Sticky Notes

A brief interlude before we resolve our previous post...

It started with one on my desk late this afternoon. It turned into a train of yellow sticky notes, running down from the top of my desk toward the edge where I sat, scribbling note after note, one by one, each one a reason. It had suddenly dawned on me why I felt so weepy today, so achy inside. Not despairing, not even really sad, but this ache. An email had popped up that finally made the click--my life is brimming with exceptional people whom I love and appreciate; I have been changed for the better by knowing them. But so, so many of them are far away.

• Kenya--a few months ago, I connected a friend in Kenya with a friend in Spain. It was an introduction with the intention of two professionals discussing work, but when they finally met last week it wound up being a well-timed encouragement for one of them, with lots of laughter about shared inter-cultural experiences. I am so touched God let me introduce them so that moment could happen.
  
• Indiana--a new teammate is raising support and is headed west eventually, but in the meantime he is watching God unfold goodness in his life in ways he has always thought he was just meant to be used for good for other people. I am blessed to be sharing in some of the laughter and light bulb moments along the way.
• So. Cal.--I get to share laughter on the phone once in a while with a friend who is longing for a huge paradigm shift in her relationship with God, asking to see things as he sees them. We both want more and more of him, and talking about how he is answering that longing is terrific.
• Oregon--I have a friend who leaves comments on my blog that make me laugh out loud, but more than that, she always knows exactly what to pray when I need it. She knows the inside of my head and the inside of my heart when I can't even say it myself. Amazes me every time.
• So. Cal.--I have the good news of a friend that her dad is hanging in there through cancer treatment and that his sense of humor has remained intact (he wouldn't be him without it!), and we have had some wonderfully comforting phone calls for one another in the last month, but it would be so much better to see the relief on her face over a piece of cheesecake (or a lemon drop :)
  
• No. Cal.--a friend with a donkey in her yard who prays so beautifully and asks the right questions so gently, you can't help but spill your heart to her and feel better for it. She, too, lives in the world of constant hellos and goodbyes and her heart aches a bit for it, but she has learned to trust him in the ache, and I am learning from her.
• Oregon--a friend who misses me...and she is so special, it makes me feel like I have wings to know she loves me and enjoys having me around. She brings out a little light in my heart I did not know was there.
• So. Cal.--a friend who prayed for me almost three years ago to feel "kisses of his grace". I had to look at her after the most amazing time of prayer once and say, "You are going to think I am insane, but I heard him say, 'blog'." She said, "You better do it then!" (I point out here that Skaggs had asked me to blog several months before; I sent him an email firmly stating that I had nothing to say; he emailed back to ask me if I noticed that it took me four paragraphs to tell him that I had nothing to say.) She has continued to pray for me and celebrate with me when God whispers in my heart of being his beloved.
  
• Germany--a friend who made a surprisingly deep impression on me in the one night we shared dinner. Another single woman, but one who talked about God's intimate presence in ways I had never let myself think about. She cracked open a part of me that hadn't found a voice for that longing yet. And she still encourages and builds me from afar.
  
• No. Cal.--a friend who was unexpectedly deeply touched as I talked about some of my struggles this year over a breakfast we shared. It turned into a surprising, Spirit-touched time together, with her speaking to me the exact words I needed to hear before I was alone in my car for an 11-hour drive after a week and half of some of the most heartbreaking moments of my life.
• Kenya--a dear African brother in Christ and his wife, who spent who knows how much, to call me the day before the elections and say they were praying for me, praying for our country, missing me, and when will I be joining them next for fellowship and "our long walk" together?
  
• So. Cal.--parents who may not always agree with me, may not always "get" me, but who always, always, always, always, love me like no others on the planet. Their hugs restore me more, their laughter cheers me more, their faithfulness warms me more than any other thing on this fallen earth.
• Costa Rica--a teammate who I am surprised to miss so much. He is young, introverted, and kinder, gentler, and smarter than me. He should drive me nuts or make me feel awkward and loud in his presence. But he has the most extraordinary heart for others and such quietly dazzling ways of demonstrating Christ's love, I could not help but find him wonderful, and God bless the young'un, he calls me a friend. I used to be able to toss chocolate over the cubical wall at him; now he's learning Spanish in Latin America, getting ready for more ways to serve.
• So. Cal.--dear me; heart-squeezingly cute nephews who are fun and smart and know how to read and swim and build things. And a niece who actually likes to see me now, and even asked for her hair to be especially pretty when her mom told her I was coming to visit last time. How completely toast-monkey-poopy-poop is it that I live so far away from these three little people?
  
• I could go on for a long, long time with this list...
  

But I decided that no matter how long I went, it would always end like this, with me in good tears (even if my head eventually went down on my arms on my desk so I could cry quietly):

• A God who loves me so much, but who, like all of these, I long to see face to face. And I long to see him free from my fallen encumbrances of worry, doubt, fear, impatience...so many things...free to be enveloped entirely in him, the one who loves perfectly. Finally loved and loving without a tinge of ache, a tinge of loss. Completed in love.