The Roommate Situation

About a year ago at this time, I was having panic attacks. I'd just picked up a girl with whom I'd exchanged only about 4 emails ever from the Calgary airport, and we'd signed a one year lease on a basement suite, and we were going to live together. I think I'd met her approximately one week prior to agreeing to spend the next year of my life in close quarters with her.

She'd never lived in North America (she's a Kiwi who grew up as an MK in West Africa) before. I'd never lived away from my parent's house before. Together we figured out this "flatting" in Calgary business.

Tonight I found myself sitting next to her on a couch, visiting with her parents (in from New Zealand), and her boyfriend (down from parts north to meet the parents) and reflecting that God knew what he was doing when he put us together.

J. has become a special friend. She's put up with my crazy moods this last while as I've sought to assimilate a great many changes in a short time. It was with great affection that I sat and teased her about having to sleep on my bedroom floor tonight. (her parents are using her bedroom, and her boyfriend will occupy our living room floor, where she's been sleeping for the last week or so while her parents have been with us.)

It was a random connection just over a year ago. Our parents had met each other once, just over a decade previously, in West Africa, and had many mutual friends who put the two of us in touch with each other.

Or maybe not so random. Maybe a gift from a God who knew precisely what I needed at the moment when I so badly needed to be out from under my parent's roof.

We're getting ready to move again. (We're adding a third girl - another Kiwi - to the mix). We visited a potential house tonight, and J. will follow up with the landlord to ask some questions and possibly arrange a lease in the morning.

Over the last year we've laughed together. Cooked together (and apart). We've both travelled to a wide variety of places, on the North American continent, and not so much. We've painted toenails and tinted eyelashes. And in the last few months, as we've each navigated major changes in our lives, we've hugged, we've cried, and even occasionally prayed together. (And there was that one memorable afternoon where we were both truly miserable and together feasted on the richest cheesecake we could buy for take-away at a local restaurant, and watched the goofiest movie we could think of.)

Tonight I'm thankful that God sent me J., just at the right moment. I'm thankful that someone who started out as a "convenient roommate" has become a friend who sees the deep places of my heart and loves me anyway.