Celebrating the Life and Faith of Shawn Kuykendall (1982-2014)
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it
remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit (John 12:24).
I have been putting off writing this blog about our
young friend Shawn Kuykendall, who passed away March 12th of cancer at
32. The thought has been too painful. Just
last October, I wrote of the “royal fellowship of death” our church has experienced over the past 18 months, and now we have one more name
to add to that roll. I also posted a poem I had dedicated to friends whose sons
had died too young, and now I have one more friend to add to that dedication.
I’ve known Shawn since he was born. Shawn’s parents and
my husband and I have been friends since we were newlyweds; and Shawn’s dad has
been an elder in our church, a soccer mentor and coach to our family, and one
of my husband’s closest friends. Our children grew up ten minutes from the
Kukykendalls and were buddies through home-school, public high school, college,
church, soccer, etc. They played together as children and hung out together as
teens and young adults. The ties are so deep that they’ve been in each other’s
weddings and two of our sons and their newly-wed wives have even lived in the
Kuykendall’s basement apartment. Walking through Shawn’s eight month battle
with cancer has been heart-breaking for our entire family and our entire church
family.
Shawn was known for his joie de vivre, his panache,
his style, his outrageous sense of fun, his considerable soccer prowess, his
zest for life, but most of all, for his love for the Lord. Shawn continues to
touch lives; his life and legacy have made an incredible and far-reaching impact.
USA
Today, the Washington Post, and
even Brett Baier’s Special Report on
Fox News paid homage to Shawn’s courage and faith, touching literally millions.
Others have written and spoken far more eloquently and poignantly about Shawn than
I can, and so I’m listing some of those links below.
However, I’d like to add two things. Because of the
flurry of these heart-felt tributes and because over 850 people came to
celebrate Shawn’s life at his memorial service last Saturday, many, many people
have heard the Good News that “God so loved the world that He sent his only
Son; that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have life
everlasting” (John 3:16). Shawn is with
the Lord, and his desire is that we too will be with Him for all eternity. The greatest tribute anyone can give Shawn is
to give serious consideration to his Savior and Lord, Jesus the Christ.
The other wonderful thing to come out of this
earthly tragedy was to watch the church, the Body of Christ, work together so
beautifully. Our church, The King’s Chapel, is a medium-sized congregation. My
husband, the senior pastor, and his staff were frankly concerned how we could
handle the huge crowd anticipated for the memorial service. But the Lord raised up gifted people who could
organize every aspect of such a large service, and many others stepped up to
bring and serve food, direct traffic and parking, run a shuttle bus service,
decorate, clean-up, etc. Someone provided a tent for over-flow attendance, and
God provided a lovely spring day for our comfort. The event went seamlessly.
Shawn’s life was celebrated. And God receives all the Glory.
We all feel incredible pain at Shawn’s passing;
nevertheless, God has done amazing things through the pain and, I trust, has
more amazing things in store.
Some links for more tributes and information about
Shawn Kuykendall:
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/03/12/the-junkies-pay-tribute-to-friend-shawn-kuykendall-who-died-of-cancer-at-32/ (click
the Junkies radio reel).
From his sister-in-law: http://alliekuyk.blogspot.com/2014/03/legacy.html
From my daughter:
http://younglifehouse.blogspot.com/
Shawn even has a
Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Kuykendall
Thank you for such a heartfelt post.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Patti, for your kind words.
ReplyDelete