Now that we're coming on a month since I've posted something substantial...I've been inspired by the recent flurry of postings by various friends. Something about the holidays brings back fond memories. So, with the holidays and with all my friends posting about childhood memories, I've been inspired.

This is one of my favorite stories:

I've known Elaine since I was in seventh grade. She was in eighth grade. We were in youth group together. Elaine was cool. And for some reason, we had drama. Well, if you grew up in our youth group, there was always drama - especially if you were a girl. Our youth group was notorious for our drama.

I just have to say that Sam Yang from Ichthus has the right idea: "No dating within the fellowship. If you break up, someone's gonna have to leave the church." Ok, so it's not as severe as that, but he's on the right track.

So, back to Elaine. Like I said, we had drama. I liked the guy she was going out with at the time. She felt threatened by me. Or something like that. My memory fails me. Basically, we really did not like each other all through high school. Yet, we had gotten really good at putting on a happy face for everyone else. But, there was a lot of manipulation and politicking going on. We were both constantly trying to lobby the guys into alliance with us. It was basically a covert-op all out war. I don't know if that makes sense.

Elaine graduated from high school and then went on to Cal. Not surprisingly, we didn't keep in touch her freshman year. I graduated the following year. I ended up going to Cal. I ended up living in Freeborn (Unit 1!). The ironic thing was, Elaine was also living in Freeborn. I had come to Cal hoping to walk away (or rather, run away) from all the drama of high school. (funny how all my drama was at church and not at school). But, God's a funny guy. He had other plans in store for me. I committed to going to Campus Crusade pretty early on freshman year. So, I was involved in the Unit 1 cell group. And guess what? Elaine was also involved in Crusade. Because she lived in Unit 1, she was in the same small group.

So, it was back to putting on a happy face for everyone. Everyone at Crusade assumed that Elaine and I were old friends since we'd grown up together. Ha. Hardly. And then one day second semester freshman year, Elaine called me up. We went out and talked. Basically both asking one another for forgiveness and apologizing for how we had hurt each other all those years. We both left the conversation feeling like we had some kind of resolution. But, our hearts, especially mine, hadn't changed. I hadn't really forgiven her yet and I hadn't really been willing to ask for forgiveness yet.

Early my sophomore year, Elaine and I got together again. We didn't really talk about our friendship, but Elaine chose to share her heart with me. She came to me to ask me to pray with and for her. It was then that we realized that we needed one another. God had made us very similar in our faiths and in being emotional. We approached God in similar manners; we had similar hang-ups about God. And He wanted us to encourage one another, to walk together.

It's funny how the Elaine I know now isn't the same person that I knew in high school. Or maybe I didn't know her at all. Today, she is one of my dearest friends. We don't get to talk that often, but when we do, we always kinda "explode" on each other. We get to pour out our hearts and souls and pray in earnest that God would reign over our lives.

This is the story I tell people when they have relationships that have been broken and have yet to be reconciled. God is a God of reconciliation. That's His business; it's what He does best. That was the purpose of the cross - to reconcile us to Him. He desires reconciliation among the body more than we could even imagine. Yet, He also mends wounds in His time. As much as Elaine and I wanted reconciliation my freshman year, it was not the time. It's freeing to know that God is more faithful to my relationships than I am. Ha. If it were all about me being faithful to my friends, I wouldn't have any.

I haven't told this story in a while. It's a good reminder to me that God loves and loves deeply. That God is tender and sensitive and that He is the God who sees.

(My post about heroes will come later)