Thank you, Friends

Yesterday I faced some messy circumstances – not alone, but together with a group of mutual friends.  Perhaps grievous, regrettable, or lamentable might apply as well as messy.   Unfortunate – that works, too.  Everyone felt weighted down by the mess, as if we were wearing backpacks full of lead.

Perhaps the greatest personal help came not in rationalizing the whats or whys or hows, or trying to solve the tangled mess, but in sharing my response to the messiness with a trusted friend.  A measure of the burden mysteriously lifted when I heard her describe her emotion and could express my own. The mess was still there, but it was outside of me.  I was not the mess.  It was not me.

This enabled me to begin to turn a corner – release the heavy backpack – and look to the One who could restore order through healing, reconciliation, and forgiveness.

Then this morning I heard from a different friend who is not directly involved, but is someone who understands deeply the scope of human life.  That friend’s comments sealed my encouragement: “Just try to focus on the spiritual and not the physical....I suspect there will be an ‘ah-ha’ moment with time and prayers.”

Thank you, friends.  You are special people, and the kind of friends we all need.