Friend

There’s this girl I know. Or woman, rather, seeing as she’s about to knock on the door of 40, who still sometimes feels like a girl who hasn’t quite grown up yet. 
You could say she’s my best friend, although I haven’t always treated her the way a true friend should. 
 
She has responsibilities which weigh heavily on her shoulders, like an invisible heap of stone and rock excavated from the quarry of duty and honor. 

She has a career, although for her it’s more like an exercise in drudgery. She is responsible for the well being, comfort and safety of strangers on a daily basis. 

She has a family, although most days the responsibility of motherhood feels like a load too heavy to carry. She doubts herself and her circumstances. She questions whether her children will make it through their childhood with happy memories or some scars, despite the very best intentions of two devoted parents stumbling along the path of parenthood. 

She has lived on three continents, and carries the experiences of each one deep within her spirit. There are people that she has loved and left in every place she has lived. And in every place that she has lived, a piece of her heart has remained.

She considers herself spiritual, rather than religious. No man-made rituals and rules to confine her spirit. She wants the real thing. The relationship with God through his son, Jesus.  The “legend” that defies all logic, yet is as true as the ground she walks on and the air she breathes. Her broken spirit, low on hope and esteem, holds onto faith.   

        “Faith is seeing light with your heart
when all your eyes see is darkness.”

My friend hasn’t set foot in a church for years, but she knows that her God has her in His hands. He has made promises to her that she knows He will not break. 
She knows she is not ready for the hypocrisy and loneliness, the rejection and judgement that is stirred up along the path of finding a ‘church home’. 

She has conquered fear in her life, doing things she never thought she could. And there are things she has not yet done because of those two ugly looming beasts of Fear and Doubt that track her every move. Their combined grip like shackles on her ankles and heart. They cycle their affirmations in her mind until she believes them in her heart. They weigh each footstep down until she believes she is stuck in a quagmire of hopelessness. 

She has lived her whole life feeling like an outsider. 

A girl, looking in on a circle of friends, waiting for one kind soul to smile, hold out their hand and say ‘join us just as you are’. 
A girl, in the midst of a bustling crowd, feeling like it’s the loneliest place on the earth. 
A girl, in the midst of that same thrumming crowd, feeling invisible. 

She has lived her whole life trying to please others. Making decisions based on what she thinks will make everyone else happy. 

  “Happiness is an inside job.
Don’t assign anyone else that much power
over your life.”
                     
Her mind knows it is impossible to please everyone else and that the ultimate price paid is her heart and her self. 
It is a battle she fights constantly. 
Every single day.
The spirit of a brave warrior pierced daily by the venomed arrows of guilt, shame, fear, despair, doubt and longing. Her flimsy sheer shield is no match for those chiseled razor-sharp darts. They slice through her defenses before she has even been aware of their approach. 

If I could get inside her head, I’d catch hold of every single negative arrow that is hurled from the taut bow of the Dark Archer. 
I’d rip each one from its vaulted trajectory through the stifling air of worthlessness.
I would destroy each arrowed shaft with affirmations of her goodness.
I would tell her that she’s gentle, yet strong. That she is kind and compassionate, with a heart for justice and a heart for the underdog. That she is valuable and worthy, loved and beloved. 

She has been claimed by the one true King and she is His.
And that, is enough.