ripples

My dear friend,

I just need to tell you...I'm not sure I can find the words to describe the beauty of the thing that's happening.  It's just how God means his family to work, I think.  It's amazing, and I'm so, so thankful.

So many years ago, you saw the raging anger in me, saw how lost I was in it, and you spoke into that chaos.  You spoke of your own journey through anger.  You told me I was allowed to be angry at God.  You told me he was big enough to handle it and that he loved me and that he wasn't going to strike me down for just getting into it with him.

Then you hung on, walked beside me in the terrible, ugly, painful, long process, and you didn't give up.  You didn't judge me; you loved me in my ugly state.  You didn't preach to me that I would eventually need to repent of sin, but prayed and trusted God to bring me there; you just let me be where I was and stayed beside me.  In relational breakdown, you were quick to meet in reconciliation - not just in person, but in spirit...and you waited and prayed for what, a year? until I was finally able to come back to true relationship.  You have been a faithful prayer warrior, battling for me continually.

Lately, I find myself walking with friends who are where I was:  angry, hurting, shattered, broken-hearted, disillusioned with God...and I'm telling them things, like "God can handle your anger" and "God's grace for you is huge" and "he loves you, right here!"  Like me with you, they know enough of my journey that I am credible.  Like you with me, I try to listen, to love, and to send them back to Jesus.  Their journeys are different from mine, just as mine differed from yours.  But somehow, God so beautifully knitted yours and my way together through our individual experience with the same Lover of our souls, himself.  Now here he is, in the ripples, doing the same thing, with me on the other side this time.  I guess I don't have to explain, you'll be able to see the beauty in this.

I wanted to show you this ripple of you, and Christ in you.  You are dear to my heart.  I am so thankful for you.  I love you.