friends

I've had a rough week. I don't know how I would've made it through without my friends. To be brutally honest, sometimes these people make me crazy - and I suppose I make them crazy at times, too. But this week, I really needed them.

One, in particular, has been such a huge encouragement lately, and I wonder why he takes the time to be so nice. But I'm so glad he does. He managed to lift a huge burden from my shoulders this week. He didn't take it away, but ... it's like...

Imagine if you had to move some furniture & you're trying to drag the sleeper-sofa out to the truck alone. You don't really want to bother anyone else to help you because they're all very busy with their own stuff, and you're suppose to know how to do this. You're suppose to do just fine by yourself.

Finally, after an intense struggle that almost did you in, you get it through the door. Now you need to get it down to the curb and into the bed of the truck. So close, and yet just so far. It seems to be an impossible, daunting task, and before you know it, you're in tears at the thought of taking the rest of this on alone. You're on the verge of giving up completely. You can't do it anymore, and you finally vent to a friend that you're the worst furniture-mover in the history of furniture-movers, and that you feel like a complete & utter failure. And then you feel pathetic and needy for venting in the first place.

That's where I was this week...and my friend rushed over & picked up one end of the sofa and helped me keep going. Proving to me, yet again, what an amazing man he is. I can't even put into words how healing that was and how much that meant to me. When life serves up the grit, there's nothing you need more at that moment than a little grace.