Two Conversations

Today I was fortunate enough to get "phone" time with two old, old (really back in the day old) friends who have known me forever.

The wonderful thing about both these friends is that they are the kind of friends that when I pick up the phone, it doesn't matter how long its been since we've talked, it feels like we talked last week. As I got off the phone with each of them, my heart felt the same way, "UGHHHH, I wish they were in my daily lives. I wish they lived down the street. I wish we were going to church together and our families were a part of each other's lives. I wish we were getting to spend hours yacking like when we were kids."

I love these two women and they have both had (and still do) a huge impact on my life as Christian friends and godly women. All of our lives have similarities -- God, husband, children.
But that's about where it ends.

One has an autistic child and does not only face the challenges of that, but is called to research and share the injustices, lies, and false information out there about autism, its causes, lack of cures, etc. The other a mother of 3 boys, was called to adopt a daughter from Haiti which she is still now waiting on for almost four years. In the meantime, she and her husband also took in a friend's teenage daughter and has basically been "parenting" her for the last two years. If you think its difficult parenting your own teenage child, imagine trying to do it for someone else.

Their heartaches and challenges and setbacks and obstacles are vastly different. There is some seriously rough crap they have endured (and still do). Life is not a comparision contest. I love to compare myself only to those that will make me feel good about myself. Stop laughing, you secretly do the same.

But when I talk to these friends, God so intricately reminds me He is good. He is enough. He will provide. He IS all the things His word declares He is. It takes little time into a conversation with either of these friends before I realize, how good I have it.

I don't think I should feel guilty my struggles are different or not that difficult. But when my mother was dying of cancer, I'm sure neither of them would have jumped to trade places with me. Why does God place us where we are? Is it only through hardship that we really see His face? Both, both these women I know have seen the face of God in ways I may never.

Seasons of life. They come and go. Thankfully and bittersweetly. I am trying desperately to enjoy and savor and be grateful for the days of life in this timeline of Raleigh. None of us get to chose a lot of things in life. The heartaches of my life are what they are and there will be more to come. There WILL be more to come.

May my faith prove to be pure and authentic during those times, just as faith of these two friends are. If you had asked me back in the day, if either of these girls would become the women of God they are today, I'm not sure I would have believed it. The depth and height and the width and the length in which they know Christ is both and encouragement and convicting presence in my life.