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A Celebration of Holly Frys
Forty-one years ago today, my wife Donya and I were each about to turn 23. We had been married for just over three years and had a three-year-old toddler and a baby on the way. We lived in the “married dorms” at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. With cinderblock walls and no central air, our ground-floor apartment was tiny, just a living room-kitchen area, a bathroom, and one bedroom. I worked 40 hours per week at Vermillion Walnut Company and carried 18 hours of college credits.
I got off work on September 2nd around midnight. When I got home, Donya said, “It’s time.” It took a minute for that to register. We hurried to the hospital, where six hours later, at 6:31 AM, September 3, Holly Frys was born. After six grueling hours of labor without drugs or shots to ease the trauma of childbirth, Donya delivered a baby girl.
Within minutes of her birth, I remember the nurse saying, “Doctor. come here.”
At that moment, our world – a place of such ecstatic celebration – was shattered. Over the coming days and weeks, we would learn that our daughter had Spina Bifida, Diastematamyelia, sacral agenesis, just one kidney, and other issues. Her body was defective. We were kids. We had no idea what to do. At three months, Holly underwent the first of many surgeries. That one was necessary to give her a “chance” to walk.
I think about how our world was shattered and at the same time, the world itself was made a better place. Holly is a force, not of Nature, but of Divine Purpose. For so many, she is an inspiration, a beacon of hope, a symbol of courage, a stalwart of faith. She is the kind of broken beauty that makes you want to both question and praise God.
I want to scream, “Why???”
I want to shout, “Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow!”
Her life has been so complex. Her struggles have been so deep. Of course, I have wondered what might have been and what life would have looked like for my darling if she had been born whole.
Then I remember this: none of us is born whole. We are all broken in the same way and each in our own way. The world is a better place because God gave us Holly just the way she is, just the way He intended.
none of us is born whole. We are all broken in the same way and each in our own way
Last night, Donya asked (for the 10,000th time), “Do you think I did something wrong? Was it my diet? A vitamin deficiency?”
“No,” I answered. “God did everything right just the way he always has. Just the way He always will. It wasn’t you and she would not be her any other way.”
We often say because we have often heard, “Sometimes curses are blessings in disguise.”
Margo Price and Willie Nelson, in their song Learning to Lose, include this line:
Everywhere I turned, the cards were stacked against me And I wondered was it bad luck or just design And all the things I’ve had to do without have been a blessing But sometimes a blessing is a curse in disguise
If there is a lesson here, I think it is this: don’t rush to judge the virtue or value of a moment. That thing that feels right now like the worst thing that ever happened to you may be the threshold of greatness. It may be the portal to joy and fulfillment. Only God can make the worst thing the best thing ever.
Could anything be worse than the brutal crucifixion of the Son of God?
Could anything be better?
Today, I celebrate the life, the legacy, and the legend of my daughter, my hero Holly Frys.
Today, like an overcast sailor clinging to a solid piece of driftwood in a raging sea of doubt, I cling to faith, hope, and love.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:28-31
