A Friend Loveth

She says she can hear it in my voice, the brave dependence and clear vision.

I share in her surprise because we both know I am mostly a fraidy-cat who has no idea what comes next.

But in these weeks of gradual pivot and reimagined purpose, I find that I am uncharacteristically secure and supernaturally bold.

For example, last week, someone asked me for advice, and the next thing you know, I was in full-blown exhortation … an impromptu persuasive speech about pleasing God and confronting man, about faith and calling and the dreadful sin of timidity. What in the world. *She was so tickled by my candor, she actually asked me if I was drunk. **I was not.

Evidently, you can see it in my eyes AND hear it in my voice. What is “it”?

Reliance, I think. Power, perhaps.

Faith in a Father God who has never failed.

I say to my friend on the phone, “He feels so near.” I tear up a little as I confess I have never known this level of divine closeness.

It's not like He is carrying me or holding my hand.

It's as if I am His little girl, hugging His holy calf like a koala.

He's on the move and I want to be with Him wherever He goes, to hear whatever He says, and to see whatever He does.

I ride along, swinging high and falling back as each step launches and lands, only to tighten my grip.

So I guess my “footprints in the sand” imagery would show a wider solid track on one side … where my koala bum is dragging the sand as I wrap my arms tightly around His leg and hold on for dear life.

Dear life indeed.

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17b-19)

Two days later I open the mail to find a tiny crocheted koala and a note from my keen listener of a friend.

She says she can hear it in my voice.🤍