The Secret of Friendship

Real friendships can be hard to make. You have to learn what makes that other person tick. You have to learn to really talk. Not just occasional, passing conversations, but true depth.

That's where I struggle. I have a hard time getting to know other people well enough to know how to engage in true conversations and really interact. Even if I do build a good, solid friendship, physical distance can cause that friendship to weaken and fade because we lose the regular interaction that keeps our conversation going.

But I'm learning a secret trick. It seems to be a fool-proof way to get to know someone and to maintain a relationship despite distance and time apart.

Prayer.

It's so simple, isn't it? When we pray for someone, we see that person the way God does. We see the heart. Nothing in this world draws us closer to another human being than getting a glimpse into the heart.

I have proof.

Years ago, I met an amazing woman. Just as our friendship was truly growing strong, she moved, first out of state and then to the other side of the world. That was seven years ago. We have only seen each other face to face a handful of times since she moved, yet our hearts have only been knit closer together. Even across the ocean when her email isn't working and we have no way to communicate, we always seem to know just what the other needs. We somehow know one another's struggles. We seem to be learning the same lessons and experiencing the same joys as we dig into Scripture.

It has nothing to do with the number of times we get to talk or our ability to stay on top of the day-to-day events in each other's lives. It has everything to do with the fact that we do not cease to pray for one another.

Today I get to spend time face to face with this beloved friend. After this weekend, I'll hopefully see her once more before she and her precious family head back overseas for another four-year term on the mission field. Today I'll delight in the fact that we get to spend time in the same room. But when I say goodbye to her tomorrow, I'll get to delight in the fact that physical distance can do nothing to truly separate us. I rest confident in her daily prayers, and I know she feels mine as well.

Do you need a friend? Start praying! Ask God to bring someone to your mind, some person who needs your prayers and who can pray for you as well. Then enjoy the great delight of discovering how your hearts become knit together as they also become more closely knit to your Savior.

A Real Giver

Three years ago I bought a big bag of men's tube socks. My daughter's ninth birthday was approaching, and at the last minute (from a “make a birthday present” perspective), she decided she wanted me to make her a sock doll.

A sock doll?

I still have no clue where she got that idea. She had no criteria other than that it be a doll made from socks. Okay.

So, I prayed for wisdom and direction and then made a sock doll. I was nervous, afraid it would not live up to her expectations, but I poured every ounce of my thought and creativity into trying to do it well. My anxiety was unfounded. She loved the doll!

Over the past three years, many more sock dolls have joined the family. William came along a year after Susan, and now they have a son named George. My other two children have sock dolls as well—Ella, Oliver, and Han. A seventh doll, George's still unnamed little sister, has been stuffed and is awaiting final assembly, a face, hair, and a dress. She will be a birthday present from my son to his big sister.

Amazingly enough, even with all of those sock dolls, we've barely used half of that bag of socks. Half a bag of tube socks, a bit of fiberfill, some fabric scraps, a bit of yarn, and a whole lot of love, time, energy, planning, and excitement have produced three years of gifts so far.

Real gifts are like that. More than money or other resources, real gifts require time, energy, thought, and even prayer. They require a part of ourselves. Perhaps that is why so many of us have pulled away from being a giving people. Oh, we spend money on other people, tossing stuff at them on appropriate gift-giving occasions, but we do not truly give. Giving is too hard. It cannot be done by walking into a store and picking something cute off the shelf.

Real gifts might be bought at a store. They might be made. They might be neither, consisting instead of time shared, a shoulder offered, a listening ear made available, a word of encouragement offered. Whatever they may be, they are thought out. They require effort. They are sacrificial.

When did you last truly give? My children do it all the time, but I think it's been a while for me. As I help my son finish his sock doll gift, I realize that I want to change that fact.

I want to really give.

Proof of His Love

I recently read a book entitled Beautiful Battlefields. I had agreed to read it for Home Educating Family Reviews, but I was not incredibly excited about it. After all, who really wants to read a book about suffering? Once I finally picked it up, though, I was hooked. One powerful observation after another struck me, but one particular thought stood out above the rest.

What symbolizes God's love for you?

When we see prayers answered miraculously, we feel the love of God. It is a tangible glimpse of the way He uses His power to lavish love upon us. But what happens when He doesn't miraculously intervene? In Beautiful Battlefields, author Bo Stern shares her family's running battle against her husband's ALS. He has not received healing, though I guarantee they have asked for it in prayer. Does that mean God does not love them?

Hardly!

This reality struck me powerfully. All too frequently, I allow myself to equate God's love with my interpretation of answered prayer. I convince myself that I need tangible evidence. It is easy to say God loves me when a provision arrives at just the right time or a child I've been praying for sees victory over her cancer.

It was hard to see tangible evidence of his love when cancer took both my cousin and my aunt, among others I have known in my lifetime.

It was hard to see the evidence when our house in Mississippi would not sell. When it finally did sell, it was hard to see the love of God in the way that it happened. We are still bearing the consequences of the way the situation was mishandled by people we thought we could trust.

It was hard to see evidence of God's love when every door we tried to walk through seemed to be closed, blocking out goals, dreams, hopes, and desires.

It has been hard to see powerful evidence when one marriage after another has crumbled around me, even after intense prayer and pleading for strengthening, reconciliation, healing, and restoration.

Hard to see, but not impossible. The true depth of His incredible, exceeding, astounding, abundant love is not revealed through healing and provision. True, those things are icing on the cake when He hands them to us, but they are not the rich cake itself. No, the true depth of His love can never be shaken from us, no matter how the circumstances line up against us. The truth of His love is seen in our salvation. It is seen in the way He holds, comforts, strengthens, and grows us even when the healing does not come. The truth of His love is in the fact that He mourns with us. The truth of His love is in the fact that He can glorify Himself in ways we cannot imagine, yet He chooses to do it through us!

The thing about these proofs is that they are not circumstantial. They do not ebb and flow with our emotions. They do not fade as time distances us from the exhilaration of a miraculous event. Instead, these proofs are constant. They remain with us continually, whether we are walking in victory or immersed in the heat of battle. And we can be confident that they will remain into eternity.

God loves us!!

Oh, my precious friend, can I speak that to you right now? Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, please do not miss His love simply because you cannot see His miracles. God loves you! I pray today that such a powerful truth embraces you as never before. I pray you will know it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

God loves you!!!

Just Talking

Every week I try to have some focused time with each of my three children. We call it our “date time,” and we typically play a game or create something together.

Yesterday I had date time with my oldest. As we played a few rounds of nerts together, we just started talking. She had seemed a little glum that morning, so I asked a few questions to make sure she felt alright. By the end of date time, our talk had become so incredibly silly that we could hardly play our game! Somewhere in the middle, though, my sweet girl said something that grabbed hold of my heart and wouldn't let go.

When I feel bad, I don’t even have to talk to you about anything specific. Just talking to you at all makes me feel better, even when we talk about nothing!

“Nothing” is exactly what we talked about. I cannot for the life of me tell you what was so funny about our conversation, and I know we didn't cover anything deep and meaningful. But by the end of our date time, both of us felt unified, cheerful, and ready to conquer the day.

Why can I not approach my heavenly Father this way? Regardless of my mood, I feel like I have to talk to Him about something. I have to pray over a prayer list or present a specific issue to Him. I have to make sure my words of praise are just right or that I focus well when I sing to Him in worship.

What if I were to just talk. Or maybe just listen. Perhaps even simply laugh with the delight of knowing His presence.

What if I didn't have to have an agenda for prayer.

Maybe I'm the only one just now cluing in to such a fantastic thought. Perhaps the rest of you are far ahead of me. But this is where I am. I forget that I can approach my heavenly Father just like my baby girl approaches me. I can simply delight in the fact that He wants to be with me. I can find joy in the knowledge that He loves my presence and the sound of my voice. He loves those little moments when my focus is completely on Him. He loves me more than I could ever imagine loving my daughter. That's hard to fathom because I really love my children.

As I type, Philippians 4:4 is running through my mind.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

I don't think I'll ever see that verse the same way again. My sweet girl's statement about conversation with me sums up what it means to rejoice in the Lord always. Communion with Him brings rejoicing.

Lord, may I learn the joy of truly talking to you about everything...and nothing.

True Learning

This year I have begun learning to knit. My girls have learned right alongside me as we have explored and practiced with the help of a simple “learn to knit” beginner's book.

Meanwhile, I have also taught my girls the basics of crochet. I cannot remember when my mom first taught me to crochet. I just remember knowing. At one point she showed me how to make granny squares and I began work on an afghan. I never finished it. In fact, I do not recall ever completing a major crochet project. I have made a few little things, made up on my own, but I have never really followed a pattern to complete a project.

Even so, as I began to teach my girls this year, I felt that I knew how to crochet but was just learning how to knit.

When we sorted through spring clothes this year, we discovered that my oldest had outgrown a brown shrug she loved to wear with some of her sundresses. It was a crochet shrug, so we decided that it would probably be easier to find a pattern and make a new one than it would be to hunt down a suitable, and affordable, replacement. Sure enough, I found a nice, free pattern. We bought the yarn and I went to work.

As I worked, I discovered how very little I knew about crocheting! I had never followed a pattern before, and I had no clue what some of the directions or abbreviations meant. I continually had to look up tutorials and videos to help me along.

Once I finished the crochet shrug, I found a pattern for a knit bolero that I really liked. This time, though, I acknowledge my status as a beginning and anticipated needing additional help. I knew I had only learned the basics of knitting, and I was prepared to look up tutorials along the way. From the very beginning, the second project was easier, and I learned so very much!

How many things have we “known” since childhood? We proceed through our lives convinced that we know them well, never truly challenging that knowledge. Then necessity demands that we fall back upon our knowledge, and we suddenly discover a great wealth of ignorance.

How many spiritual truths fall into this category? We know that God provides peace, strength, comfort, direction, and wisdom, but do we really know that? We know we can walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil, but do we truly know how that feels? Knowing and knowing are two different things.

True knowing can only really be learned by doing. I knew how to crochet. I knew the principle behind it. I knew how to make the stitches. But I had never challenged myself to really do much with crochet. Only when I sat down and actually began to implement those crochet basics did I discover how to truly see a crochet project to completion. My knitting project went much more smoothly from the very beginning because I immediately recognized that I still had much to learn. I knew I was still in the process of learning and that I could only accomplish that learning by diving in and following the pattern step by step. In both projects I made mistakes, and the completed products are far from perfect. But the knitting project saw much less frustration and discouragement along the way because I understood that only by working through the steps would I truly learn the lesson before me.

I want to walk through my spiritual journey the same way I approached the knitting project. I want to recognize that knowledge is incomplete until tested. I do not want to rely on head knowledge that has accompanied me since childhood. I want to be ready to learn as I walk, recognizing that there remains much to know, even about the most familiar topics. The recognition will not ease the difficulty of many of the lessons, but it will greatly affect my attitude because I will recognize that I do not know it all and I will hunger to learn more. That is the attitude I long to have.

The Cost of Dreaming

I have been reading the story of Joseph again lately, and I can't help but think of the phrase, “Be careful what you wish for.”

Joseph was the baby of the family, or at least almost the baby. He was also the favored son of his father, a position which earned the wrath of his jealous brothers. I can imagine that when the brothers were all away from the watchful eyes of Jacob, Joseph received all of the grunt jobs. He was probably picked on and mistreated, and never really got the upper hand. He never received respect.

Joseph had his dreams, though. In those dreams, the big brothers bowed down to him. He liked that thought. Being a ruler would give him the upper hand! Even if he didn't necessarily have their respect, at least he would have their submission and their obeisance. That was enough, wasn't it?

As an immature seventeen-year-old, he probably thought that was what he wanted. But how would his desires have changed if he had foreseen what it would take to become ruler over his brothers? Would he have been willing to pay the price had he known it in advance?

Obviously, Joseph did not choose his path. His brothers chose it for him, or so it seemed on the surface. I'm sure he would have preferred a much easier route to the fulfillment of his “may all your dreams come true” blessing. Even so, when the dreams were finally fulfilled, Joseph deemed every bit of the suffering to be worthwhile. The kidnapping. The slavery. The imprisonment. And even the continued separation from his beloved father and younger brother as he served Pharaoh. All were worthwhile.

Even in fairy tales, dreams rarely come true without a cost. How much more so in real life! Battles are fought. Hardships are endured. Failure seems much more imminent than fulfillment. Then, just when all seems lost, the tables turn and the dream is realized.

Do you ever find yourself wishing your dream could come true without all of the struggle and heartache? Silly question, I know. But, I wonder what Joseph's answer would be if we were to ask him the same question. Joseph, in all his wisdom, knew that his suffering led directly to the fulfillment of his dreams. He probably also remembered the cockiness of his youth, and I think he realized just how much his imprisonment and enslavement contributed to his ability to both lead and forgive when the time came. Would he have surrendered the growth to have avoided the struggle?

I have seen many dreams fulfilled over the course of my life. Some required only a little struggle, while others demanded much of me. Some were simply delayed; immense heartache preceded others. None came without a fight, though, and none came without growth because of the fight.

What if I were to regard the difficult journeys as highly as the dreams themselves? What if I were to see great riches in the growth wrought only by the struggle? What if I were to recognize that fulfillment is infinitely more beautiful because of the difficult path? That is the person I would like to become, the person who expresses as much joy in the journey as in the dream. I'm not that person right now, but I can see that I am making progress in that direction. I'm determined to progress even more.

What are your dreams? What struggles are you enduring as God moves you toward those dreams? The road will be hard. The experiences painful. But I pray that when you come out on the other side, you will be able to see, as Joseph did, that God ordained each step of the way intentionally and according to His plan. May you look back and find joy in so much more than the dream!

The Perfect Plan

I like organization. I like schedules. I like plans. Planners and calendars make me happy, as do normal, predictable days.

Unfortunately, my life does not want to fit into a nice, neat planner package right now. Every day is different, and each week seems to welcome some sort of twist. I need a daily plan and a schedule, especially since I'm about to take on a temporary editing job. I just haven't quite figured out how to make it happen.

When I don't have something figured out, I tend to procrastinate. I feel like I cannot tackle a task until it is organized, and if I can't figure out how to organize it then how can I start? That problem multiplies when it is not just a single task, but the whole of my schedule. It makes me want to just throw my hands up in the air and do nothing!

How many of us fall into that trap spiritually? God puts a lesson, a task, or a challenge before us, but we just do not feel that we have it all figured out yet. So, instead of stepping forward in obedience, we hold back. We wait for full understanding. We wait for the perfect plan. We wait for every detail to line up. And while we wait, we accomplish nothing.

I take that back. We do accomplish something. It's called disobedience. That's right. When we refuse to move forward until we have every duck in a row, we stand in disobedience. It's not our job to have the details ironed out! It is simply our job to obey.

Yesterday I did not have my plan figured out. I simply had a list. School had to be done with the kids part of the morning and early afternoon. I needed to finish the girls' annual testing. Meals and laundry are constants, and some writing tasks awaited me. I had promised to do a project for my little sister, and all of our ink cartridges needed to be refilled. I might not have had the ultimate plan figured out to keep every day nicely organized, but I knew what took top priority for that day. I won't deny that the temptation existed to just blow off the day, curl up with a novel, and wait for the organization fairy to zap me with a brilliant idea, but I knew better than to give in to that temptation. The same will be true of today. I will pray for a plan and seek wisdom to organize my days and my weeks to both maximize my time and make sure I do not overload myself or neglect my family. In the meantime, though, I will not neglect what stands right in front of me.

Can we say the same of our obedience to God?