growing, stretching, learning, going

After a couple months of knowing, planning, processing, aiding, contemplating, gearing up, walking with...

As the weeks passed there was informing, getting blessing, getting permission, getting backing, getting support, getting funding, finishing paperwork, finishing other paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork (and no, you can't help me with any of it)...

There was sharing and adapting, there was a new language foray, a new lifestyle considered, there was endless juggling and balancing...

I was here and I grew more accustomed to the idea with each passing conversation or meltdown...

I tried to be the sounding board and the voice of reality checks; the available and encouraging, and the "you-can-do-this" urger when you want to quit...


And then on the last day, YOU were more ready than I ever could be. You called me at midnight before your 5am flight and you sounded lighter than you've sounded in two months. God got you there. He did! He moulded [grinded?] you into the servant you needed to be before you boarded that plane to be at His disposal doing work firmly outside your comfort zone.

And so the tables turned. It was me who needed consoling in the final moments. It was me who somehow managed to say those three words that I know you know are true and that you'd never push me to speak but I finally felt like I could really say it and mean it and not temper it. I love you, too. I don't say those words to friends but you seem safe. You also pursued me and stuck with me like very few others have. God used you to change me profoundly. You are a dear, dear friend. (I know you're dear because I don't know why you're dear. I don't know how we got together. I don't know why we work. The Lord assembled this pair.)


I woke up at 4.30 this morning. It might have been from stomach pain, it might have been from a dry cough, it might have been from a mind that couldn't stay un-whirring for more than four hours. I think I've been generally stressed out lately, finding it difficult to slow moments down and get peace, get grounded. But most of all, by the time 5am hit, I realised that the easily spoken and easily understood statement "I'm going to go to [Country X] for a year" had grown from a mild-mannered snowflake months ago into a grizzly Abominable Snowman today. He was here, looming. He was real. Words of future intent have become unavoidable present reality.

And so at nine minutes after five in the morning, knowing it was only so long before text-messaging became prohibitively expensive, I wrote you this:

  "In this moment I realise I'm Samwise Gamgee because I am trying to climb into the boat with you."

I wanted to be the hip-attached companion-slash-bodyguard who bore as much of the journey's load as she could. I wanted to go. I wanted to bridge and to bear and be only faithful. But I know the call and the responsibility are Frodo's.


I also know that, quite different from Tolkien's characters, she has the best companion-slash-bodyguard-slash-provider-slash-comfort-slash-help-slash-strength-slash-love imaginable. Actually, YHWH is better than the human mind is capable of imagining. And He goes with us on the quests he assigns us. He calls us to things we can't do on our own and then we call on Him to enable us.


In this situation, I can only be Jonathan, not David or the Lord. The Lord is great and He will have His way in all things.


You go, girl.

Soli Deo Gloria.