Coming Full Circle

Those of you who have followed me for a while know that we, as a family, went through a very difficult time as things fell apart at a previous church. It was a defining moment in my life, so I wanted to give you an update of how it ended.

I had come to the point that there were friendships that were over and I would never find the reconciliation that my heart so desired.  I had forgiven..and then been bitter again..and forgiven again and again and again. I knew that God had worked much healing in my heart, but it was altered and it still hurt.

One early morning I got out of bed, checked email as I do every morning. This particular morning there was an email from the person I had most grieved losing. It was addressed to German (we share an email address) and he was traveling. As soon as he was awake, I texted him to "CHECK OUR EMAIL" and yes I did use all caps because it was important. This particular email began (in essence), "I regret how I mishandled our friendship and want to know if you could forgive me." German sent an immediate answer that said, "I'm traveling and can't answer much now but thank you for saying that and yes already forgiven." German and I cried together, rejoiced together and then sent an email that showed how God how worked in spite of how devastated we felt.  We did not hide how much we hurt, but we rejoiced at a second chance. After an exchange of several emails, the relationship was really beginning to renew.

We have not been able to renew the friendship face-to-face. Distance has happened. And yes, it is altered because we missed six years of each other's life. But the empty hole is no longer there.

I tell you this, not to brag on us or him, but to celebrate what God can and does do. It would not have been possible to so readily say "Yes, forgiven" if we had not allowed God to prune and minister and challenge and comfort our hearts during those six years. God had already helped us forgive. And he did that when we could see no hope of ever reaching reconciliation. If you are in a place that has been deeply hurt by others, please, please, please don't turn to bitterness. Keep giving it to God. Keep asking for him to allow forgiveness to rule. He will honour that. And, if the opportunity for reconciliation arises, you will be ready because you will have already forgiven.

We are working toward a plan for face-to-face meeting. If you do the math you will see that these sweet friends have never even met our third child. They were so important to our girls in the early years, and I desperately want them to meet Tree. It will be sweet, because it comes after such a desert time. I am hopeful.

Be encouraged. Forgiveness is sweet.

Learning to Ask for Help

1. Take one fiercely independent woman who hates asking for help.

2. Place her in a location that requires a 10 minute bus ride with 50 other people each morning to get children to school.

3. Add 2 chicken pox covered children who cannot be on said bus infecting the world.

4. Mix in a couple of day trips away from city for Daddy.

5. Leaves a tired mama who has no choice but to ask and accept helping hands.



Thank you Lord for neighbours who are willing to ferry Flower to and from school and other events. What a blessing!



Sorry, not much writing happening here. But lots of cuddles, swathing with calamine and general malaise. Hopefully back to normal next week.

In Other Words---Friendship

The Christian life is a pilgrimage. At times the road is difficult and we get lonely. Sometimes we may get discouraged and consider abandoning the journey. It is at such times that God will place a friend alongside us. One of God’s most precious gifts to us is friends who encourage us and lovingly challenge us to ‘keep going.’ "
~By Henry T. Blackaby & Richard Blackaby ~
from their devotional book, Experiencing God

I have been blessed by God to be used as a friend time and time again. Some of my deepest friendships have been God-ordained. I think of a friend who I met as everyone was encouraging her to leave her unfaithful spouse and she chose the hard road of staying. God brought us together, and forged the friendship in that lonely time for her. Or the friendship He cemented in seminary with a "Fire Me Up" dinner (so named because we had it on the day she was fired from a job). We've had many "fire me up" moments since then, but the friendship grew in that adversity. There are the friends that I've walked beside on an all-too-familiar path of miscarriage. There are the friends that were birthed by our common "out-of-placeness" as ex-patriots in a foreign land. So many hurting moments that led to deeper-than-acquaintance relationships. The moments led to sisterhood in Christ--friends because of His grace.

There is something incredibly sacred and intimate about being led into a person's life when they are most vulnerable. To be asked by God to hold that time as precious and treasured when the other person may not be able to reciprocate at all. Those moments are fragile and fleeting, but make indelible marks.

How do I know that? Because God has also brought God-ordained friendships to me when I was most vulnerable. It was the person who was able to see the sacred in my mess that God was able to use as a friend.

We should be aware of His prompting to come alongside someone who is hurting. Sometimes He only asks us to minister to the immediate, to salve the open wound. But sometimes He asks us to go to the deeper place, the place of feeling the pain and coming out the other side changed alongside our new friend. When someone is nearing the point of abandoning the journey, are you aware when God says, "Finish the journey with them?" It is an honor to be that friend.

Friends love through all kinds of weather,
and families stick together in all kinds of trouble. Proverbs 17:17 (The Message)

Father, help me to be aware of those who need a Friend and not just an acquaintance or kind word. Help me to be the faithful friend to go through the hurt when necessary. And, when it is I that is willing to give up the journey, help me to embrace the friends You send. Amen.

This week's hostess is Bonnie at Ink It Blog. Please join us there for other reflections on friendship.

Going Places

Dear Ash~

I sit here remembering the second time we were together. (The first time doesn't count because you were on your best behavior brought on by whatever threats your mom and dad came up with that day). You were so angry. Angry at me for coming into "Uncle German's" life and in your eight year old eyes, that was usurping your place. You could not begin to understand that Uncle German had already made it clear that you and your brother and sister were of utmost importance to him, and I must like you. You could not fathom how I could have started to love you long before I ever met you. You only saw me as an interloper and took every opportunity to lash out at me. Perhaps it was all my fault in your mind--after all you wouldn't have been moving from your home if Uncle German hadn't married me, moved to Birmingham and transferred your daddy to come work for him. At any rate, on this second meeting, you were not happy about going places at all. We were there to help your mom and dad paint the house to get it ready to sell. There in your little girl shoes, you stamped your feet and made it clear that going places was not what you wanted to do.

Who would have thought that it was just the beginning of the places you would go?

Fast forward four years. We were all going places again. This time to England. This move you were happy to make. In fact, you and your brother conspired to come earlier than your mom and sister. This time, instead of the bad guy, I got to be the solution. I could be at the hotel with you between school and your dad finishing work. You looked so grown up in your public school uniform! You hated the "practical" black shoes you were forced to wear with the uniform, but the rest was a grand adventure. You were so excited to make new friends, see new things, and spread your wings.

Spread your wings you did. In fact it was just a short time and you were going places again. This time, wearing rugby shoes, back to America for university. I kept thinking of that eight year old I met, but I was faced with a soon-to-be eighteen year old. You had grown into such a self-assured and beautiful young woman. I was proud that you now not only considered me "Aunt" but also friend. I could not love you more if there were a blood relationship. As I prayed for your university education, I marveled at the young woman God had destined for you to become.

Today, I sit her thinking of the new places you are going. You have traded your trendy boots for more durable options. You have just spent your first week in ROTC Leadership Training. I shouldn't be surprised that you chose the military as an option for your future since your grandpa, mother and father all faithfully served. But there is a part of me that quivers and quakes at your decision. Not that you can't cut it--my rugby playing, no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-you-see-it, sweet niece--I know you can cut it. But it is the places you could go with this decision that give me pause. I know that you will serve where ever you are sent and do a wonderful job at it. I pray that those places are out of harms way. I pray that your heart and your mind are protected from the things that you are likely to see in the coming years. I know the One who holds the places where you are going; don't ever lose sight of Him.

Going places....
Alabama....
England...
Illinois...
Leadership Training...
????

How easy it was to let you go some places. How hard it is now! Praying for you!

Love,
Aunt MiPa

This post will serve as my entry into June's writing contest at Scribbit's. The theme, as you may have guessed, is "going places."

The picture is courtesy of www.morguefile.com and the photographer is "kakisky".

Roman Holiday (part two of three)

More sightseeing photos around Rome:


Running on the Circus Maximus


Fountains in Piazza de Navona


The Pyramid


Trevi Fountain--yes we all threw in coins to "insure" we will someday return to Rome.


Fountain at the Spanish Steps

One of the cool things about this trip was that German's very best friend/more like a brother from High School Days was in Rome with his family on business. Our plan was to spend the entire day together on their third day in Rome. On their first day in Rome we had left a message that said we were at Trevi Fountain headed to the Spanish Steps. We finished taking our pictures at the top of the Spanish Steps and started down. I heard someone say "I wonder how close we can get to them before they see us?" It was our friends. They had got our message and headed out the door immediately to try and catch us...you know in the little village of Rome with oodles of tourists. It was awesome! Here is a shot from the all-day touristy day 3.


One more post to come...

In Other Words--All By Myself

Apparently I am what you call a "typical" female---I like to chat over my problems with my friends. I like to have someone else's input into a situation, to see if there are sides to the problem I have not thought about, and to get another's stamp of approval on my plans. Conversation and validation are not just desires, they really are needs. And they are needs for most women. Many men, on the other hand, are much better at sorting problems on their own without chatting it over with anyone else.

The last couple of years have been somewhat of a struggle for me. Being "typical" I need to talk with friends. But the friends that I have shared the deepest parts of my heart with have all moved away. I've fought a deep lonliness of "needing" to share but not having anyone in physical proximity with whom to share (except German who is oh-so-grateful when I share with girlfriends and not him!).

So it is with a heart that is torn by being lonely and wanting a friend to hear my heart that I read this week's quote:

"No matter how many good friends I had, there were aspects of my life I needed to deal with alone-heart issues and attitudes that could not be wrestled with in a Bible study...They had to be confronted by the Holy Spirit in the privacy of my own soul."
~ "A Glimpse of Grace" by Mary Forsythe (with Beth Clark) ~

*sigh* It is true. Although I have struggled in a dearth of close companions, I have grown in an intimacy with God over the past two years that would not have happened in the presence of others. He has been the only One I could go to with my tears, cares and fears. He has graciously and persistently sought to break down the barriers that were keeping me from a deeper relationship with Him. He has exposed the ugliness of my heart that a friend would never have pointed out (at least not so undeniably) and then He has taken that ugliness and dealt with it. Sometimes it is in aloneness that we confront the most. I can't say that I like that reality, but I am grateful for the results of it in my life.

Lord, God, help me to see the seasons of aloneness to be a gift from you. Give me wisdom to use those times to grow in my relationship with you. May I find the trust and the companionship that I seek in Your arms. Amen.

Michelle at Because I Love You is the hostess this week for In Other Words. Please visit her site and be blessed. If you would like to write your own thoughts on the quote, please leave your link at Michelle's site so others can find you!

In Other Words--Wilderness Blessings and Mercy

"Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name..."
~ Matt Redman ~
Lyrics from "Blessed be Your Name"

When I saw the quote that Iris had chosen for this week's In Other Words, I knew I had to write. Matt Redman is one of the most gifted songwriter's of this generation. And this is one of my favorite of his songs. It resonates with the ebb and flow of easy faith versus chosen faith in my life.

Easy faith is when everything is going well. I have no issues with serving Christ when my life is smooth. When the bills are paid, the sun is shining, German is happy at work, the girls are well and/or listening to my guidance I can happily serve God. When I'm standing in the congregation and the praises of His people are so clearly soaring to heaven, I can praise Him. During times of easy faith, it is well, easy, to say that God's Name is blessed.

But then there are the other times. There are the times that things are not going as smoothly. The days when no matter what approach I take, the girls are not listening or obeying. The days when German is struggling with leading with integrity in a business world that doesn't honor it. The days when outgo is exceeding inflow and it is all *necessities*. You know the days...they are just hard. They are wilderness days. And those are the days of chosen faith. When things aren't easy and yet we still choose to honor God and His Name. When we can't see the end, but we choose to say that God is still Faithful. The days of chosen faith are so sweet.

I want to be able to say that I would always choose faith. But the truth is, without the wilderness times, the ability and desire to choose faith is not developed. We cannot develop the perseverence to choose faith when it is easy. I've learned that the past two or three years in the wilderness of shallow friendship that I have found myself. A few years ago, I had a deep, accountability laden friend. But God allowed that friendship to be systematically taken away through her bitterness, my unwillingness to overlook the condition of her heart, other circumstances and finally her leaving England. Soon after, God gave me another dear, dear friend--and then moved her half-way around the world. (She and I are still wonderful friends and if you are reading this sweetie we will chat about Believing God soon!) And since she left, there has been nothing. I have *friends*, but not share-the-depths friends. I have yearned for a deep friendship where my heart can be shared. Having had that in the past, I know the value of it. Yet, I have found myself having to choose to believe that God is my friend. It is so much easier to believe that when I can see Him shining in the life of a tangible-in-front-of-me friend. Yet He shows me evidences everyday that He cares about the little things in my life (like finding the same *strangers* in London again and again). In this wilderness, He is teaching me to choose Him. I trust He will bring me another friend in His timing. But today, I choose to trust Him and Bless His Name.

"You give and take away.
You give and take away.
My heart will choose to say,
'Lord Blessed be Your Name."
~Matt Redman, Blessed be Your Name~

Or in the words of Steve Camp, a songwriter for a previous generation,

"Every day that I walk with You
You break me down and You make me new,
Though my faith is tried, this I know is true
There is Mercy in the Wilderness."
~Steve Camp/Rob Frazier, Mercy in the Wilderness~

What wilderness has God led you into? If He hasn't yet led you out, are you choosing to trust Him? If He has led you out, are you able to share the stories of the wilderness to encourage others? I pray that you have found Him faithful and merciful in your wilderness times.

Father, You know my heart's desire for a God-based, local and physical friendship. I cannot pretend to understand why you have chosen to take that away. But I do know that in the absence of people You lead me to trust You more. Lord, teach me in this wilderness to trust and to believe. Mold me into the woman You intend for me to be. May I be patient as I wait. And when You choose to lead me out of the wilderness, Lord I pray that You will not allow me to forget the pain and the mercy, so that I may share that with others. I love You and want to trust You more. Amen.

Iris at Sting My Heart is our hostess this week. Go visit her and see what others are saying about this awesome quote. You will be blessed!