrated (as we’d drank all of the water) and with no idea what direction we were going in we walked and walked, praying the entire time. We finally got gps on my cell and figured out what road we were near. Kristy and Matt came to find us, they beeped the car horn and Anne sang in her opera voice-it was much louder then my scream. Her voice, faith in God and her encouragement saved me that day. After 7 hours of hiking we finally got to Kristy and Matt who took care of us and had a Monk marathon waiting for us. Anne and I still have scars on our legs from that day- a priceless reminder to me of God’s faithfulness, love and his blessing me with a friend like Anne.
I pray that I can be as good as a friend to others as Anne was to me. She was one of my biggest cheerleaders in life, singing, health and mission trips. She even stayed at my house helping me pack and praying over me until 3am the night before I left for the World Race.
Thank you Anne for being an amazing friend to so many and for leaving a legacy of love, passion and faith in God. You will never be forgotten.
(Anne Jackson passed away suddenly on Nov. 17, 2010, after collapsing at a college track practice. She was 21 years old.)
Me and Anne at Zoar Valley at the begining of our hike.
