No Small Thing

I laid down in my hotel room bed with two of my sister friends asleep in the next bed over. I was smiling ear to ear. I thought, “I am alive. This is what my soul needed.”

I couldn’t fall asleep. I was too excited. I was coming off a couple of hard weeks. Post vacation adjustments included getting the house back in order, dealing with little ones with post grandparent syndrome and getting used to the mundaneness of my life again while my husband traveled. Just a day earlier I was wiped. And now my heart soared. I felt like I could conquer the world. Even though I don’t like being so far from the city in the suburbs where I have lived the last 5 years belief began flooding my heart and mind. God placed me there for a reason. I am supposed to mobilize women. To do exactly what I don’t know.

I lay there in bed on fire, burning inside with the desire to change the world, with the desire to actually accomplish what God has me on this earth to do before I die.

I thought why? What is it about the last 8 hours has done this to me? What has just transpired among us? Why do I need them in my life? What have they given me?

And there it was again, the word expectation. They do not expect a thing from me. I can be completely who I am, exactly as I am, all of me in their presence. No expectations. At. All.

This does not come easily, cheaply, or quickly. There have been hours upon hours already invested. There have been daily happenings experienced. There has been real, gritty, sometimes heart wrenching issues shared over coffee cups, breakfast plates, in the midst of kids screaming and playing. There has been scripture delved into and picked apart. There have been questions asked. There has been room for silence. Tears have been shed. Laughs have been cackled.

This friendship thing. There is just no other way about it. It is forged. Over lots of time. It is no small thing to have a real friend. In the process of becoming friends sometimes it feels like it will never get there. But it will. And it is so worth it.

Back to bed now, knowing and known, accepted with no expectations. I am in awe. This is certainly a glimpse of glory.