"The Shirt Off His Back"

Everyone knows that expression.  It’s used to describe really generous people.  Yesterday we were invited by some new friends to go swimming and hang out.  We’ve actually been overwhelmed by how friendly everyone is here in our new home.

 So we arrive at the pool play date.  The kids have a blast.  The grown ups hang out, and then it’s suggested that we go get ice cream.  Everyone is on board.  We begin to get ready to go.  J. comes up to me with a distressed look on his face.  Seeing as this happens regularly a few times a day, I am not highly alarmed.  He tells me he forgot to bring his shoes.  He’s upset because now he can’t go into the ice cream store with no shoes.  Really what kind of a mom doesn’t even notice that her kid got in the car, arrived at the house, swam etc… all without any shoes on his feet?  I must raise my hand, because apparently that mom was me yesterday.   The host of our get together notices our plight. J’s nearly in tears and I’m basically chastising him for coming without footwear.  She leaves and returns from her car with a pair of flip-flops.  “I found an extra pair in the trunk”, she tells me.  I’m so relieved.  On to the ice cream store we go.

So that was really generous of her and we’ve probably all done that once or twice; given up an extra pair of shorts or t-shirt or diaper to another mom in need.  But my story doesn’t end there, because when we arrive at the ice cream store and walk in both Ricardo and I notice that her son the same age as J. isn’t wearing any shoes!  She had literally given me her son’s only pair of shoes.  I was floored. 

 It was a gesture that only the most generous soul would do.  It’s what Jesus would do.  It really touched me to the core.  I hope I can be more generous like that.  It was an amazing lesson for J.  We noted to him later that his friend was walking around without shoes so that he wouldn’t be upset not to have them.   I think we all need to challenge ourselves to be more like that, to give not just the extra that we have, but to give sacrificially to others.   I know giving J. a pair of flip flops might not be quite on the same level as the poor woman in the bible who gave the last of her small amount of money, but it's the same concept. 

“ All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”  Luke 21:4 NIV

Losing My Friend

Over the past four years, little by little, I’ve been losing a friendship very dear to me.  I’ve tried over and over again to keep it close.  I’ve attempted to reach out, visit, anything I could to hold on to someone who I care for and love very deeply.  But painfully I can say that at least for now, we are no longer in contact.  I desperately hope that this will not last long.  I pray that even today my phone will ring and it will be her…but realistically I am not counting on this. 

I’ve seen friendships go to the wayside in my life before.  Distance and changes in life have usually been the cause.  It was a little sad, but usually there was a mutual understanding that the season of our friendship was over.  But unlike this time, these were not extremely close friends.  This loss bites to my core, because this friend and I have been through so much together.  We have known each other a really long time and have been there for each other through a lot of major life events.   This person and her family also played a large role in my coming to the knowledge that God loved me and wanted me to follow Him. 

We did not have a falling out.  We aren’t in a fight.  We’ve drifted apart a little bit at a time and now I’m only able to surmise that some big life conflicts and challenges  that have come into her life, have her in a place where she is unwilling to respond to all attempts I have made to reach out. 

So why am I sharing this instead of privately crying in a corner?  Well, through the pain and rejection that I have felt I’ve begun to identify with someone.  Multiple my pain and rejection by more than a million and that is the way God feels when we turn our back on Him.  “But He’s the God of the whole universe, why should it matter if I spend my time doing other things? “ you might say. To answer this question: Wrong it does matter!  God sent His own son to earth so that we could identify with Him on a deeply human level.  He wants the relationship.  He desires the friendship with us..  When we don’t make anytime for it, God feels the rejection.  It grieves Him.  It hurts Him. 

Part of me wants to cross my arms and turn my back on my friend for good.  I’ve been reaching out and trying and she hasn’t.  But I will not do that. Because thankfully God does not do that with me.  He is patient and forgiving.  He doesn’t let go of me even when I’m not holding on to Him.  So I’ve promised myself that I will always be here for her.  Whenever she is ready and even if she is not.  I’ve written her and told her this.  I haven’t heard anything, but I’m hoping and praying and believing that someday I will.

If you’re reading this A. :  I love you.  Nothing will ever change that, and I’m here.

Unspoken Prayers: Part 1

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” (Romans 8:26 NIV)

Before I had any kind of personal relationship with God, I know for certain of two instances in my life when He intervened and answered prayers that my heart didn’t even know to pray. 

The first of these instances occurred when I was fourteen years old.  My family had moved to England for my father’s six-month sabbatical from the college where he worked.  He was planning on writing a book while he was there.  I had just finished my first half of my freshman year of high school.  Needless to say I was not all too excited to be uprooted and to be attending an all girls school in England.  We were sort of living in the middle of nowhere, far from cosmopolitan London and anything exciting. 

My sister and I were the first new students to arrive at the school in years.  At first I received a lot of attention.  I was new and from a different country.  But as with any new fad, the appeal of me wore off quickly.  I don’t know if any of you have ever attended an all Girls school before, and I never had or have since, so I have nothing else to compare the experience to.  However, this particular school had a sort of strange “tradition”.  Because there were no boys in the school and hence no boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, the girls paired up as “best friends”.  These relationships acted similarly to that of opposite sex relationships in that everyone knew who your best friend was and you could “break up” with each other.  In British terms this was called “falling out”.   

Arriving when I did in the middle of the year, each girl already had her “best friend” and I was the odd one out.  So after a few weeks of attention, I was literally abandoned.  Nobody would talk to me.  For a fourteen-year old girl, this was the kiss of death.  I was miserable and very lonely.  As the weeks wore on I became very, very depressed.  I also became a little delusional.  I began imagining that my parents were never going to bring us back to the States.  I started to picture my life going on like this forever.  I even had a semi nervous breakdown where my parents contemplated sending me back home to stay with my aunt until the six months were up.  We lived near a highway overpass and I would picture myself jumping off of it into the traffic below.   It was a very dark time for me.

But one day just before the Easter vacation, God intervened in my life.  He did it in the form of a girl named Helen.   On that day all the best friends were exchanging chocolate eggs.  British people have major sweet tooths and Easter eggs came in every chocolate candy brand imaginable.  They were all sizes as well.  The bigger egg your best friend gave you, the cooler you were I guess.  If you and your best friend were aligned with another pair of best friends you might purchase them a smaller egg.  The most popular girls got the most eggs.  It was ridiculous.  Of course I received no eggs.   No surprise there, but the pain of it was biting.  As I was getting ready to leave that day I went to my locker to gather my things.  I opened up the locker door and inside was one small chocolate egg with a note attached to it.  It said, “Let’s be friends.  From, Helen” 

“Maybe it was a joke?” I thought.  But it wasn’t.  When I got back from vacation Helen started hanging out with me.  She invited me over to her house.  Before long we were inseparable.  I wasn’t depressed anymore.  I stopped pondering my leap onto the highway.  I had a friend and that gave me hope. 

Her choice to befriend me was not without sacrifice.  She essentially abandoned her best friendship with the most popular girl in our class.  She chose the outcast and in so doing she became the outcast with me.  When my time in England came to a close I was beside myself with excitement to head home.  Helen on the other hand was devastated.  She wept when I left.  I didn’t blame her.  I knew what she was heading back to. 

Why did she do that for me?  To this day I have no idea why she chose to sacrifice so much in order to be my friend.  However, as I’ve grown in my relationship with God I believe without a doubt that He sent her into my life.  I didn’t ask Him to do that for me, because I didn’t know Him enough to ask.  But that’s the amazing thing about God.  He intervenes even before we have the knowledge of Him to seek out His help.  I mean think about this scripture, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners , Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8 NIV)  He is there.  He has always been there.  Whether we acknowledge Him or not, He still is who He is.  Certainly we can all recall a time in our life where we faced an insurmountable obstacle or where we cheated death.  We can recall some miracle that has happened in our life.  That was God working.  That was God answering the prayer in our heart that our mind and voice could not or did not know how to pray.  That’s what makes Him so amazing.  He loves us all.  Not just those who have chosen Him, but those who will choose Him someday and even those who never will. 

I lost touch with Helen for many years.  But I never stopped thinking about her.  We found each other again about 2 years ago.  Our lives have paralleled each other a lot and she, her husband, and children will be visiting us over the summer.  I can’t wait to see her.  No matter how much time passes she will always be one of my truest friends.