Why...

NOTE TO READER: The words Gyneocologist and Pap Smear are used in here. Your imagination can concoct the rest. Read on at your own risk.

Short version: I used to be promiscuous in college. Not as bad as a lot of people I know, but I still regret a lot of things I did, and wish I'd done a lot of life differently. But it's part of my story now, so...

When I was about 23 years old, I was told I had HPV. And not only that, but I had one of the strains that had been linked to cervical cancer. My doctor must have been a crock though, because she didn't act concerned at all. She just took some biopsies and ordered that I come back every 3 months for repeat pap smears to "monitor things". So I did. I went every 3 months for like a year and a half. Then something weird happened- my last pap came back totally normal. And that really was my last pap. For 7 years.

7 years I let go by. My next visit to the gynecologist was in 2008. Normal pap smear. And my next one after that was last week- and only then because I wanted to start birth control before I get married next month. Yeah. (no results yet)

About a year ago- maybe a bit longer, I first heard this story about one of my old sorority sisters, Rachel. I remember her as being so sweet. Always a smile, always a lady. It was at this time I learned she was a Christian, and it was also at this time I learned that she had been diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer. I remember reading her story, and feeling like I had the wind punched directly out of me. What?!? She was not like me! She wasn't at all promiscuous, she was married, and she had a little girl! I was just this regretful, washed up, born again old maid. We had the same exact thing happen to us. But I had lived in a way that would warrant something like this- and more. She didn't. I got a little slap on the wrist and a clean bill of health. She got a death sentence.

This afternoon, I saw on Facebook that Rachel passed away earlier today. Leaving behind a sweet little girl, husband, family, and a legacy of a charge to get Gardasil. I read her entries on Caring Bridge, and just wept. Am still weeping. Bewildered. I just DON'T GET IT. Why not me? I'M the one who deserves this!

I can totally attest to God's grace in my life. For more reasons than this. And I am intensely curious at what the heck is going to be so important in my life that I couldn't be the one to be taken.

For more information on Gardasil, click here.

To read Rachel's story, click here.