Full Heart

Today did not start off all that well.

I woke up with the compulsion to clean. To order my world. This is not generally a good sign, because, while I am not by any means a messy person, I am not the world's tidiest person either. A compulsion to clean and bring order generally means that there is something in my world which is chaotic, and which I cannot control, and, since I cannot control whatever that thing is, I control the chaos that is within my reach, and I clean.

(The compulsion to bring order to chaos has been coming to me quite a lot since returning home from my travels - you'd almost think that there are things on my mind that are making me a bit frazzled or something!)

I accomplished quite a lot of cleaning and organizing before church this morning.

Church was well, church. I taught Sunday school. We talked about John chapter 10, where Jesus refers to himself as the Good Shepherd and says that his sheep know his voice. Good stuff, generally speaking. As per usual, I pushed the girls I teach to give answers to my questions that went beyond the surface. (I'm not a big fan of the "sunday school answer.") As per usual, they whined that I made them think too hard, and then gave great answers.

A quick grocery shopping trip with my roommate followed immediately on the heels of church, and then, as I was unloading my groceries, a friend showed up to pick me up for a previously scheduled date.

We went together to the farmer's market, picked up lunch, she bought her groceries for the week (I bought mine there yesterday). We followed that up with a quick stop at starbucks, and a local bakery, and then headed for the park to walk and talk. I am continually amazed at the way our hearts are being drawn along parallel paths - the situations we occupy in life widely varied, but the direction of our hearts the same. It's always fun to walk and talk and share Jesus stories with her, to catch up on our weeks, and share prayer requests for the week ahead. I am finding myself in awe of this growing relationship that the Lord has given us. This tiny taste of community within my own city.

After she dropped me back at home, I returned to my previously scheduled cleaning and organizing compulsion (and am actually quite satisfied with the results.)

I ended up chatting for a while with a dear friend from out of town. We talked for a long time about the scripture passage that tells of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. She had some beautiful insights into the story, and as we talked I found myself wondering why, since we talk so regularly, we don't discuss scripture more often. We talk all the time of prayer, and of spiritual things, but don't often talk of scripture (though we both love the scriptures). The things we talked about challenged me deeply, have my heart racing and hungry to spend time studying that story over the course of this next week. (A bonus for me, as I'm teaching that story in Sunday school next week!)

As that conversation drew to a close, my best friend, M. showed up at my door. We don't get to spend nearly as much time together as we'd like, and right now we're savoring any time we get. In just over a month she will leave to spend the next year and a half overseas, working as a nurse in a tiny hospital for women and children in Pakistan.

We decided on pizza (we rarely get together without sharing a meal) and picked it up on our way to her apartment. For the next two hours we had a long, rambling, beautiful conversation. Catching up on the things going on in each of our lives. Sharing about the things the Lord has been working in us. Talking about deeper things than we often do. We talked, too, about Lazarus. About fear. About peace. About joy. About relationships - those with boys and those that aren't with boys.

When I write it out like this, my day sounds really mundane. Full of people and places to be, but nothing out of the ordinary. But I write with a full heart. I encountered Jesus today, and not in the really expected places. Not so much at church or during worship. I met him walking in a park and developing a growing friendship. I met him talking about his word with a friend. I met him eating pizza with my best friend, laughing at her nursing stories (did you know that Santa is not so much for clothes in the off season? also, he doesn't sleep in beds - he prefers the floor.), and praying for each other for a while, sitting in her car in the dark, in front of my house. M. is maybe one of the only people in the world with whom I am comfortable praying aloud - we started doing it together a few years back, because both of us were increasingly finding ourselves in situations that required praying aloud, and we both hated it! So, we began to practice each time we were together. We'd sit in her car and pray for each other, and for the people and things around us. We don't do it as often anymore, but it's still something I treasure, and something I'll miss while she's away.

My heart is full. Today I was gifted with heart connections that I didn't even know I was longing for. And it was so good. Thanks, Jesus.