Beautiful beginnings

I really don’t know how to condense my happiness for my friends into words! I’m sitting in a coffee shop, surrounded by people, and I can’t stop smiling. If they look up from their iphones long enough to see, they will probably wonder why.

The reason is because three of my friends experienced significant, beautiful, life-altering beginnings this weekend.

One of these earth-shattering changes occurred at my kitchen table.  

Four of us were sitting, eating pancakes, maple syrup and fresh strawberries as we discussed God. What if He asked you, “why should I let you into Heaven?” What would you say to Him, I asked, if you were standing in front of him?

As we talked, I illustrated on a rectangle of paper between us. The themes of holiness, lawbreaking, and an uncrossable divide were discussed and scrawled, and I saw understanding light up her face.

I told her a piece of my story. About the perfectionism that ruled me, guilted me, and tortured me with feelings of inadequacy as a little girl. About how I simultaneously thought I was better than others, full of pride, unwilling to listen to corrections. And then—amazing! How I learned that Jesus was perfect when I was not. How I learned that he—the perfect one—had been humble, paying the death penalty I owed.

In full.

And there, at the kitchen table, my friend gave her life to Jesus because He had given himself for her. I don’t even know if she realized the HUGENESS of what had happened in her at that moment! It was as earth-shattering as if King Tut’s mummy had suddenly come back to life.

The second beautiful change occurred the next day, my two friends standing hand in hand in the colored light filtering in through the stained glass of the church.

Her father officiated, and I heard his voice tremble with unreleased tears. We all sat as witnesses, alternately laughing at the groom’s hilarious facial expressions and crying at the purity of the moment, the beauty of the bride.

One change occurred at my kitchen table; the other under the vaulted roof of a church.

All three friends made life-altering verbal commitments: the first to God, and the second to each other. Both resulted in something completely new, something beautiful, something that had never existed before. 

And I am so excited for all of them! :)