for friends

Actually, this blog is more for me than anyone else, but today, and yesterday, and the day before that, and all the way back to the Easter weekend, I have been thankful and more aware of the tremendous blessing God has given me in my friends. Each one of them is unique, and brings a different perspective, and each one of them blesses me uniquely and deeply. I would list them, but then I would be afraid of leaving someone out, and those who know me know that the last thing I want to do is hurt someone's feelings. So... no lists of names, just the accounting of the blessings those names mean to me.

Thank you God for friends who stick close, who stay in the trench with me, or crawl down into it to keep me company, or offer a hand from above to let me know I won't always be there. Thank you God for the truth that even in this, You are Sovereign. Thank you that my worries and anxieties about whether or not I'll measure up or that my efforts will be wasted (yet again) cannot stand against the truth that Your hand will accomplish Your will in Your time, and that all You ask of me is obedience.

It's hard. But I am so thankful for friends who dream with me, laugh with me (or at me), and encourage me to not give up on the secrets in my heart. Friends that affirm that what I think, and feel, and hope for is important and valuable to me, to them, and to God. These are the people God has given me to cling to and to in turn encourage and lift up. What a privilege to go through life with such friends.

Since we can't have God completely here on earth, perhaps He gives us Himself through our brothers and sisters in Christ. Perhaps the reason why these meetings of the soul are so important to me, is that, in some way, the Spirit in me is touching the Spirit in them. Perhaps we experience the divine in such moments. And if that is true, then friendship is something sacred - of great worth and responsibility before God.

...

I am thankful for friends.

one of those times

One of those times
when I feel myself curling inwards
and all that I can't say, express,
Settles in a pit inside

One of those times
when to manage becomes hiding
and to hide hurts just as much
as exploding, on the out

maybe not

One of those times
when my heart becomes as heavy
and as dull as something
Lifeless, smiling, lying

one of those times

How do I turn inside out?
Will the turning be better?

maybe not
maybe
maybe so

A more skillful hand than mine
can bring me out
help me breathe
lift me up

one of these times