Friend

She met me with His grace.

Tears welled in my eyes as the truth poured out, and she was Jesus to me.

It is a truth I rarely share, an often unnamed pain, but the deepest kind of all.  And she spoke healing to me.

I usually don't appear without my masks, carefully constructed and designed to keep me safe by my own efforts.  I'm  usually not so weak, helpless, or unable to 'grin and bear it.'  Not so needy or fearful.  My mask is admired and respected, commended and even seen as spiritually stable -- certainly not plagued with this doubt and uncertainty that courses through my veins.  I am rarely so vulnerable and raw, but she didn't shy away.  She was love to me.

I'm so thankful for a friend who knows what is a mask and what is reality.  She knows how lonely it is behind the mask, and she embraces me in all my humanity, never putting me on a pedestal.  Instead she sees the truth, showers me with mercy and meets me with His grace.

Brushing against one of His Incarnational-temples -- the living-breathing hands and feet of Christ -- I encounter Him and leave refreshed, restored, and renewed.