When It’s Time

A while back, a friend and I had an outfall of sorts. Nothing horrific, but afterwards, time and providence led to a drifting apart.

Weeks pass. Holidays. A cycle of seasons. Years.

This week as I mindlessly picked up the house for Community Group, I grabbed Bacon (a stuffed pig) by the ear, and just as I tossed him into the toybox, my friend’s face registered. She had given Bacon as a gift to my fifth child when he was born. In that instant, the atoms lined up, the stars aligned, the light dawned, the heavens lit up, and clarity came.

The time that had lapsed between our initial outfall and my picking up Bacon had been interesting. None of it directly related to our friendship, but it had been packed with one spiritual pursuit to the next. A pruning here and there. Heat and thorns. Trials and tribulations. A verse here, a passage of Scripture there. Repentance and confessions abounding in many situations. An idol toppled here, a Statue of Liberty golden calf there. Truth and clarity and purity. Fruit. Sanctification.

As I picked up Bacon, I thought of my old friend for the first time in a long time, only this time it was through a new lens. Through the eyes of my real-time sanctification.

I missed her, and the memories we had shared.  Why hadn’t I missed her so much before?

Putting the boys to bed, I was inspired to revisit the last email she had penned me, and one of the lines pierced my soul. Had I read this before? She mentioned her deep pain in our severed relationship, and through my own self-preservation at the time, I never really heard her. Never felt anything, apparently, at all. My heart sunk, and I grieved my ignorance, poor vision, lack of compassion, and mostly the pain inflicted from my end.

I don’t always understand God’s sovereignty, what He’s doing in the seemingly random lessons and trials, and how it eventually all changes me. But this time, He allowed me to see with such clarity, clarity, how beautiful it is to remove me.

The goal is to remove me. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”  

I often say that I read and I read and I read Scripture, and then, sometimes, I live Scripture - I actually find myself in His story.  Today, I find myself living Acts 2:37-38:

 ”Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?  And Peter said to them, “Repent…” 

I wrote my dear friend a letter.  A letter not explaining the unexplainable of time and circumstance and all the sanctification Jesus had been working on, but a letter basically saying I see you in a new light, I am remorseful for the pain I caused, and I am counting on God’s grace in you to forgive me. 

 I mailed the letter, and met my husband for dinner.

Crazy.  The old friend that I hadn’t thought of in forever and had just sent a letter to, was sitting across from us at dinner.  We embraced, I told her I had just sent her a present (I had included The Valley of Vision with the letter), and that was that.

Reconciliation.  When it’s time.

(for more elaboration on this subject, see excellent article on The Resurgence entitled “Forgiveness is One Thing, Reconciliation Another“)