I have spent the last year or two thinking a lot about the people the Lord put into my life. I am who I am because of very specific people, and often because of specific things they have done. I think this self reflection has come because I have teens now and I am praying like crazy the Lord will put good people in their life that will influence them. This man, Bryan Roylance, is one of those people. Bryan is one of those "angels on this side of the veil" that Elder Holland talks about. Mine and Jason's whole life is what it is because of him.
Jason was 16. He was pretty depressed. I say "pretty" because I wasn't there. I am not sure how bad it was, but from what I have heard and from what I know about Jason I would actually say he was severely depressed. I am not sure he was going to be ok. There was a real chance he could have stayed that way the rest of his life. Jason was eating lunch every day in the choir room. An older girl, Crystal Shammy, noticed him. I don't know why, or what her thought process was, but she noticed him and she decided to intervene. She just inserted herself into his life. He didn't want it. He didn't make it easy. But she didn't care. She kept talking to him, kept sitting with him. She brought enough light into his life to make him feel like he could do or be more. I think she was sent to prepare him for Bryan.
I believe the story goes that one day during football practice Bryan overheard Jason telling someone that he went to the temple every Saturday with his brother at 6 am. Bryan thought that was really cool and asked if he could come. Being Bryan, he started inviting everyone he knew. Bryan is a gatherer. During this time Bryan started befriending Jason outside of their temple trips and inserting himself into his life. Jason was, again, a little resistant, but it didn't bother Bryan. And after a few short weeks Bryan, Jason and Tom Sorensen were good friends. Their friendship ran deep almost instantly as they discovered a shared love for the gospel in a way that most other teenagers didn't . They called each other "brothers". This friendship changed Jason in a profound way and truly saved his life. It was in this environment of brotherly love and friendship that I met them. I was having my own hard time. I was lonely and lost, but coming closer to Christ every day. One Friday night the three boys were driving around finding people to invite to the temple and Bryan remembered a girl in his health class that he thought might like an invitation. They stopped by my house and invited me. And, as the saying goes, the rest is history.
Everything that Jason and I have, everything we are, the hope that is in us, the foundation of our relationship, everything, stems from Bryan. He has a natural ability to draw people in, to make them feel loved, to gather, to lift. He loved the Lord and the gospel and wanted to be like Jesus, whatever the cost. He is the one that showed me the gospel was exciting and joyous. I had never met anyone who got so excited and "pumped" when he felt the spirit - you could literally feel and see His light radiating from Bryan when he was feeling the spirit. This is how I feel the spirit, but I didn't recognize it as such until I saw it in Bryan. The gospel is amazing, and something to be so excited about - Bryan taught me that.
His is one of those interesting friendships. As you can see it means the world to me, but we had a falling away. Several of my most meaningful relationships have done similar things. It is almost like it is too heavy, to real, to try to stay in touch with the business of life. That is probably an excuse, and there are deeper, more personal reasons for the distance, but regardless we hadn't seen or been in contact with Bryan for almost 15 years. We didn't know anything about his life. But, thanks to Facebook, I found him and we got together over Thanksgiving. I wanted to hear his side of the story. I wanted to know his internal thoughts at the time of why he befriended both of us (as teenagers we hardly had the words to ask such questions or give such answers). His answers were a little disappointing. It wasn't intentional. There wasn't some driven spiritual motivation (that he was aware of, I know God was leading him). It was just "who he was". He just thought we were cool and wanted to be our friends. ha. Jason and I are cool - people say that all the time. haha
No comments:
Post a Comment