I called in sick that day.
It was May 6 last year and I wasn’t feeling well, but it wasn’t the kind of sick you’d think. I didn’t have a cold. My stomach didn’t hurt. I just felt like my life was falling apart. I was in a deep depression. I didn’t want to face the world.
Then I saw it on the news: Our Lady of the Lake University‘s Main Building was on fire. I had been there just the week before,
working on a story about a play. The play had something to do with roosters.
working on a story about a play. The play had something to do with roosters. I called my friend/co-worker/work photographer. I asked if she’d seen. We both loved working on stories at OLLU and went there all the time.
I don’t know why I felt such a connection to it. I didn’t attend there. I wasn’t Catholic. Maybe it was their PR Department. They were the best. But when I saw that building going up in flames, I felt it in my heart, if that makes sense. I felt a connection.
The next morning, a Wednesday–deadline day for our publication–I rushed to the university first thing needing to get interviews and write a story in about an hour and a half. I lucked out and the president, Dr. Tessa Martinez Pollack, did a one-on-one interview with me. Short, but what I needed. The day the story was published, my life hit an all time low. I’ll spare you the details, but May 8, 2008 was a REALLY challenging and crazy day for me–the lowest of the low.
But it was also the day that my life started heading in another direction.
A couple of days ago I randomly stopped at a Starbucks on my way to one of my prayer team member/friend/supporter’s house for dinner and as I’m walking up I notice Dr. Pollack at the door speaking with someone. I never know when people I’ve interviewed will remember me so I just smiled and greeted her and she asked me how I was and told me to remind her where she knew me from. I told her I’d interviewed her a couple of times when I was a reporter. And that opened the door to sharing about the race.
The woman she was speaking with was one of the Sisters of Divine Providence of the university. And when I told them about it, the Sister asked to pray a blessing over me right then and there. It was a great moment.
As I drove away I started to think about the university, the fire, my life since that day and I realized: my life is like Main Building.
Since day one, the university promised to rebuild–it had a purpose, it was put there by God to serve its community. Months after the fire, it was said that the university was better off because of it. Some of the classrooms were going to be better equipped and it really brought the community together. A month or two after the fire, as media got to tour the building, I remember walking into a room, seeing the skeleton of it but hanging on a post, untouched and undamaged, was a cross. It was as if it was saying, “God is still in this place.”
Since May 6 I have often felt like that room. When dark things went through my head, when I did things that only hurt me–all of those things made me feel like the remains of that building. My life has been charred, the true person God made me to be was only a skeleton, but like that university, I promised to rebuild. And rebuilding I am.
The fire that I’ve gone through in my life, the dark places I’ve been, have damaged, yes, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed. I am better off because of it.
And every day since my decision to rebuild, God reminds me, “I am still in this place.”
***photos by William Luther/San Antonio Express-News***
