It’s OK!
Jane Marczewski (aka “Knightbirde”) was a singer on this year’s edition of America’s Got Talent. A beautiful young lady who sang an original song entitled “It’s OK”. She sang right after she had informed the judges that she had cancer in her lungs, liver, and spine. Her voice and song were beautiful and touching, and one of the judges pushed a button that passed her through to the quarterfinal live shows. After she had sung, she told the host offstage that she had a 2% chance of surviving this, but then she said “2% is not nothing. You don’t know how amazing that is.”
Jane later dropped out of the competition even before singing again because her cancer had worsened. But she had the most beautiful outlook on life. In a way, she was a messenger from God because under the worst of circumstances she had such a beautiful outlook on life and lived each minute to its fullest.
There are a lot of people in our church who have gone through so much over the past couple of years, and I don’t just mean COVID. We’ve had several deaths in our congregation, people with illnesses, members of families with illnesses, anxiety, depression, cancer, joint replacements…the list goes on. Most have persevered, and I believe we owe that to the unselfish nature of many in our congregation, not to mention the way our pastors and musicians have fed us week after week and strengthened us for whatever lies ahead. Even in cases where the end of a journey was near.
The show kept up with Jane, and she posted video updates about her health along with new music. But it was her perspectives that touched me so deeply. She said at one point, that “It’s OK to be sad and happy at the same time.” Just that statement kind of woke me up, but when she said “You can’t wait until you aren’t sad anymore to decide to be happy” that kind of broke me up. WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO DECIDE TO BE HAPPY. Maybe that is what I will focus on during Lent to address other issues that have really been dragging me down.
Jane passed away a few days ago, but I am so thankful that I got to see a very small part of her life and the way she CHOSE to live it. I will always remember her for the gift she gave to me.
Holy One,
You took such loving care in the way you made each of us to be strong and yet fragile, capable and yet so vulnerable, so small yet able to make such big differences in peoples’ live even though a simple sentence “It’s OK.”
Amen