I'm surprised at how often God continually amazes me.  I know that sometimes I should expect that He will, but I am still blown away by Him ALL. THE. TIME.

It's no secret (at least not on here) that I have felt distant from God.  My life has been incredibly hectic and I have felt a lot of self-pity in the fact that there wasn't quiet time.  My prayer recently has been that God would show me where there is quiet time in my life and that I would learn to fill it with Him.

He has been so faithful.

My life is filled with quiet moments.  Yes, they are just that - moments.  But they are moments that I so desperately need to keep my cup filling up.  It might be the five minutes I have while Ethan is splashing in the bathtub and I am sitting on the floor keeping my watchful eye on him.  It might be the sweetness of tucking Colin into bed at night and having him want me to crawl in and snuggle with him in that tiny twin bed.  It might be through loving my children that I discover God's ultimate love for me.

It might be through allowing Ethan to say our mealtime prayer last night, which went something like this:
"Father ... thank you ... food ... bless ... bodies ... (mumbling something I don't understand) .. day .. jeeus name ... AMEN!"

And you know what?  We let that be our prayer.  He has the sweetest heart, and he may not fully understand what he's saying or the fact that he's saying it to God, but it showed me just how much we can teach our children by the way we are living out our own life.

So I'm choosing to be thankful, and in that thankfulness, I am seeing more of Him everyday.

As I draw closer to God, He is faithful and, as He promised, He is drawing closer to me.

And I love it!

I've spent a lot of time in reflection this past week.  Now that my four big kids are back in school and it's just Ethan and me at home, there's a lot of extra time to reflect!  This has been an amazing week.  God has spoken some true revelations into my heart and has met me where I am.  I am so thankful for where I am in life and I truly wouldn't trade this spot for anything ...

... with the exception of one thing.

About three years ago, a very good friend and I had a falling out.  I'm not talking a small deal, either, I'm talking an I-can't-believe-you-said-the-things-that-you-said-and-we-should-never-talk-again kind of falling out.  The hardest part of this for me has been the fact that, as the years have passed and she hasn't been part of my life, the hole in my heart where she used to be keeps getting larger.  She had been my BFF (that's "best friend forever" for those of you who don't understand pre-teen acronyms!) since fourth grade.  Fourth Grade!!!  A huge part of our falling out was my fault.  See, I said a lot of extremely judgemental things in an email to her.  Things that I should have never said - or thought, for that matter.  Those things were the straw concrete block that broke the camel's back.

Through the years, I haven't always been the best friend I could be to her.  In fact, when I look back, I realize that I really was a very selfish friend.  I used her as a sounding board to air out my problems, but I never gave her the chance to talk about her life, too.  I realize now that I was afraid to hear about her life.  I was afraid because I was jealous.  Jealous of her family and their wholeness.  Jealous of the fact that she went to college and was doing what I likely should have done.  Jealous that she seemed to always have it all together.

It's amazing to me that our friendship even lasted through those years.  If I were in her shoes, I likely would've walked away from me a long time ago.

However, through this past week of reflection and quiet time with God, I began to realize just how much I have missed out on by not having her in my life.  I miss the connection of a phone call just to catch up (she lived across the country, so phone calls were usually our only option).  I miss emailing her just to see how she's doing.  I miss hearing stories of her sweet little boy (or her ever-expanding family, as word-of-mouth has informed me that she's expecting her third baby soon!).  I hate that she has never met Ethan or that my one and only chance to ever be pregnant and birth a child wasn't shared with her.

I simply flat-out miss her.

If there were something that I could do or say to bridge this expansive canyon of a gap between us, I would do it in a heartbeat.  I wish she could know just how much I miss her and how truly sorry I am for not being the friend I should have been.  More than anything, I wish she understood how badly I want to reconcile this fight and be her friend again.

If I could go back and change the things I said and did, I would do it.  But since I can't go back, I can only move forward and hope and pray that somehow our friendship will be restored.  This is my true heart's desire.


Lord .... You know my heart.  You know how strongly I wish that I could go back and fix the wrongs I've done.  But I can't.  Now all I can do is ask for forgiveness.  Forgiveness from you and forgiveness from this friend.  Please let her somehow see my heart, let her know how deeply she is missed, and please, please, please bridge the gap in our friendship.  I don't want to have to miss her anymore.  I want her to be part of my life.  Please, Lord.  Please.