Iron Sharpens Iron

I haven't posted for a couple of days...because my heart has been too overwhelmed to be coherent. One day...

...one day I shall be able to tell you, dear Bits readers.

Tonight I want to tell you about a good friend. I would tell you her name, but I didn't ask her if I could tell this story on her. So rather than not tell the story...I just won't tell you who she is. Then if she wants to fess up - it's all hers.

My collection of friends is eclectic. I have loud friends and quiet ones. Crazy friends and subdued ones. Logical friends and whimsical ones. Friends passionate for the Lord and those who haven't admitted to any relationship with Him whatsoever. Working friends and those who stay at home. Friends blessed with health and prosperity and those who struggle with either or both. And from the mix of them, God teaches me all sorts of lessons on a regular basis.

This friend is not a Bekah. We have many good things in common, making a great foundation for friendship. But we have just as many areas where we are as opposite as can be. And I'm thankful. She sharpens me. She's one of the few people - ever - of my life who can tell it to me like it is and get away with it. And generally she doesn't even make me cry in those moments. It's a God thing.

In the past weeks, in this desert I've been in, she's been good to "counsel" me via instant messenger. And in the most recent weeks, when she must have sensed I was a little stronger in spirit, she began to sharpen me. Let me just give you an example of said sharpening.

While telling me that the forthcoming sentence was completely offered in love, she typed out, "I'd like to come over there and shake you right now." Not really eager to experience Shaken Bekah Syndrome, I said, "Why??" She responded, "You are the only person I've ever known who prays for something, gets it, and then questions it."

It was deserved. And no one else would have said to me. I'm glad she did.

Today I was happily minding my own business, when she sent a message saying she thought she should write a book about her experiences with me in these desert weeks. She said, "What do you think of the title Dragging a Camel Through the Desert?"

I was mid-drink-of-water when I read that and very nearly baptized my monitor.

I told her just this morning I had an idea for writing my own book about the desert, but I had no such inspirational title. She continued, "You could call yours Two Trails in the Sand: My Feet-Dragging Journey through the Desert."

My response: "Yeah, that one divinely inspired person wrote Footprints in the Sand and I get to write Two Trails in the Sand."

Her answer was just the sharpening I needed today: You should have walked then.