I will restore to you all of these and more–Joel 2:25.
Ooh yes, it’s almost 5! How time has flown today. For sure not every day is like the other. This particular day, regardless of being midweek, I am excited that I have a hen night…ooh well, its the last one for Mel as a single young woman for by the end of the week, she will be someone’s wife. We haven’t been friends for a long time but some people walk into your life and you simply connect. She is one of those. She deeply loves God, her life in the one year we have been friends, has been a book open for me to read on forgiveness, trust and dependence on God. Considering the next day is a working day, we have a few hours to catch up hence I have to leave the office right on time!
It’s over a hot cup of chocolate in her kitchen as she prepares supper that she shares her long journey in finding love.
“Can you imagine I have said goodbye to Hum twice?”
“Actually the second time we had just reconciled over a hurtful experience years back. He told me how sorry he was for causing me such pain. The fact that I had to convince him that I had actually forgiven him years back made me realize that not letting him know had somewhat haunted him despite God’s reassurance that he was forgiven. I watched him cry and couldn’t help but cry as well. That day is so fresh in my mind for we spoke about everything and anything .By the end of the day he had gathered courage to share that he had been praying about a certain friend in his life and was waiting on God before asking her out”.
” Wait! Wait Mel” interject.
” Didn’t that hurt? Sweetie, I have been reading the whole day at work and am used to following a sequence of events. That’s a hint that you tell me the story from beginning to the end and not from the end to the beginning! I quip as she lets out a hearty laughter that fills the kitchen.”
” Actually, it didn’t hurt. I felt free having released him in forgiveness. I knew that I had loved him but sometimes you love to a point of letting go. That i even can get to share with a heart full of joy is a miracle.” Mel continued.
” You see Hum and I have been through tears,hurt,joy,love,good laughs,distance and little did we know that God would still bring us together. He certainly gives beauty for ashes.“
“We actually met in campus, shared a lot from classes to fun times. We were both leaders at some point in campus fellowship so you bet we shared some good laughs and fun times. He was the first one in school I turned to when I had any issue no matter how small. Despite hanging out together, none of us said anything to the other. While it was obvious to everyone else, and possibly to both of us we seemed content and at home with our friendship. It was as though we had a certain hidden bond unspoken but certain in our hearts. In many ways he made me feel safe in our friendship, like I was his top girl and never at any point did I imagine him going out with someone else”. Mel continued.
“Then what I would not have imagined happened, he asked my closest girlfriend out in our final year of campus. Wasn’t that a difficult time for me! I had to find my own path and say goodbye to my best friend. How would I handle seeing them together? And what kind of a friend does that to her girlfriend. Pearl, I was beyond being broken yet deep down I knew I had no claim on Hum. I wasn’t his girlfriend. I was hurt and felt deeply betrayed even as I walked away.“
For a moment the thought seems to sober Mel up and the vibration of her phone on the kitchen sink suddenly interrupts her train of thought but seems to have brought a bright smile on her face.
“Ooh honey, it’s mum. Am sorry but I know this may take awhile” she says as she leaves for her bedroom.
“She’s probably asking a few things about my preparedness for Saturday. It’s my wedding day” She sings she hops to her bedroom like a little girl just to talk to her mother.
As Mel’s laughter and giggles fade away, I am left in the company of my own thoughts.
Ooh my, the power of letting go. My thoughts flash back to something I read not too long ago in my quiet time. Israel or Jacob if you like had a super dramatic life! For a start he loved a woman called Rachael whom he toiled and waited for years. In the wait, he was even deceived and handed her sister’s hand in marriage. Rachael bore a son, Joseph whom Jacob dearly loved. His soul mate would then bear him a second son Benjamin but in the process of delivery loose her life.
Perhaps this points out as to why Jacob wept so bitterly when his sons several years later come home with a bloody but richly ornamented robe. His son Joseph was no more. The first fruit of his love with Rachael had been mauled by wild animals. He now had lost both Rachel and Joseph and possibly only had memories to keep him going. Have I mentioned he had another son called Benjamin?
Sometimes we lose those that we love and regardless of how the loss occurs it’s still a loss. It could be that someone just decides to walk away or falls in love with someone else like for my friend Mel.
Many years later, Jacob is now faced with a second loss. His sons return from Egypt where they had gone to buy food to survive the harsh famine that was threatening to exterminate their entire lineage and guess what? They are asked to only return to Egypt if they carry along their youngest brother, Benjamin!
” What? I already lost Rachael and Joseph. Why would someone ask for the only one am left with?” Jacob must be so distraught.
And yet there are times when the Lord will actually request us to release that we have held tightly to. It could be someone, a job that we have tightly held on to. It could even be the expectations we have placed on special ones which they might never been even aware of, perhaps its in the form of hopes, dreams and insecurities that we have placed on them.
You see, Jacob had held on tightly to Benjamin. This was the only reminder of his first love Rachael and his dear son Joseph. In fact, Judah, Jacob and Leah’s son best expresses the weight of the love Jacob had for Benjamin. If we don’t go back with the boy our father will surely die.
Yet here is the old man understanding that he really must let go of Benjamin. You see when we open and stretch our arms we take up the position of surrender. With outstretched arms we also position ourselves to receive. We relinquish the controls and simply tell God that we are only left with nothing but Him.
And isn’t our God faithful. Jacob released Benjamin but he ended up having both Joseph and Benjamin back. Understand that while releasing may be difficult to do, it shows utmost reliance on the Lord. In the act of surrender our hands are no longer tightly clutched into a fist. Releasing may mean getting the courage to call up someone who hurt you to let them know that you forgave them and release them from your heart just like Mel did. Sometimes, I think we are keen on asking the Lord to bring someone in our lives yet our heart is full people. I shudder at that thought! Perhaps people we are too afraid to let go of,for who else is there if we let them go.
Having listened to Mel, she confessed that it was only upon releasing her girlfriend who betrayed her, releasing her best friend and now only a few days from being her husband that the Lord restored those two friendships.
As we retire to bed hours later, I can’t help think of how God gave my friend beauty for her ashes.
Scripture References: Genesis 37, 41-46, Joel 2:25, Ecclesiastes 3:11
This article was first published on the LSR Christian Magazine in 2012.
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