While we were serving in Montana, God gave me a friend in a very unique kind of way. I got a call from my good friend in Oklahoma. A mutual friend of ours from the church we had attended in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma had a brother who lived in our town in Montana. Her brother had left his wife and three children in a very bad and hurtful way. She had asked our mutual friend to call me and see if I would be willing to call her sister-in-law and minister to her. It was hard to say no, but it was hard to say yes! Since I realized that saying no would be totally from my flesh, I agreed to call her. So, I called a complete stranger to ask her if there was anything I could do to minister to her during her heartbreaking time. Luckily, she wasn't home and all I had to do was leave a message! On the hurting woman's side, she was struggling with the fact that her situation involved the church she had been attending. She didn't know if she could go back and had just asked God what she was going to do when she walked over to her answering machine and listened to the strangest message she has probably ever heard. For some reason, probably because she felt obligated, she called me back. We met and have been great friends ever since. What was unique about our friendship was we shared so much. We were both southerners in a northern world. We shared church because she changed to our church shortly after we met. We had children the same ages. We even shared work. She was working in IT at the Department of Revenue while she finished up her teaching degree. She got a job at a private school in Helena and I took over her job in IT at the DOR. I moved into change management and we were looking to hire an additional person at the end of her first year of teaching when she knew she could no longer raise her family on what she had made at the private school. So, she came back to work at DOR and worked with me in Change Management. Then I developed and implemented a training department and she did a lot of training with me and when a position came open in training she moved to my department and then took over my position when I left to move to Oklahoma. We always had so much to talk about; work, church, and family! We ended up spending every Thanksgiving and Christmas together for five years because we didn't have family in Montana.
That was over fifteen years ago! This friendship blessed me more than having a great companion. I learned so much from her spiritually. Her personality and demeanor is totally opposite than mine. She processes things internally and quietly. The divorce in her life taught her a total dependence on God and that became a beautiful strength in her. I have watched her as she dealt with the hurt of divorce and became ready to move on. I have seen dating relationships not work out for her. Through it all she stayed totally dependent on God and His plan for her life. She sought Him constantly for the direction He wanted her to go. It has been a long journey for her but I have never seen anyone travel it so faithfully devoted to the Lord as she has. And now . . . she's getting her reward! In four weeks, she is getting married to a wonderfully kind, Christian man. Watching the wedding ceremony will be a very emotional time for me. Not just because I am so happy for her, I can't stand it: but because of the beautiful witness she has been for the Lord, for the lesson she has taught me, for this long journey in her life to come to a close, and for the goodness of God to be revealed once again.
I tell you this story as a testimony to you that no matter what you're enduring on your journey, stay dependent on God, stay faithful to Jesus, and you will endure. When you have completed your journey, you will know in an indescribable way, the goodness of our Lord!
I remember it all -- oh, how well I remember -- the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope. God's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left. God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks.
Lamentations 3:20-25
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