There’s a song sung by country music duo Joey and Rory called “In the Time That You Gave Me.” They recorded the song after Joey was diagnosed with cervical cancer, which took her life a few months later. A repeated line in the song is “Did I do all I could do in the time that You gave me?”.
From the time she was a little girl, Rachel Elizabeth Slone Claasen had goals and aspirations. She was in a hurry to grow up, but as the youngest of five siblings in a blended family, she often felt babied and bossed around. It didn’t help that she had two parents and two step-parents who tended to hover and worry because she had some medical issues. It shouldn’t have been surprising to any of us when she rebelled as a teenager and fought hard to prove her independence as a young adult.
When she was in college she wanted to join the Peace Corps after graduation, but wasn’t accepted because of her epilepsy. She did go on two mission trips with church organizations, one to El Salvador and one to Guinea in western Africa.
Rachel wanted to travel. She went to England with her dad and stepmom during one summer college break. And later flew by herself to Chile to visit her stepbrother who was working there as a charter pilot and skydiving instructor. She got to do a tandem jump with him. Rachel and I mused about cruising the Panama Canal. Later, she and her husband talked about a trip to South Africa where he grew up.
After changing majors a couple of times, Rachel found a profession that excited her: Transportation and Logistics. She hoped that as part of her career she could design better and more efficient processes and train other logistics specialists. She joined a student chapter of Toastmasters to help improve her presentation skills and also became a member of a professional organization in her field, before graduation.
She moved twice in the first five years of working to better her promotion chances within her company. She wanted to grow and excel in her professional life.
Still, her heart was always devoted to her family, and her soul was dedicated to Christ. Rachel doted on her nieces and nephews. She showed them how a record player worked and introduced them to the classic rock and old-time gospel music she loved. Her church was her home. The friendships she developed in college grew out of a small campus ministry and continued to be the heart of her spiritual growth even as she stepped out into the business world. She met the love of her life through mutual church friends. They were married within a year and planned a life together. They talked about travel, fostering children, buying a house, and wondered where work and God might lead them in the future.
Two short months after their wedding, Rachel died in a car accident on her way to work on a beautiful morning in early April.
I know there was so much she wanted to do and to be, and she was only given 30 and a half years to do it in. I don’t know what she might have thought about in her last second of life. But, I know without a doubt, if she asked God whether or not she did all she could do in the time that He gave her, the answer was “Yes, sweet girl, yes you did.”
Laura
A Light for My Path 
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