Sunday, April 19, 2015

Create, in me, a safe place....Oh God....

This week I had something happen, something that felt like a kiss on my forehead from God.  A friend reached out to me.  She was hurting, she'd made some big mistakes and needed a "safe place" to come and tell the whole sordid mess to.  She chose me.  I hadn't seen her or spoken to her in months.  But she chose me.  As I waited for her to show up on my doorstep, all broken and flat worn out, I whispered to God...."tell me what to say.  And make it be truth.  Your truth."  

I listened to her heart spill out of her eyes and down her face and handed her kleenex and pizza.  I told her..."Tell me.  From the beginning."  And she blurted out the hard and the ugly of it all.  And I was honored to catch it up and hold it safe while she let it all out; too hard to carry by herself.  She'd talked to God but she needed Him with skin on and those she thought were her friends had turned their heads the other way.  And she chose me.

I marvel at that again and again.  You see, I've made a mess of things myself before and thought sure I'd worn out anything God might could have done to help me.  I've lived in a place where no one and nothing felt safe and so I tried to sew up a blanket to shelter me made from scraps I gathered up from people that weren't safe at all.  I couldn't go to God because I didn't really believe He was there for me or that He saw me or that He loved me.  I was sure I was useless.

As I sat there listening to my friend sob out her story, I heard myself say "Go where the grace is."  That was Him.  He'd heard my prayer and gave me His truth to speak.  And I saw the truth change the look on her face.  "You're right," she said and she started to breathe again.  

I watched her car drive off, this friend who needed to be loved back to truth, and I realized.....God had transformed me into that safe place for others that I'd always longed for in my own life.  There is precious little I treasure more than to hear "I've never told anyone this before", to be trusted with someone's heart.  

I cried that night; because I knew that He had chosen to love through me.  He had used my messy to be a safe place to be loved by Him.

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