the solace of friends
I needed a friend today. Not just any friend, but the kind that I can just sit down and have a cup of coffee with, talk about any such thing, no matter how trivial or how deep. It was a hard night, tossing about, wrestling in my mind through things that I was not meant to carry. Over and over, trying to figure things out, come to some understanding...I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you...
I awoke to small fists knocking on the wall behind my bed. Mama? Mama? I had played this game before, trying to gain a few extra minutes of sleep-- now she knows I'm just a knock away. I knock back. Coming! I hear Emmy whining from her crate, pawing away at the plastic bottom as if she's trying to dig a hole out of her cozy space-turned -ell at this later morning hour. Mama? Lydie pads into the room, her freshly cut hair bobbing around her slender neck. I think I wet my bed.
The day had just begun.
Yet I am always with you. You hold me by my right hand...
I pick up the phone after breakfast. Chat with faraway sister/friend. I am pouring out my heart, which is so full to the brim of thoughts and emotions I cannot carry. We talk, we pray. She understands. She speaks into my situation with an honesty so sharp, it cuts into my heart. It is all grace. You guide me with your counsel... We pray together, sweet fellowship unfolding with feeble words made whole by grace.
Another call, just when kids go bezerk, needing a stretch after an inside morning while rain pelts our Florida home. Canadian sister/friend, walking a parallel life. I look up and see my baby sitting on the floor next to an empty gallon of orange juice. Her dress is slowly turning a shade of tangerine, soaking up just a smidge of the lake that pools around her chubby legs. She holds in her hands her prize: a whole cup of juice she has just poured for herself.
I look. I stare. Laughter erupts from deep within, almost like a sob coming from a place that needed release. I laugh so hard I cannot speak. When I share with my friend this latest development, we laugh together. After cleaning up the spill and my sticky baby, I sit down to fold laundry. Then, I see it: a small child streaking across the room, as naked as when she came into the world, squealing and dancing as if the whole world were joy. Again, peals of laughter. I so needed to laugh.
In the afternoon, another sister/friend calls. She's making plans to fly here in August to see me, leaving four of her five kids behind with hubbie. Seriously? Four days of girl time? Another ray of sunshine, His comfort to me in a day when my heart felt so exhausted and worn down. I feel such gratitude, for her willingness to travel just to spend time together. We both need it...
Later, as we whiz down the road after gymnastics and karate, a talk with my sister over the cell. Sharing moments together, frustrations and being able to just...be. I love her for just letting me be.
...and afterwards you will take me into glory But for now, I hear His voice in their voices, His love in their hugs from afar, His grace in their counsel, the prayers, their support.
I am truly blessed...
soli deo gloria
Psalm 73
I awoke to small fists knocking on the wall behind my bed. Mama? Mama? I had played this game before, trying to gain a few extra minutes of sleep-- now she knows I'm just a knock away. I knock back. Coming! I hear Emmy whining from her crate, pawing away at the plastic bottom as if she's trying to dig a hole out of her cozy space-turned -ell at this later morning hour. Mama? Lydie pads into the room, her freshly cut hair bobbing around her slender neck. I think I wet my bed.
The day had just begun.
Yet I am always with you. You hold me by my right hand...
I pick up the phone after breakfast. Chat with faraway sister/friend. I am pouring out my heart, which is so full to the brim of thoughts and emotions I cannot carry. We talk, we pray. She understands. She speaks into my situation with an honesty so sharp, it cuts into my heart. It is all grace. You guide me with your counsel... We pray together, sweet fellowship unfolding with feeble words made whole by grace.
Another call, just when kids go bezerk, needing a stretch after an inside morning while rain pelts our Florida home. Canadian sister/friend, walking a parallel life. I look up and see my baby sitting on the floor next to an empty gallon of orange juice. Her dress is slowly turning a shade of tangerine, soaking up just a smidge of the lake that pools around her chubby legs. She holds in her hands her prize: a whole cup of juice she has just poured for herself.
I look. I stare. Laughter erupts from deep within, almost like a sob coming from a place that needed release. I laugh so hard I cannot speak. When I share with my friend this latest development, we laugh together. After cleaning up the spill and my sticky baby, I sit down to fold laundry. Then, I see it: a small child streaking across the room, as naked as when she came into the world, squealing and dancing as if the whole world were joy. Again, peals of laughter. I so needed to laugh.
In the afternoon, another sister/friend calls. She's making plans to fly here in August to see me, leaving four of her five kids behind with hubbie. Seriously? Four days of girl time? Another ray of sunshine, His comfort to me in a day when my heart felt so exhausted and worn down. I feel such gratitude, for her willingness to travel just to spend time together. We both need it...
Later, as we whiz down the road after gymnastics and karate, a talk with my sister over the cell. Sharing moments together, frustrations and being able to just...be. I love her for just letting me be.
...and afterwards you will take me into glory But for now, I hear His voice in their voices, His love in their hugs from afar, His grace in their counsel, the prayers, their support.
I am truly blessed...
soli deo gloria
Psalm 73
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